Talk:Nablus/Archive 1

Archive 1

Touchy topic

A touchy topic. It seems to be handled OK, but there is some bias evident in the article.

In the latest Palestinian intifada (2000- ) the Palestinians destroyed the local Jewish holy sites (serveral times) and sent out dozens of suicide and "regular" terrorists out of Nablus into Israel. The deaths of many Israeli civilians resulted. Israel responded in March 2002 by invading the city and arresting many of its residents who were involved in terror. Israeli incursions back into Nablus and Palestinian terror attacks continue as of May 2003.

It mentions palestinian attacks, but only makes reference to Israeli arrests and incursions. I think it should also reference other military procedures conducted in Nablus, in order to maintain its neutrality. What are other people's thoughts about this? I'm reluctant to do anything, because it may bring more bias into the article. Some help here would nice. Thanks in advance! Aggelophoros 07:32, 24 Jan 2004 (UTC)

It is dreadful. Suggest some changes but expect a fight. --Zero 08:10, 24 Jan 2004 (UTC)

Replaced the words "terrorist" (etc.) with militant and paramilitary, since in my view use of the word "terrorist" for paramilitary groups resisting foreign occupation (lawful under Protocol 1 to the Geneva Conventions and various UN resolutions) is pro-Israeli bias. I did mention tht the Al-Aqsa Matyrs Brigades--as well as attacking occupying israeli soldiers--also suicide bombs Israeli civilians, attacks which are war crimes, terrorist murders by any definition and cannot be justified. KingAl86 2004-06-27 12:05 UTC

I altered a passage under the Palestinian-Israeli conflict to include the PA's mismanagement in addition to the Israeli checkpoints for the reasons for the extremely high unemployment in the city, these causes are both accepted by mainstream analysts on both sides of the idealogical and religious divide.- Moshe Constantine Hassan Al-Silverburg

Johnjoe wants to revert

How do you revert?

The last edits by Uriber are disgusting and should be removed.

It looks to me like Uriber just restored information that was deleted by anonymous editors.

Major NPOV issues with this article

This article contains heavy POV and needs to be re-written or substantially revised. To the extent that Nablus is the site of violent conflict, NPOV requires that the reporting of events is at least somewhat in proportion to the frequency and magnitude of those events, to give a more neutral and accurate portrayal of the subject matter. As written, this article is extremely selective in what is reported (Palestinian violence against Israelis is the primary focus despite higher numbers of Palestinian deaths, injuries, home demolitions, etc. as a result of Israeli actions), there are glaring omissions (Israeli military and settler violence against Palestinian civilians is generally ignored), Nablus and its 300,000 residents are collectively characterized with negative generalizations, and pejorative terms about Nablus, its residents, and Palestinians in general, are woven throughout the discussion.

Well, additional information would be helpful. It's best to put information from both POVs in, rather than just having one, or deleting one and putting in another. Jayjg | (Talk) 22:19, 25 Jan 2005 (UTC)

An anon keeps editing the article and I keep reverting because he or she is deleting half the content. But at the same time, he or she does seem to be making an effort to NPOV the content, so I don't know. Everyking 12:28, 4 Feb 2005 (UTC)

---

Nablus is the site of An-Najah National University. the largest Palestinian university. There are three large Arab settlements just outside the city, which were built for the Palestinian refugees of 1948, who have never been integrated into Palestinian life. These settlements are Ein Beit el Ma, Balatah and Asquar Al Quadim and Askar Al Jadid. They have more than 30,000 inhabitants.

well , refugee camps --> Arab settlements , is this a make up for "refugee camp"? and what is ment by "never been integrated into palestinian life"? --Mayz 22:28, 5 Feb 2005 (UTC)

With the Arab conquest in 636, the city was renamed as rendered in Arabic Nablus

Arab conquest VS Islamic conquest , it should be called islamic conquest since the kingdom or khalifa thing or what ever u want to call was called the whatever islamic thing , not the whatever arabic thing nor the whatever arab islamic thing .--Mayz 22:40, 5 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Inaccuracies

I do not feel like going into the question of the general line of that article, here are a few inaccuracies that should be corrected: - the population: it is estimated way too high; Nablus and the refugee camps contiguous to it number something like 120 000 inhabitants, and even though the district is dense, it has something like 200 000 inhabitants or so. - the Tomb of Joseph (Qabr Yusuf) was a muslim oratory prior to its partial destruction in october 2000. The identity of the Joseph buried there was disputed, but prior to 1980 it was a Muslim tomb, of a 14th century Muslim saint it was said. The people of Nablus dispute the notion that it should have been the tomb of Joseph brought back from Egypt (either because the Tomb of Joseph was supposed to be in a shrine of the Haram Ibrahimi - Cave of Machpelah in Hebron, or alternatively because unearthing a man of such power and removing him from Egypt after his death would have been disrespectful). The authenticity of that holy place was very much doubted by some travelers of all persuasions; however, the location of the tomb roughly corresponds to the location of the Tomb of Joseph on Madaba's table. Come what may, it was at a time a Byzantine and later a Muslim holy site. The motives for its destruction do not lie in its religious affiliation per se. Troubles began with the frictions between refugees from Balata camp nearby and settlers who came to the vicinity Nablus in 1979, claimed Qabr Yusuf as an exclusively Jewish holy site in 1980, and had the place guarded by the Israeli army. Especially, during the Oslo process, the Tomb of Joseph justified maintained Israeli presence within this one area of the city of Nablus, and the existence of a corridor road leading to it. The visits of armed settlers fuelled the anger of Palestinian inhabitants, and so it was hardly surprising that it should have become the site of many clashes at the beginning of the second Intifada. The withdrawal of Israeli troops and the storming of the site by Palestinian youths ensued. Yet as soon as the tomb had been looted and its roof destroyed, the Palestinian Authority announced that it would pay to have it restaured, which it did. Indeed, after the reoccupation of Nablus by the Israeli Defense Force in 2002, it was decided in 2003 to allow settlers back to the Tomb of Joseph, which was made possible by the proper state of repair of the site. - Ghassan Shakaa may have given himself airs of being some kind of Godfather (twelve bodyguards used to accompany him in nearly all public occasions) but to the best of my knowledge, neither him nor Abu Jihad Al-Aloul went down so low as to keep a band of their own: which would have been seen as exceedingly disrespectable among the social elites of Nablus. This does not mean that they had no contact with gang leaders, but the commanding of armed factions is not a proper way to describe their power. Important missing items are: - Nablus soap as a commodity and a speciality; - hamams as a traditional place of sociability - Nablus' hamams are renouned all through the Palestinian territories and Jordan; - Nablus as the city of the Samaritans: they used to live in the Kasbah before the Israeli Defense Force asked them to leave and to settle on top of Mount Jerizim in 1987; they are still very much integrated in Nablus' society, and some still resent their moving away from the city. Zayezzift 15:23, 10 Apr 2005 (UTC)

This needs to be NPOVed

• I have never seen something like "Stockholm is a major city in Scandinavia. It's inhabitants are mostly Swedes". A Swedish city is a Swedish city, as a Palestinian city is a Palestinian one regardless of what different people feel about the political or human conflict. It is hardly an Israeli city is it? So what's the big deal?
• To call Nablus, with ALL it's inhabitants, a "source" of violence, disease, or anything inflammatory like that is dehumanizating. Yes there are terrorist cells in Nablus, but the same goes for Settler enclaves in the West Bank. And yes there were plenty of innocent Palestinians killed there too by the Israeli army. We do not refer to the city of Virginia Beach as the "source of radical Christian conservatism" just because Pat Robertson lives and preaches there, and we do not call New York City the "source of AIDS" in America because so many people there are stricken with the disease.
• Violence does not occur between "the Palestinian population and Israel" - this is an uninformed statement that stems from ignorance or maliciousness. Violence occurs between the Israeli army and Palestinian gunmen, and between the Israeli army and innocent civilians. Likewise, "Nablus is known nowadays as a source of resistance to the presence of Israel" is horribly misleading, rather, the resistance is to the Israeli occupation and the ring of chocking checkpoints around the city.
• The mayor and governor of Nablus are not heads of any military groups, saying so is factually incorrect.
• There was no "wave" of child suicide bombers - the two mentioned are the only two in fact, and those circumstances are heavily disputed. Ramallite ^(talk) 01:46, 24 Jun 2005 (UTC)

I agree, I'll work on it now.Heraclius

Recent edits

Some notes:

• Nablus is, according to the "History" section of this article, built near the city of Shechem, meaning it is not the city itself. If that's true, then the assertion that Nablus is a Palestinian city is correct, especially since it is currently not with a "large" Palestinian population but a "sole" Palestinian population.

• a neutral point of view usually means presenting both sides of an argument. Deleting any negativity about Israeli actions but keeping the anti-Palestinian POV is not in the spirit of NPOV. I will have to revert such deletions.

• Palestinian/Israeli conflict is a very different thing than "Arab/Israeli conflict" (See Dennis Ross: The Missing Peace). In this context, it's the Palestinian/Israeli conflict.

Please discuss here before going into revert wars. Ramallite ^(talk) 20:59, 3 August 2005 (UTC)

Guy Montag won't discuss anything. Just revert him and get it over with.Heraclius 21:00, 3 August 2005 (UTC)

Rammalite, Nablus is a city that was not built by Palestinians. It is a city which happens to have a Palestinian population. The old city is similiar to the old city in Jerusalem. In the time of Roman rule over the area, the city was expanded, with the entire area under the authority of Schechem as the city.

Most importantly, the article needs to be cleaned up. I removed someone's diatribe about occupation and deaths, all unsourced pov that needs to be seriously discussed before it is readded. Information that there is economic problems in Nablus because of the closure is one pov, but there are others. Once again, context is not cited. The article also needs to be reorganized to be more compact, because right now it is all over the place.

I am going to bring in some other people so this article can be cleaned up to wiki standards.

Guy Montag 21:11, 3 August 2005 (UTC)

Well - I disagree about removing any mention of occupation and whatnot - especially as the article also does allude to internal Palestinian rivalry. Occupation by the Israeli military is a critical component of any Palestinian city these days. Closure of Nablus is not a POV, it is a fact (a simple Google search will bring up all the sources one needs). Also, if the origin of who built the city is a factor in what to call it now, half of Europe would have to be changed to reflect that fact (if true), along with so many "kfars" in Israel itself. You said you're going to bring in others to clean it up - how soon? Let's see what is done and then I'll respond. But I agree with Heraclius on this, I think many of your edits are uncalled for because you applied your logic above preferentially and not universally. Ramallite ^(talk) 21:21, 3 August 2005 (UTC)

I did not mean that it needs to be removed. Absolutely not. It is valid information that needs to be mentioned. What I have a problem with is how it is currently worded. It reads like a diatribe by one editor. We should cite sources and other possible factors. I have to make it clear, this article needs to be cleaned up. Sometimes articles are so bad that only major reorganization can help.

It is very hard to isolate the problems in talk on an article that has so many structural, npov and stylistic flaws. I will do what I did with other sick articles and rewrite the whole thing. That is the only way to address all the points in an article so low grade as this. After that, people can edit as they want.

Guy Montag 21:36, 3 August 2005 (UTC)

Guy, Ramallite is a very reasonable editor; I'm sure you and he can work together to achieve NPOV. I'm not sure what the issues here are, but why don't you work with a couple of sentences at a time? Jayjg ^(talk) 21:23, 3 August 2005 (UTC)

I am well aware of that. We've discussed so much on our talk pages, that cooperating with him is a piece of cake. Guy Montag 21:36, 3 August 2005 (UTC)

Excellent. I've seen your interesting discussions with him. I know you have no difficulty working with reasonable editors, so I'm confident things will work out here too. :-) Jayjg ^(talk) 21:41, 3 August 2005 (UTC)

I'll tell you what his issues are. Since he advocates removal of the entire Palestinian population from the West Bank, he feels that calling Nablus a Palestinian city is "POV" and instead it should be called a city with a "large Palestinian population". Sorry, but that's not going to fly.Heraclius 21:30, 3 August 2005 (UTC)

They aren't going to fly, but march right to the border. Fume on that for a while. Excuse me while I get back to the actual discussion.Guy Montag 21:39, 3 August 2005 (UTC)

I won't fume on anything because

1. It won't happen.

2. The internet isn't serious business.

Happy editing ;)Heraclius 21:47, 3 August 2005 (UTC)

O.K. Ramallite, I've marked up the paragraph that seems to be the most contentious, pointing out the many problems with it. Could you possibly think of ways of fixing it? Jayjg ^(talk) 21:32, 3 August 2005 (UTC)

Okay, also included some links of Israeli casualties although I'm a little surprised you didn't ask. This probably doesn't address all concerns, but we can discuss here further. Might be worth asking Doron of how Israelis view Nablus (whether it's a Palestinian city or not) to address Guy Montag's concern about "Palestinian city", which we can then add to the intro (not replace the intro) if people wish, although that would be a bit too ridiculous IMHO. Israeli TV always refers to it as Shchem, but I don't know whether the "Palestinian-hood" of the city is actually a matter of discussion in Israel. Ramallite ^(talk) 02:11, 4 August 2005 (UTC)

I've outlined remaining problems; the main one is non-specifity. As outlined on previous pages, general statements about the conflict or intifadas, and general links supporting that, are not particularly relevant here. Saying "many Palestinians were killed in the intifada" is not useful information on a Nablus page. Saying "24 Palestinians from the Nablus and surrounding area were killed..." would be. The rule of thumb should be, if the information presented in the article applies to every single city/town in the West Bank, then it should go in a more general article, not in each city article. Jayjg ^(talk) 17:18, 4 August 2005 (UTC)

But the links provided are to a page that lists dates; click on a date and you'll get a list of Palestinians killed, including where they are from - there are many from Nablus. The alternative would be to go to each page individually, count only the Nablus deaths, and then to state that figure and (12 months x 4.5 years = 54 links) link each of these pages. All sentences in that section refer to Nablus, either because it is stated directly, or by implication from the previous sentence. Typing "in Nablus" at the beginning of every sentence wouldn't be good writing structurally. I'm also concerned that having to source every Palestinian death in Nablus (and attribute it to its source as if it's "according to them only"), but matter-of-factly stating that Palestinians killed Israeli soldiers and settlers without the need for a source, is actually not fair and won't be acceptable to neutral or anti-bias editors. Having said that, I have no problem with anybody having the time to go through each page and collect data on Nablus only doing so, in order to get an exact number of deaths - I have already provided the links. Alternatively, we could use Google to look for a single source for Nablus-only deaths, but I spent enough time looking early this morning and haven't found any myself. I also checked all the links, none were broken, but the B'Tselem one is a general statistic of deaths from the first intifada because nobody seems to have published online a Nablus-only article of Nablus killings from the First Intifada era. Ramallite ^(talk) 19:22, 4 August 2005 (UTC)

Rewrite

Guy Montag's POV rewrite without consulting the talkpage goes against the spirit of Wiki. Also, he has added information that belongs in the Shechem article.Heraclius 05:22, 5 August 2005 (UTC)

Read my rewrite instead of blank reverting, and actually identify the sections you have a problem with. Your childish aggressive behavior is against the spirit of wiki, not my valid expansion of the previous inferior article.

Guy Montag 05:31, 5 August 2005 (UTC)

You removed the church image and inserted pics of Shechem temples. I will try to merge both versions.Heraclius 05:32, 5 August 2005 (UTC)

If you can fit the church in there do it, but its a huge picture, so I suggest you resize it or it will break the margins. And try not to "merge" the two sections as you usually do (as in revert the whole thing).

Guy Montag 05:39, 5 August 2005 (UTC)

I didn't merge the two sections, I moved your additions to the Shechem article.Heraclius 05:43, 5 August 2005 (UTC)

Shechem is the Old City of Nablus. You cant move them because they are related.

Guy Montag 05:49, 5 August 2005 (UTC)

Guy, your recent edits do have problems. Much of them concerns Shechem, which has an article already. Indeed if they were to be kept, then there should really be just one merged article, as this Nablus article then has about as much Shechem content as the Shechem article. Things like this should be talked about first, not done without consultation. Your edits also removed factual material on the modern city without explanation or any reason that I can see, and cut some material that well-respected editors like Ramallite and Jayjg were peacefully collaborating on, so your edits might not be to their liking. There are also factual errors (BCE instead of CE) and lack of sourcing. This does not bode well for the permanence of the current version, and if you are not trying for some permanence, then it is hard to see what the point is. John Z 06:46, 5 August 2005 (UTC)

Then the two articles should be merged. Jerusalem doesn't have an article on the old city, neither should Nablus's Old City have a separate article. They are too interrelated to be seperated. If there is confusion (I don't know why there would be) in the history part, then we can have a subsection identifying the history of the old city, and the addition of Nablus from ancient times to the present. Finally, I never said that my edits will be perfect. That is why I want to discuss them after I imputed them. Before, the article was too badly organized, with most edits being bandages. Now we have something concrete to discuss.

Some points.

• BCE is Before Common Era, similiar to BC without pov.
• The edits about deaths in Nablus had incredible factual, pov and accuracy issues that were cited in the page as comments. I think they should be removed and we seriously discuss what to add to the Nablus in the conflict subsection.
• This information can be found easily. If someone disputes a fact I provided, I will provide a source.

Guy Montag 02:58, 6 August 2005 (UTC)

I do know what BCE means. I was not complaining about a neutral abbreviation, but about accuracy. Your version puts the Roman Emperor Hadrian ruling when there was no Roman Empire, but a Roman Republic, a mistake of hundreds of years. It's an error that jumps out, and argues that all of the text should have been scrutinized more before being added. Jayjg and Ramallite were working on the factual, pov and accuracy issues cited as comments in the text without engaging in a (lame) edit war. You did three things together that really should be done separately as a courtesy to others who want to understand what happened: (a) add things (b) delete things (c) reorganize. At least three intelligent people were confused by the changes - me, Jayjg and Slimvirgin. This is not criticism of your changes, just the way they were done.

There are reasonable arguments against merging the articles, too: the ancient site of Shechem was only discovered in 1903. Wikipedia has different articles on New Amsterdam and New York, "two" cities which are far more organically related than ancient Shechem and modern Nablus. Unlike the old city of Jerusalem, Shechem is apparently more an archaeological site than a place where Jews and others have had a living and continuous presence for millennia, so is much less the "old city" of Nablus - from the articles it seems that for a short while under Rome they had essentially separate existences. I have no horse in this race, and would abstain from any vote to merge or not. It would be nice if you or Heraclius put some old material back in, even if you think it is wrong, pov, inaccurate, just to make the changes more comprehensible to those who were working on them before. I am utterly exhausted right now, and would not trust myself to do it now. Otherwise, having opened my big mouth, and since Jay has asked me to, I will put together a candidate wrong version tomorrow that will probably preserve the new structure, but which will include all the wrong material, old, yours and Heraclius's and will make it easy to separate out excessive historical material, that I hope will help other more knowledgeable people write a better one. I think everyone would appreciate it if you and Heraclius would refrain from further major changes for now. --John Z 06:22, 6 August 2005 (UTC)

It might be better if you put some material back in and tried to listen to Heraclius's concerns, rather than collaborating with him on making more useless work for overworked admins. Is Shechem within the current city limits of Nablus? If you have been following the article's development, you know that Jay in particular has been trying to remove non-particular-to-Nablus material - so I repeat, there should be just one article, or two mainly disjoint ones that point to each other, including all the well -sourced and encyclopedic material that others have worked on, and unfortunately not all the recent edits have been positive steps in these directions. . --John Z 06:46, 5 August 2005 (UTC)

Shechem is in the boundries of Nablus. It is located on a site called Tell Balatah, in the eastern part of Nablus city. I will repeat myself. Schechem is the Old City of Nablus. Just as Jerusalem has an Old City, so does Nablus.

Guy Montag 02:58, 6 August 2005 (UTC)

I'd give similar advice to Heraclius. The older material from Rama's last edit should be put back here until he and other editors get back It was a good idea to put some of Guy's material into the Shechem article, where it obviously belonged. If you don't think it should be in here, why not try commenting it out like so - enclosing it and your comments why it shouldn't be there with - <!-- Material and Comments --> . That way it will still be there, to make a future editors task easier, but it won't be visible in the article. --John Z 07:11, 5 August 2005 (UTC)

I find all the changes confusing at this point, and am unclear as to what should be done to the article. Do you think you could take a crack at a cleanup? Jayjg ^(talk) 19:58, 5 August 2005 (UTC)

Aaaaaargggghhhh! My thoughts exactly, for a different value of "you."  :-) I'd hoped one of them might listen to my advice - and clean up the mess, at least they stopped fighting. Heraclius called Slim, who had the same reaction as us - . I really, really don't have the time right now, maybe after 10 PM, playing hooky from work now. Could just revert to Ramallite's last edit, Heraclius put most/all of Guy's new material in Shechem. There's some dumb fighting over pictures I didn't track. Guy removed some innocuous stuff e.g. on the university in Nablus, etc. which should be here and is not now. --John Z 20:36, 5 August 2005 (UTC)

My version merged some of Guy's edits and put the info on Shechem in the proper article: [1]Heraclius 20:57, 5 August 2005 (UTC)

Unfortunately it did not preserve all that was in the old Ramallite version see [2] . It would be great if you could put that stuff back in a new version. --John Z 21:18, 5 August 2005 (UTC)

Why do Shechem and Nablus have to be separate articles, aren't they the same place? --MPerel ^{( talk | contrib)} 22:36, 5 August 2005 (UTC)

As I say to Guy above, I'll do a candidate wrong version tomorrow if no one else does. --John Z 06:22, 6 August 2005 (UTC)

Sorry, I've been a bit too busy lately. and I guess I've missed a lot. I'll make some quick comments because I have to leave again but will come back later:

• Guy - thanks for the cleanup and rewrite, always a tough thing to do. I appreciate your work on it.

• I've been chided in the past for trying to inject non-English standards into English Wikipedia. As such, the English and Wikipedia name for the city is Nablus, and Shchem is the Hebrew name for it. Since this is English Wikipedia, according to what I have been advised by administrators and by reading the Wikipedia policy pages, this article should go by "Nablus" with any other names in parantheses and not on equal standing.
• That Nablus is a "Palestinian city" was deliberately removed. This is again contrary to Wikipedia policy regarding standard accepted nomenclature in reputable English language sources. Deliberately removing information that is pretty standard can be construed as POV pushing.
• There are some instances of factual inaccuracies. John Z pointed to some above. Another is that Nablus is not the 4th largest city, it's the 2nd largest city after East Jerusalem, Hebron is a close third. Also, the "traditional industries" of Nablus leave out a couple of major ones and include only secondary minor ones. Lastly, the Old City of Nablus (the Casbah) is not Shchem, it's the old city of modern Nablus (Ottoman, etc). Not to be confused with Tal Balatah.
• Some choice of words can also be improved. For example, Nablus is not a "home" of political instability, it is a "scene" of political (and humanitarian) instability.
• The "History" section is primarily about Shchem, not modern Nablus. I don't mind it staying there, but do not think it is appropriate to ignore the rest of the history of modern Nablus.
• Most photographs are not recognizable. Shchem looks like a modern building development, the church is too far away to notice, the Bronze Wall is not defined properly, and there is no Mosque, after all Nablus is almost all Muslim.
• Lastly (for now), the "instability" section is grossly out of context without mention of the living conditions imposed by the Israeli closure. That too many unarmed civilians (and children) were killed by the Israeli army is not disputable, and all the lawlessness that has followed the Israeli destruction of Palestinian police stations and reoccupation of the city is directly linked. This should be remedied.

That's it for now. Ramallite ^(talk) 15:36, 6 August 2005 (UTC)

I worked pretty long on it. It is a large subject, so some things I just did not have time to edit in or wanted cooperation between other people on. For example, I left notes that there is a huge chunk of history missing from the Arab conquest to the Mandate period. I am not aware of the standard of non english. I merely entered the two common names for it. People know what Schechem is because its in the Bible, and the Bible is a near universal document. I do agree that the instability section is grossly out of context. We need to agree on what we will enter there before we begin editing that part. According to my sources, Nablus is the fourth largest district, but the largest city. So that was a mistake. Hevron city has about 65,000 people.

Guy Montag 20:29, 6 August 2005 (UTC)

Finished off "my" version, just put old stuff back in, fixing minor errors, English, some questions where meaning was not clear to me, and using the most neutral language of either version, using some of Ramallite's suggestions. If there are any "sockpuppets" running around, I hope they desist, and maybe say who they are/were, I am sure it would gain everyone's respect and forbearance. Guy, I think this version is easy to edit now, for you and everyone else, the differences between your version and the new/old one show up clearly. Happy editing! - though I hope people like my English changes and note the comments where the usage or meaning seemed unclear to me. Good Night!--John Z 01:48, 7 August 2005 (UTC)

John, thanks for your help. Always good to discuss edits with you. Have a good night.

Guy Montag 01:51, 7 August 2005 (UTC)

Ramallite's Version

Okay - sorry for not being around recently, my colleagues and I at the Palestinian Institute for Left-handed Soccer Players were preparing for a Pulsa diNura against the Energizer Bunny - unfortunately it was nixed due to fierce protests by Tom Cruise. Anyway, I've seen what has happened on this site and I think I understand most of Heraclius' (a Nablusite) and Guy's problems with each others' edits. I've tried to reach a compromise here which I hope 1- doesn't pre-empt attempts by others to reach an understanding and 2- will be almost favorable to all. I don't really have a problem with including Shchem as a part of the Nablus article, because in answer to John Z's question, yes the government of Israel, the people of Israel, and almost everyone who speaks Hebrew refers to the city as Shchem in Hebrew. Guy is trying to remove reference to Nablus being a Palestinian city (i.e. it is a Jewish city presently occupied by Palestinians). I've done my best attempt at rewording to remedy this and I hope it will be acceptable, because neither Heraclius or I (or Palestinians, most Israelis, and the international community) feel that it is okay to deny that Nablus is a Palestinian city. In any case, I'd love to receive feedback. Guy, don't forget to voice your specific concerns over the "conflict" section. Thanks Ramallite ^(talk) 04:05, 8 August 2005 (UTC)

Statements like: "On this occasion, God confirmed to Abram the promise He had first made to him in Ur of the Chaldees, that He would give him this land.", etc. can be construed as POV pushing. If the Biblical quote is noted, then the reader can look up the details. It just seems way to wordy, POV, and non-encyclopedic in structure.69.209.192.60 05:06, 8 August 2005 (UTC)

Guy - my source for demographics was the PCBS, which is the only organization to have actually done a census. The municipality website is not up to date, their numbers are old even if the site itself has been updated. Also, do you have a source for 12,000 settlers? Thanks Ramallite ^(talk) 05:49, 8 August 2005 (UTC)

I wonder, when the humanitarian info website says that the governate is 55 km away from Jerusalem, does it mean the city, or some other geographical borders? This might need to be checked. As for the demographics information, I took it from the official PA website on Nablus from the mayor's office, which has kept the statistics up to date, although I foolishly discarded the link. Interesting though that the population has decreased by over 150 thousand in the past 2 years.

Guy Montag 06:17, 8 August 2005 (UTC)

Talk about snatching defeat from the jaws of victory: I thought you said it looked ok to you - why did you have to go and add an ugly POV / OR (like counter insurgency) and entirely revertible section? These are all Israeli accusations, it doesn't make them true, and now you've made the article into a tirade of why "Palestinians are terrorists". I strongly urge you to reconsider - if the Instability section bothers you that much, just delete the whole thing, make "Religious significance" the final section. I really don't understand why you seem offended that the article didn't paint Palestinians in as bad an image as possible. Even the title of that section you added, Militant Center, is POV and will be objected to by many who were trying to find a compromise here (including myself). I have to go now, but I hope you'll think about this and reconsider. Oh - and what does the "wider Arab-Israeli conflict" have to do with Nablus presently? Ramallite ^(talk) 06:37, 8 August 2005 (UTC)

About the wider Arab Israeli conflict, now that I think about it, I have no idea. As for the rest, mentioning that it is a militant center is fact. We can discuss this tomorrow though.

Guy Montag 06:42, 8 August 2005 (UTC)

Ramallite, your version is OK with me of course, not terribly different from mine, which Heraclius has told me he is happy with except he thinks that the Shechem content should be shortened. (I put some possible arguments for this view and not merging the articles above, but have no opinion myself.) My main concern was always that reasonable, uncontroversial, encyclopedic content often gets inadvertently and permanently deleted in major rewrites and/or edit wars. I've seen this happen often enough in looking at the complete histories of some articles on the conflict, and I think people should really be on guard against it. Guy, I of course think you should listen carefully to Ramallite, and to Jayjg's as usual very sensible suggestions to keep the article strictly focused on Nablus. --John Z 07:03, 8 August 2005 (UTC)

Guy, there is no such thing as a "militant center" when you talk about an entire city - I don't think you would appreciate calling the settlements of Kiryat Arba or Tekoa "Terrorist centers" just because some terrorists came from there. This is a very POV term, not to mention highly inappropriate, an epithet, degrading, and factually incorrect. You have summarized an entire IDF web page in this section, and despite "neutralizing" some words here and there, the section remains a sole IDF-based piece and as such as not neutral or encyclopedic (and not entirely true either). The two options are 1) to neutralize it by removing epithets, properly attributing each claim, and then countering these claims with a Palestinian perspective, which would double the length of the article and make it focus only on how people who are anti-peace regard Palestinians as vermin and why Palestinians regard that is racist and dehumanizing, or 2- delete most of that section altogether and make brief references with links to the intifada articles and leave it at that. Either way, this section cannot stay the way it is. Ramallite ^(talk) 14:42, 8 August 2005 (UTC)

Um, I am not aware of any terrorists coming from Kiryat Arba or Tekoa, but I am aware of Hamas and the DFLP using Hebron as headquarters and Qassam production centers. I was merely bringing context ro the offhand mention of Palestinians dying from IDF attacks that materialize out of thin air for no explicable reason. If you are going to mention Palestinians dying, I am going to put things in context, much as I did in Qana. Point by point, please state everything you find objectionable in the addition. I am open to compromise.

Guy Montag 16:17, 8 August 2005 (UTC)

Wait - that's not even an IDF site - it's a private organization that you're quoting from [3]. Ramallite ^(talk) 15:24, 8 August 2005 (UTC)

"An Internet site , which logs almost 100,000 visitors a month (as of May 2005) from all over the world, chiefly from the United States , Europe and Israel . The site operates in Hebrew, English, French, Russian, and Arabic ( http://www.intelligence.org.il ). It is considered one of the world's leading sites in the field of terrorism." As you can see, this isn't masada2000.com

Guy Montag 16:21, 8 August 2005 (UTC)

No it's fine, I just read it wrong the first time and thought it was an official government website. I'll take a closer look soon. Ramallite ^(talk) 17:39, 8 August 2005 (UTC)

Ok, Guy, the last paragraph in that new section belonged in the sub-section right above it, don't you agree? I still need a source for how many Israeli soldiers were killed during defensive shield in Nablus, as well as how many Israelis have been killed in the Nablus area over the past 4 years. I hope you don't object to the renaming of "militant center" to a more neutral sounding title with the emphasis of what you wrote included on the first sentence of the paragraph. Let me know your thought. By the way, is Bibi your hero again? Just curious :) Ramallite ^(talk) 22:01, 8 August 2005 (UTC)

I like your edit. If you provide a source for the part where I requested citation, we could move on to improving the history section. I will try to find how many Israelis were killed as we continue editing this article. Bibi? Well, he put a smile on my face the first time I read the news in a long time, but he should have resigned sooner, he had ample opportunity to make Sharon call elections. At least he will be the next Prime Minister, and maybe he learned a little from Oslo and wont repeat the debacles that he did in his first term, and with God's help, Sharon's insane plan.

Guy Montag 00:39, 9 August 2005 (UTC)

Although you provided sources, they don't have much to do with international law. (nonbinding) General Assembly resolutions relating to colonial era African states and Apartheid South Africa hardly qualify as either international law, or has anything to do with Israel. When the page gets unblocked, I will keep the argument but erase the part about international law, as it is patently false.

Guy Montag 03:49, 9 August 2005 (UTC)

The right of "peoples" to self-determination is one of the most thoroughly established rights in international law (start with the UN charter). The extent to which this right includes a right of armed struggle is less clear and the law journals are full of argument about it. Many UN bodies have stated their opinion that such a right exists in some circumstances. I don't recall if the ICJ has ruled on it. --Zero 11:33, 9 August 2005 (UTC)

Indeed, self determination in the general meaning is established in international law, but to what extent these rights can be expanded to achieve a goal is blurry. Nor does it mention anything about armed struggle. In any case, saying that there is a right to armed struggle for self determinatation is definitive, is both pov and dubiously correct in the least, and patently false at most.

Guy Montag 18:54, 9 August 2005 (UTC)

Yes- far from being "patently false", Zero is correct. I can provide some more relevant links, although the one I provided was an example of a general reference to it with a glancing mention of Palestinians. A lot of resolutions have mentioned armed struggle, but it has also been made clear that deliberate targeting of civilians (which both Palestinian suicide bombers and IDF units have done) can not be justified. I will provide more relevant links and clarify "right to self determination" - (and Zero if you have any that would be good too), but removing mention of it would make that section one-sided again. We wouldn't want that. Ramallite ^(talk) 13:10, 9 August 2005 (UTC)

"Shechem"?

English Wikipedia seems to get 115,000 hits for the term; can someone explain why it shouldn't be mentioned as an alternative name in the opening sentence? Jayjg ^(talk) 18:08, 8 August 2005 (UTC)

Shechem is an archeological site situated at "Tell Balatah". Check this source [4]. I really don't care what Nablus is called in Hebrew, Shechem is not an alternative English name for it.Heraclius 18:21, 8 August 2005 (UTC)

And yet people seem to use it in English. Jayjg ^(talk) 18:55, 8 August 2005 (UTC)

The name "Yerushalayim" gets even more hits (153,000) but it is not an English name for Jerusalem in the same sense as "Jerusalem" is. I would say that it is a Hebrew name of Biblical origin that is commonly used by people who want to stress the Jewish association with Jerusalem. This is also true of "Shechem", I think. Historically, Shechem and Nablus are not the same (as the article says, for a time they even both existed side by side), but nevertheless it is true that many people call the modern city "Shechem". I think we should give the name "Shechem" early on, in the first paragraph, but not as an equivalent to "Nablus". If "Shechem" is officially used by the Israeli government, we could report that. (Something like "Some people, including the Israeli government, call it Shechem after the ancient city that stood nearby.") Btw, another reason to say that "Shechem" is not an English name is that it can't be pronounced properly using only English sounds. --Zero 14:18, 9 August 2005 (UTC)

Good points, though I think you can pronounce it properly using English sounds, assuming you speak Old English, of course. ;-) Jayjg ^(talk) 16:33, 9 August 2005 (UTC)

Zero: I fail to understand the relevance of your statement regarding "using only English sounds". Could you clarify please? Thanks. Tomer ^TALK 08:03, August 10, 2005 (UTC)

I'm not sure it is such an important point. It is just that the "khaf" in "Shechem" is pronounced using a sound that does not appear in normal English usage. In fact people who have only learned English find it quite difficult. That tells against it being considered an English word. I wouldn't base the whole argument on this.... --Zero 10:40, 10 August 2005 (UTC)

Yet, the King's James Bible doesn't have a problem with using the name Shechem[5]. We pronounce words in the only language we know. That's how Yerushelayim changed to Jerusalem.

Guy Montag 19:06, 9 August 2005 (UTC)

Guy, the King James Bible is talking about the ancient town of Shechem. Not about Nablus. Nablus was founded in 72 AD. Please, you're the only one advocating this alternate name and you've been proven wrong over and over, just let it go.Heraclius 01:54, 10 August 2005 (UTC)

It could be talking about a cow for all I care, what matters is that it is an english word.

Guy Montag 05:08, 10 August 2005 (UTC)

well, cow is an English word, and it doesn't redirect to Nablus, so I don't think you really have a point here. Shechem in English seems to refer to the town of the Bible, prior to the 2nd century BC. Redirecting Shechem to Nablus would be like redirecting Babylon to Baghdad. dab (ᛏ) 07:28, 10 August 2005 (UTC)

Please see red herring for your "cow" reference and false analogy for the Baghdad/Babylon thing. Both are logical fallacies, and having been editing for so long, you surely know that. Were you just trying to make some kind of point? If so, what was it? Tomer ^TALK 08:00, August 10, 2005 (UTC)

Please stop accusing me of being anon IP's that have a vendetta against you. Also, you have reverted three times. No-one on this talkpage has supported your claims.Heraclius 05:11, 10 August 2005 (UTC)

No one has discussed this. I've added the evidence already. Shechem is an English word, the Bible is a universal document, the city is also called Shechem by the people with a historical claim to the city. These are irrefutable facts that speak for themselves.

Guy Montag 05:13, 10 August 2005 (UTC)

Guy, you've broken the 3RR twice in the past three days. This time you will get blocked for it. You've also accused me of being three different anon IPs.Heraclius 05:16, 10 August 2005 (UTC)

Actually, I only accused you of being 1 anon ip. I don't know what happened to the other guy. If you behaved civilly like Rammalite, we wouldn't be having revert wars.

Guy Montag 05:18, 10 August 2005 (UTC)

This section no longer has anything to do with "Shechem"?, so see my comment in the following section, which also has nothing to do with Protection. Tomer ^TALK 07:24, August 10, 2005 (UTC)

Protection

A user asked me to block another user on account of reverts, but I found that both users were "guilty". Rather than blocking two users it seems more productive to block the page for a day with the hope that the involved editors can use this talk page to settle the difference. Thanks, - Willmcw 03:40, August 9, 2005 (UTC)

It's been almost half a day and no discussion of the dispute, which currently comes down to whether the name Shechem should stand on equal footing as an English-language name for the city along with Nablus. Do people want to take a vote here? Or just weigh in? Ramallite ^(talk) 13:38, 9 August 2005 (UTC)

I always call the city Shkhem, not because of any ancient claim, but because the city was founded as a replacement for the ruined city of Shkhem, whence its name Neapolis = "New city". The emphasis on the absolute necessity of calling it Nablus instead of Shkhem is because Nablus is the Arabic name, and yet another way to erase the fact that it was originally inhabited almost entirely by Jews. Same with the obsession with calling Jerusalem/Yerushalayim "Al Quds", Ramah "Ramallah", En Ganim "Jenin", Joppa/Yafo "Jaffa", Hebron/Chevron "Al Khalil", Jericho/Yrikho "Ariha", Zephath/Tzfath "Safed", Eshtemoa`/Sammu`, etc., etc., etc. Voting is going to accomplish nothing whatsoever, except to enflame empassioned speeches based on every comment made about every vote. The fact of the matter is, on many English maps, Nablus/Shkhem is listed as either Shechem (Nablus) or Nablus (Shechem). While the new city is not built on the ruins of the old city, it is nevertheless a historical continuation of the same settlement.

Any questions?

In English, the KJV has had a tremendous influence on instilling EME names and spellings into the fabric of the language, perhaps far more thoroughly than any translation of the Bible has influenced any other language. (I'm not going to waste my time sourcing that assertion, it's discussed in about 100k books and a simple google search on "influence of the KJV on English" should turn up something for any doubters to chew on...) So, what to do here? This is the English WP after all. Let's look at other cities elsewhere for examples. Rome is the article, Roma is a disambig. Bucharest is the article, Bucureşti is a redirect. Cologne is the article, Köln is a redirect. Munich is the article, München is a redirect. Vienna is the article, Wien is a disambig. Moscow is the article, Moskva is a redirect. Athens is the article, Athena is about the goddess, and Athina is a redirect. Damascus is the article, Dimashq is a redirect. Tomer ^TALK 06:58, August 10, 2005 (UTC)

Of course there are political dimensions of the naming question. One person will say "calling it Nablus is another way of erasing the fact that it was originally inhabited almost entirely by Jews" and another will say "calling it Shechem is yet another way of erasing the fact that most of its inhabitants have called it Nablus for nearly 2000 years". Guy had admited his political motivations, but others here also have them. We aren't going to solve the problem at this level. We should just try to present both names along with a summary of which groups of people use them. Is that so hard? --Zero 10:33, 10 August 2005 (UTC)

I haven't been on this page before and have just reviewed the arguments. I believe that Tomer's analysis is again excellent and makes sense. The full explanation as to the cities' historicity should also go in the article. --Noitall 15:40, August 10, 2005 (UTC)

Ramallite's response

Regarding your explanation, Tomer, there are some comments/questions I have:

Ramallite, thank you for taking the time to read what I wrote, I'll respond to what I consider the questions or issues demanding response or explanation. Tomer ^TALK 03:02, August 11, 2005 (UTC)

• Being from Palestine, I haven't thought about this as much as you all have. I've always known the city as Nablus, and I know that most of the world calls it Nablus. It's just the name of the city as we know it. I didn't make a conscious decision to call it Nablus in order to deny any Jewish history, nor did anybody else for that matter. We've just always known it as Nablus, pure and simple. Now if I'm listening to Israeli TV, in Hebrew they call it Shchem. That's nice to know, but I never gave it more than a fleeting thought. If I were engaged in a discussion with an Israeli in Hebrew, I might call it one or the other (and probably have used both), It's just not that important. I've rarely heard Shchem used in an English conversation, but then again that may be because English isn't really as widespread as Arabic and Hebrew. When I do hear it, it's usually on Israeli TV during an interview with American Jewish religious zealots, but then these people are not taken very seriously by most Israelis anyway. Ramallite ^(talk) 01:41, 11 August 2005 (UTC)
  • Just as you've always known the city as Nablus, I've always known it as Shechem in English, Shkhem in Hebrew, and Nablus in Arabic. Regarding my statement that about the "absolute necessity" to call it Nablus, I was not referring to the simple fact of calling the city "Nablus", but to the argument that calling it "Shkhem" or "Shechem" is wrong, or that doing so is a deliberate attempt to illegitimize the Arab residents. It was a tongue-in-cheek tit-for-tat comment, and probably should have been qualified as such. I don't know if you're calling me an American Jewish religious zealot or not, but I call it Shkhem. I'll assume good faith tho, since you have no way of knowing whether or not I've ever appeared on Israeli television.  :-) Tomer ^TALK 03:02, August 11, 2005 (UTC)
• Is there really an "absolute necessity" to call it Nablus? Probably not - we all know the reality of the city is today is that it is Palestinian with a rich history, and life is just too short to make a big deal if certain people wish to call it Shchem, Jabal AlNar (a Palestinian nationalistic name), Shechem (American accent that rhymes with shake 'em), or Schablus. Ramallite ^(talk) 01:41, 11 August 2005 (UTC)
  • Shechem, American accent rhyming with "shake 'em", is the English name of the city, and has been for at least the past 400 years, probably earlier. However, mipne darkhe shalom, Shablus, definitely. :-) Tomer ^TALK 03:02, August 11, 2005 (UTC)
• You are over-reacting (it seems to me) about Arabic naming of cities. Khalil is the Arabic word for chaver, and the Chaver in question is of course Abraham. Trust me, there is no agenda here, so relax. Al-Quds just means "The Sacred" which is another name for Jerusalem. We Palestinians don't call these cities by their Arabic names when talking in English, we call them Hebron (or Heebron with an Arabic accent) and Jerusalem when speaking in English. Your assertion that we have an "obsession" with using Arabic names all the time is absolutely false, and it's surprising to hear this from you. Arabic is our language, so that's what we speak, and I'm sure you don't believe that us using our own language is malicious. Ramallite ^(talk) 01:41, 11 August 2005 (UTC)
  • Let me clarify that I wasn't reacting, I was simply trotting out a list, and can assure you that I was thoroughly relaxed. I couldn't have gone and determined what all those other cities were (articles, redirects, or disambigs), had I not been relaxed.  :-) I wasn't asserting that you have an "obsession", but I think you'll agree with me that just as there are "American Jewish religious zealots" who would be more than happy to fund "transfer" even if it meant breaking the bank, there are "Palestinian Muslim religious zealots", or just simply "anti-Jewish-claims-to-Eretz-Yisra'el" or even outright "anti-Semites", who have an obsession. I would submit that such persons outnumber the aforementioned "American Jewish religious zealots". None of that is particularly relevant to what I was saying tho. The point I was making is that this is the English Wikipedia, and while it would be bizarre and inaccurate to call Haifa "Cheifa" (the unused official Hebrew name, in case anybody didn't know, except perhaps by some unidentified nebulous "American Jewish religious zealots"), to say that the town shouldn't be called Shechem because its Arabic name is Nablus strikes me as patently ridiculous. It's like insisting that Cairo should be moved to al-Qahir. It's not like anyone is saying that Nablus should be renamed שכם or even Shkhem. As far as I'm aware, nobody's even saying that the name of the article should be Shechem, although I think I've made a pretty strong case for it. Tomer ^TALK 03:02, August 11, 2005 (UTC)
• Because I haven't studied the history well enough to be an expert in every single conspiracy theory about what Shechem versus Nablus is, I can accept that Nablus is a continuation of the ancient city. I'm not going to write sermons about it, but so be it, no big deal. Many Palestinians themselves are probably directly descended from people who lived in ancient Shechem. Ramallite ^(talk) 01:41, 11 August 2005 (UTC)
• I am still confused about what you would like to see here - do you insist on the article "Shechem" being redirected to "Nablus"? I personally have no problem with that at all. But there are some who do oppose this, and I think a compromise ought to be reached here. Ramallite ^(talk) 01:41, 11 August 2005 (UTC)
  • I'm still confused about what I'd like to see here, so don't fret about it too much. :-) I agree tho, some kind of agreement has to be reached. This discussion has already caused more acrimony than anything of this nature should be allowed to. My primary point was that the "the Arabic name is Nablus therefore the article should be Nablus, and Shechem doesn't belong here" argument doesn't hold a lot of water. Tomer ^TALK 03:02, August 11, 2005 (UTC)
• Some neutral advice: please don't fall into the common demonization technique of assuming the worst of the opposite side. You stated that "the emphasis on the absolute necessity of calling it Nablus instead of Shkhem is because Nablus is the Arabic name, and yet another way to erase the fact that it was originally inhabited almost entirely by Jews" Why do some pro-Israelis always do that - state a claim (Nablus is the Arabic name) and then infer the most far-fetched and inflammatory conclusion (to deny that it has a Jewish history). While this is true of some people, it is false to generalize. There are many people who, because of their ideology, NEED to believe that the other side is the devil in order to justify their aggressive agenda. If the other side isn't being portrayed as low as they need to be, then people must invent new stuff to put the other down. But ultimately this won't lead anywhere. I'm disappointed to see some elements of this in what you wrote, but I hope that you will not fall into this trap. Ramallite ^(talk) 01:41, 11 August 2005 (UTC)
  • I'd prefer that you attempt to avoid characterizations or categorizations of other editors based on your interpretations of what I wrote. If you must, concerns should be addressed to them on their talk pages, not on the article's talk page. Tomer ^TALK 03:02, August 11, 2005 (UTC)
• Lastly, some may wonder where the hell I am coming from with all this - well excuse my language, but here's how it works: We in the middle east are actually in the shit, so we are trying to get out of the shit. Those abroad are not in the shit, but they have strong feelings about what the shit should be, so they invent their own shit. Just a thought that my second cousin Mordechai Abbas used to say. Ramallite ^(talk) 01:41, 11 August 2005 (UTC)
  • Believe me, shit is a universal problem.  :-) In this case, unfortunately, advice comes from all sides, from people who have managed to convince themselves, bizarrely enough, that their shit don't stink.  :-). Kol tov. Tomer ^TALK 03:02, August 11, 2005 (UTC)

A round of strawberry sundaes on me.

Clarification: by "American Jewish religious zealots" I was referring to the many voices on Israeli TV, where so many of the Israeli settlers interviewed who advocate transfer and have pretty unfortunate opinions about us Palestinians, have American accents. No personal reference was intended whatsoever to anybody on this page, and I apologize to Tomer that this was mistakenly inferred. Thanks Ramallite ^(talk) 03:53, 11 August 2005 (UTC)

No worries. I just kept using the phrase over and over because I wanted to point out that I thought it was an inappropriate, regardless of against whom it was directed, characterization of people who say "Shéikhem". There are enough problems between Arabs, Muslims, whoever and Jews and Israelis without describing each other using epithets. Tomer ^TALK 04:10, August 11, 2005 (UTC)

Information specific to this article

I see there has been some edit warring here while I was away. In any event, I must repeat that this article should deal with Nablus-specific information, not information that applies to the whole conflict. This latest addition is a particularly egregious example of failing in that respect:

Palestinians (including those in Nablus) regard themselves as being under Israeli military occupation, and often cite international law that recognizes "the legitimacy of the peoples' struggle for liberation from colonial and foreign domination and alien subjugation by all available means, including armed struggle"[9][10]. They further justify their actions by referring to international law as well as the Geneva Conventions that prohibit an occupying power from creating irreversible facts on the ground, which they regard Israeli actions as doing. A 2001 Ha'aretz article by Baruch Kimmerling entitled The Right to Resist was widely reproduced by various Palestinian media outlets after the Intifada erupted.

The whole paragraph, aside from being written in a moderately POV way, is about the overall conflict, not about Nablus. The inclusion of the parenthetical note "(including those in Nablus)" is only a sop which serves to highlight the extremely general nature of this information, which belongs in a general article on the Arab-Israeli conflict. If a section appears stating that Nablus is specifically seen as a source of militant action, then it can only be "NPOVd" by sources which deal specifically with Nablus. Jayjg ^(talk) 16:29, 9 August 2005 (UTC)

Here's my response: We were trying to compromise on a lot of aspects of this article, and my edits actually got an okay from Guy. Immediately afterwards, he decided to add another paragraph that was based on some deeply biased NGO that made very POV claims (as if Palestinian "terrorism" emerges in a vacuum), much of them not sourced. I told him that this would have to be NPOVed or be entirely removed to keep the article in balance. My attempts to NPOV has generally met with his approval, despite my own position that the whole paragraph is totally uncalled for and has one aim - to make Palestinians (based on the actions of some militants) look as bad as possible. So the paragraph you are talking about is aimed at balancing the POV of the one above it. Even if Guy's paragraph is just quoting a source, the actual inclusion of it aims at pushing a POV that needs to be countered as allowed per Wikipedia policy. Although Guy probably doesn't agree with that, he has nevertheless accepted it, as I have accepted a lot of objectionable and offensive material. If the only way to NPOV it is to include the second paragraph, then so it must be. Remember, it is not Wikipedia law that there must be absolutely no reference to generalized information in articles about a specific location, that (unless I'm mistaken) is your own editorial opinion - which is not a bad policy in itself but is not always achievable. If the choice is to leave the top paragraph unanswered because of lack of a source that deals specifically with Nablus, or to apply a more general statement that deals with all Palestinians including Nablus of which there are plentiful, then I'll go with the latter. However, just to oblige, I'll continue to look for Nablus-specific references, but these sources (although generally true) are not always acceptable to all editors. Ramallite ^(talk) 18:09, 9 August 2005 (UTC)

Balancing POV is a good thing, but it has to be done using specific arguments relating to the specific claims. To give an analogy, if someone puts "Muslim leader X supports suicide bombings", the proper way to balance it is not to say "Israel has killed thousands of Palestinians in the Intifada", but rather "Muslim leader Y has spoken against them" or something similar. Similarly, if one source says "Nablus is a center for terrorism", the proper balance is something which states "Nablus is not a center for terrorism", not "Palestinians are allowed to kill Israelis under international law". Jayjg ^(talk) 21:04, 9 August 2005 (UTC)

Just saw your note after I changed a bit - please feel free to adjust - I'll be back later and will see it then. ThanksRamallite ^(talk) 21:11, 9 August 2005 (UTC)

Sigh. It's worse than ever. Most of it isn't even related to the material above it. You can do better than this. Jayjg ^(talk) 00:00, 10 August 2005 (UTC)

You're killing me - the Palestinian officials have always regarded such language such as "capital of terror" and "center of terror" as dehumanizing language, because it serves to paint an entire population as animals (which serves the interests of many on the opposite side, obviously) based on the actions of a few (not the political affiliations, but actions). The second sentence served to put the first in context, because what use is rejecting such slogans as in the first sentence of the paragraph above it without clarifying the alternative? The last sentence gives a short preamble on who the NGOs are before delving into what they say specifically about Nablus. Remember, 1- I think the top paragraph shouldn't even be there, and 2- sometimes retorts that directly refute specific points are not possible, and insisting on doing so may be construed as an attempt to delete the opposing view. Palestinians have no reason to specifically respond to garbage such as "Jenin is the capital of terror" in as much as Israelis would not dignify responding to crap such as "Jews drink the blood of Palestinian children". So how would you phrase it? Ramallite ^(talk) 00:24, 10 August 2005 (UTC)

I don't understand your argument. If terrorists use Nablus as their base of operations consistently, how does this equal dehumanizing the entire population as animals?

Guy Montag 00:50, 10 August 2005 (UTC)

Ramm, I tried very hard to see how the arguments you mentioned relate to the specific facts, but I can't see a connection. I don't understand what context you are trying to insert and how mentioning that Nablus has a large terrorist infestation reflects on all Palestinians as animals. Personally, it just looks like a frantic attempt to cover up the facts. I think you are above that.

Guy Montag 01:07, 10 August 2005 (UTC)

Let's not start accusations, I don't cover up anything, and there's nothing frantic about my writings. Let me be as clear as possible:

• 1- Just because some Israeli NGO says these things doesn't mean they are fact, yet they are spun in the article as fact.
• 2- A neutral point of view usually means that editors of the opposing view will not agree with the other argument being presented.
• 3- My paragraph (that you deleted without the courtesy of waiting for my response - which is against the spirit of what we are trying to achieve here) directly responded to the thesis you presented: That Nablus is a terror base or whatever. My counter-argument: Palestinians regard such labels, such as "infrastructure center for terrorists" as deliberate dehumanization of an entire population that is used to justify Israeli assault. That is not my OR, that is stated in many Palestinian articles. Therefore, if statements such as "Israelis regard (name of town) as a terrorism center" (or similar) remain, then the statement "Palestinians regard labels such as 'center of terrorism' (or similar) as dehumanization" will stay as well. I may not have presented that clearly, but I will adjust it.
• 4- A more direct response to the remainder of your paragraph, without much ado, would be "The NGO did not back up their accusations with any evidence whatsoever". If you look at the source, you won't find any references. This is why I think your inclusion of this paragraph was inappropriate at best. This is clearly an non-encyclopedic source (at least their page on Nablus is), an equivalent of which from the Palestinian side would have been lambasted immediately. But since I don't do blanket deletions (which is my weakness), especially when trying to work with people with a completely different view of things, I had to counter it this way. I'm also sorry that you seem to believe that many false accusations are real facts, but we won't discuss this here.

So when you get a chance, let me know what you think, and let's try to work this out. Ramallite ^(talk) 18:18, 10 August 2005 (UTC)

Actually, wikipedia policy states that reputable sources cannot be withdrawn because of the particular bias of the authors. This website is a reputable source in itself. It collects data from other sources and compiles them into a list. Is there a claim from what has been quoted that you specifically dispute?

Your response to the claims was about deliberate dehumanization, but explain to me, how is it dehumanizing to state facts? I suggest you rewrite whatever counter argument, you make to be coherent and to the point. I am not saying it is illigitimate to make this argument, I am saying you were all over the place.

Guy Montag 17:03, 11 August 2005 (UTC)

Sure, but different editors can also disagree over what constitutes a "reputable source". This NGO calling an entire city a "terror nest" (or whatever) based on some unsound data collected on few residents is racism pure and simple.

Nablus is not a terror nest (or an infrastructure center or whatever), it is a city where 130,000 human beings live (or are trying to live) with the whole shabang: weddings, funerals, parties, cultural activities, and everything else normal human beings do. I think you would agree that if I were to include a section in the Israel article listing reasons from similar "reputable sources" why it is engaged in "state terror", you wouldn't stand for it, and would regard it's entire addition to that article as malicious. So imagine my dismay here. Second, I disagree that it is a reputable source; it gathers what it states are facts, and doesn't check the reliability of its data from what I can see (and I'm a scientist and I know how to collect data), and publishes an inflammatory page with racist generalizations on the whole city. In science, if you have no references or evidence, your "data" is automatically discarded. Third, I have no way of explaining to you "how it is dehumanizing to state facts" because you have chosen to matter-of-factly believe what that NGO claims as fact, when it is not fact. I can't explain something based on a premise that doesn't exist. I'm actually very disappointed that you believe it's "fact", especially as my hometown is 45 minutes from Nablus and I've been there often, but you have never been (I assume). I'm even more disappointed that you decided to add this highly inflammatory section after you told me that the article looked okay, and are lecturing me about how to respond to it, especially after it was really hard for me to have to delete information to be able to compromise with you (a foreigner) about a city in my own country. I'll work on the counter-argument a little later, but I kindly request that, as a sign of good faith, you get rid of that section so I won't have to respond. If you think it's fact, fine, I know I can't convince you otherwise, but not every "fact" has to be stated in an article where emotions are already high, the paragraph before that already talks about Israeli military operations in response to Palestinian actions. Ramallite ^(talk) 18:03, 11 August 2005 (UTC)

Ramm, you are overreacting. There is nothing racist about it. First of all, it is common to name cities as prevalent for something. For example, Fellujah was known as the center of the Iraqi "insurgency". That doesn't mean that everyone there was going to blow up an American soldier giving out candies to Iraqi children. Secondly, you have to list what it is you dispute. What information listed there is false? Third, your personal experience, although important cannot be cited. I live in San Francisco, its a beautiful city, but there is one part where is one part called Hunter's Point, which is notorious for being extremely violent. Only SWAT goes there whenever there is a call to that part. Does that mean that everyone there is going to shoot me? Probably not, but that is what it is known for and I'd rather avoid that area, no matter how nice some folks might be. Finally, I find it inflammatory that you are pretending as though terrorists appear out of thin air. They have bases, they have bomb factories, and training grounds and they use cities for their operations. The NGO says that they originate in Nablus, Jenin, and Gaza, among other places. Do you have information to the contrary? If not, then rephrase your argument to address this or live with this information just as I have to live with Kafr Qassam. Finally, why are you defending individuals who deliberately target civillians? How is that "resisting occupation"?

Guy Montag 22:43, 11 August 2005 (UTC)

I think I am being misunderstood for whatever reason. First, cities are not known in such inflammatory terms as "centers of terrorism", because that is insulting to its residents, and is usually done for malicious reasons, and is not encyclopedic. Second, I think I've made it clear that I dispute epithets such as "infrastructure center for terrorism", because it could easily be NPOVed with more neutral phrases such as "the hometown of some who carried out suicide bombings in Israel" which does not place a grand terror label on the whole city. Nablus does not have "bases" or "training grounds", not even your NGO claims this. I don't dispute the content (they might be lies or factual), I dispute the POV way in which they are presented, which is verbatim quotes from a biased organization. These entries are not encyclopedic, and they could be paraphrased in a more neutral manner. You yourself have complained in the past about inflammatory tirades, well this is one of them. The fact that this NGO does not cite its sources or provide evidence also really bothers me. Very similar things have been said about Jenin, that most suicide bombers came from there. So which is it? Lacking evidence, I can't call the source reputable - at least whoever wrote *that* page for the NGO. Third, my personal experience is not part of the article, I am very well aware of the policy. However, perhaps you should research the Hunter's Point equivalent of Nablus instead of saying similar to "San Francisco is a hotbed of violence". That would be more accurate. Fourth, I could say the same about you, because we both agree that terrorists don't appear out of thin air, but disagree about the reasons, which in my experience is 38 years of dehumanization and humiliation, and in yours is quite different. I can't argue with you because, barring you experiencing life as a Palestinian, you will never know. Finally, I have never defended terrorists, be it from the IDF (of which there are very many) or be it from Palestinians. Deliberately targeting civilians on either side is not defensible. But the vast majority of Palestinian acts in the intifada have not been targeting civilians in Israel, although that has been the most reported and sensationalized (to our detriment). You mentioned before that you were open to compromise. Since you insist on summarizing a single NGO's tirade into an entire subsection, would you consider paraphrasing instead of quoting in order to tone it down a little? Ramallite ^(talk) 01:59, 12 August 2005 (UTC)

If the problem with the article is that some things need to be paraphrased, I will see what I can do to npov some entries. Oh, and San Francisco has the highest murder rate in California, second only to Los Angeles. If the vast majority of Palestinian acts were not to target civilains, I wouldn't be having a conversation with you about Nablus being a terrorist center. Here is a hint, targetting Israeli civilians in the territories is still targetting civilians.

Guy Montag 17:51, 12 August 2005 (UTC)

All I can say is that my original concerns still haven't been addressed; a NGO has made specific charges about Nablus. They have to be countered with specific rebuttals, not general philosophy. Jayjg ^(talk) 18:49, 11 August 2005 (UTC)

Well, I have my concerns too and they are being deliberately ignored it seems. If an equivalently "reputable" Hamas-funded NGO made specific charges on the same racist levels as this one, the "specific rebuttal" you speak of would be "immediate revert" with "vandalism" given as the reason. Believe me, I am not a philosopher and do not engage in general philosophy, I am taking time to discuss in the talk page that this is an inflammatory addition to the article that I believe is malicious, and the only response I'm getting is that it is "fact", which is just reasserting the problem instead of trying to solve it. I will address the article shortly, but would still appreciate a valid reason on why inflammatory material should be included in an otherwise NPOVed article, even if some regard it as fact. My good friend's aunt Nabila lives in Nablus in the Rafidia neighborhood, and that's a fact. Should we add that to the article as well? An editor (myself) is objecting to the inclusion of this piece and is politely asking for a credible response on the talk page. Thanks Ramallite ^(talk) 19:29, 11 August 2005 (UTC)

I fail to see where "racism" (a term that is abused far too much these days) comes into it. The source appears to be a legitimate NGO, at least as legitimate as a number of the Palestinian NGOs who are quoted extensively on Wikipedia (e.g. Operation Days of Penitence Fatalities). Ignoring the issue of how one classifies attacks on Israeli soldiers, or even settlers, Palestinian terrorism is a real phenomenon, and blowing up children at a Tel Aviv disco is not "legitimate resistance to occupation" under any international law. The people who do these things come from somewhere, they are armed and trained somewhere, their bombs are created somewhere. This NGO alleges that Nablus is a major centre for it, and I fail to see why this doesn't deserve at least some mention. Jayjg ^(talk) 20:09, 11 August 2005 (UTC)

See WP:POINT Jayjg. --Joodoo 01:28, 13 August 2005 (UTC)

LOL! Yeah, I knew a reference to that page would smoke you out, Alberuni. Jayjg ^(talk) 23:08, 14 August 2005 (UTC)

Point of order: "at least as legitimate as a number of the Palestinian NGOs who are quoted extensively on Wikipedia" is disingenuous in the extreme. How can the Palestinains have other than NGO's when they are not allowed a Govt? Naughty. 62.252.0.6 22:50, 11 August 2005 (UTC)

Point of confusion; what does your comment have to do with my comment? Jayjg ^(talk) 16:42, 12 August 2005 (UTC)

Point of reality. Please review Palestinian Authority. Tomer ^TALK 05:13, August 12, 2005 (UTC)

Exactly! We cant see Palestinian Govenrment can we? 62.252.0.6 07:05, 12 August 2005 (UTC)

Of course not. Are you honestly recommending that Wikipedia have articles for every misspelling of every word? That would be like expecting to find an article at Plaestine. Tomer ^TALK 08:34, August 12, 2005 (UTC)

Page protected

I've protected to prevent any more blocks for 3RR. Please sort it out on this page. I didn't even look at which version I protected by the way: it was an IP address edit, and I have no idea who it was or what it said. Actually, I should probably go back and check in case it was vandalism. ;-) SlimVirgin ^(talk) 23:30, August 11, 2005 (UTC)

I'd like to clarify that the 69.209 anon ip guy is not me but the one apartheid guy.Heraclius 23:37, 11 August 2005 (UTC)

I protected the apartheid editor? Oops. ;-D Thank you for pointing it out, Heraclius. I'm disinclined to leave it on his version, but it seems unfair to revert again. Perhaps I should try to help resolve this instead, if anyone would like me to try. I have no opinion on it as it stands, and know very little about the issue. Dbachmann made an edit recently that seemed reasonable to me. Could someone say what was wrong with it? SlimVirgin ^(talk) 23:45, August 11, 2005 (UTC)

The current version is NPOV. The only people who use the word Shechem to refer to the entire city of Nablus are Israeli settlers and their supporters. There is nothing inaccurate about this statement. Please someone show me a source where a person who doesn't support Israeli settlement uses the word Shechem to refer to the entire city. I'm looking at my English atlas right now and it's called Nablus; there isn't even a Shechem in parentheses. My views have been confirmed by Wetman [6] and Dbachmann [7]. Heraclius 00:22, 12 August 2005 (UTC)

Heraclius, you are wrong that only "Israeli settlers and their supporters" call it Shechem. The usage is wider and older than that. I have not been able to find out exactly when this usage started, but I have examples from the middle of the 19th century so it is definitely older than Zionism. Both Jewish writers and Christian Bible-types have a natural preference for Biblical names over "modern" (2000 years old counts as modern!) names, so this is hardly surprising. In the modern era, the intentional suppression of the name "Nablus" is common but nobody is proposing that here. I have an Israeli road map in English (from the Eldan car rental company) that says "Shchem" without even giving Nablus as an alternative. This is the Israeli way of saying "it's ours". (However, this map does show the Green Line, which many Israeli maps do not.) --Zero 01:38, 12 August 2005 (UTC)

Regardless of whether Heraclius wrong in this (and he is), it is simply an uncited assertion. It needs to be sourced and cited, or removed. Jayjg ^(talk) 16:47, 12 August 2005 (UTC)

You have the nerve to come here and tell everyone, including Tomer, Zero, Jayjg, Rammalite and me who uses this term? You didn't even have the decency to read the five page discussion on this subject, and Tomer's explanation on why it must be included. In fact, you have a total of three sentences in the discussion page. You've done nothing but instigate revert wars in this article, and the current "NPOV" version you wrote is a piece of uninspired garbage. POV garbage that a person can sniff out a mile away.

As was repeated over and over. Nablus is the Arabic name of the city, Neapolis Flavia is the continuation of the city Schechem, hence the name New City". The Hebrew name for the city is Schem , the English name is Shechem. The name was acquired from the Bible, a universal document. There is nothing else to discuss. Nablus=Shechem.

Guy Montag 00:46, 12 August 2005 (UTC)

Nablus is the English name of the city. Shechem is the English name of the ancient city that is located at Tell Balatah; therefore, Shechem is not Nablus. All Tomer said was that he didn't want Shechem to not be mentioned in the intro. Look at the intro, it wasn't erased. Once again, the Hebrew Bible is talking about the ancient city of Shechem. Nablus was founded long after the events in the Hebrew Bible took place.Heraclius

Just as I thought, you didn't read anything. Tomer said that Flavia Neopolis is a continuation of Schechem, making it the same city.

Guy Montag 00:56, 12 August 2005 (UTC)

You've done nothing but instigate revert wars in this article

Actually, you were the one who first edited this article in your usual POV manner and instigated the revert war. You are a combative editor who won't give an inch, even when three different people revert your edits. I don't know if you've noticed, but I haven't been editing your other additions in an effort to make a compromise with you. That's why I left the bloated section on the history of Shechem and your other allegations of Nablus being a militant center. I thought that maybe by leaving these sections in and only editing the intro I could get you to accept a version that you partly agreed with. Oh, how I was mistaken. It seems that all you will do is revert. Even when different anon IP's such as apartheid dude and english dude revert you, you still won't take no for an answer.Heraclius 01:11, 12 August 2005 (UTC)

Apartheid dude, English dude, and all the other retarded anon IPs aren't serious editors but internet trolls who are here to cause trouble. As for being thankful to you for not reverting valid information, I don't need to be. All of the information imputed has been inserted after days of discussion with editors who actually discuss, among whom you were not one. I told you from day one, if all I see from you is garbage edits and reverts without going to talk, you will be treated differently then those who go to talk. I am not going to compromise on facts.

Guy Montag 01:37, 12 August 2005 (UTC)

This is from Paul Johnson's A History of the Jews (p. 22): "Shechem is near the modern Nablus, a name derived from the new city, or Neapolis, which Vespasian built in 72 CE after the reconquest of Palestine. We can identify the site from references in Josephus, writing about 90 CE, and Eusebius, writing before 340 CE, who says ancient Shechem is in the suburbs of Neapolis near Jacob's Wall." Guy, are you saying you disagree with this? SlimVirgin ^(talk) 01:22, August 12, 2005 (UTC)

That is the ancient city of shechem. What I and Tomer have said is that Neapolis Flavia is a continuation of Shechem the settlement,making it the same city.

Guy Montag 01:37, 12 August 2005 (UTC)

Guy, can you produce a good source that backs you up? SlimVirgin ^(talk) 02:16, August 12, 2005 (UTC)

Here's the Jewish Virtual Library, [8] which calls it Nablus, and seems not to see it as identical to, or a continuation of, Shechem. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 02:22, August 12, 2005 (UTC)

I can't find non-partisan sources who call it anything other than Nablus. Most of the Israeli sources I checked call it that, as do mainstream Western newspapers.

Although Tomer has already provided Miriam's dictionary, I want to provide my own explanation. During Roman occupation, cities that the Romans built were named after Romans, Tiberias, and Ceasaria being them most famous. But there were also times when the Romans destroyed Jewish cities and rebuilt them using Roman names. For example, when Jerusalem was sacked, the Romans wanted to build a city called Aetolia Capitalona in its place. The fact that the Romans rebuilt the ancient settlement of Shechem and gave it a Roman name, (which still labels it a New City) does not mean that it became a separate settlement as opposed to a ressurection of the old city. As the Jewish encyclopedia explains,

(Flavia) Neapolis, a name given to the city when it was rebuilt after the war of Vespasian, this being one of the rare cases in which a Roman local name has replaced the ancient Semitic one. On the eastern slope of Gerizim, and before the great gate to the west between it and Ebal, spreads the large plain of Al-Makhnah, with an area of about 20 square kilometers; and on the northeast, and connected with it, is the plain of Salim, a fertile grain-country, surrounded by finely formed mountains covered with olive-trees.

Guy Montag 17:36, 12 August 2005 (UTC)

Okay, thanks for that Guy. I'm still unclear about where this is heading, because you agree that the article should be called Nablus, and Shechem is referenced in the intro, so it's not as if it's been left out entirely.

The point is this: if there was an ancient city, now destroyed, that was called (in Hebrew) Old City, and the Romans built a new city near the site of it called (in Latin) New City, (a name that was roughly transliterated and adopted by people all over the world), and we're writing an article 2000 years later about New City, then it's appropriate in the intro to say "this is built on or near the site of Old City, and some people still call it that," which is more or less what the current intro says. Heracluis has been asked whether he'll agree to drop that only rightwing Israelis and settlers call it Shechem, because he's produced no source to support that. So what are your other objections to the intro exactly, and your reasons for them? SlimVirgin ^(talk) 18:41, August 12, 2005 (UTC)

The three issues with the intro seem to be:

• Heraclius says it's a Palestinian city; Guy deletes the word "Palestinian."
• In the second paragraph, Guy says Shechem is in the "eastern section of the modern city." How important to Guy is it to have that in, and how important to Heraclius to have it out? Or can we say "identified as in the eastern section of the modern city by X, but two kms to the east of the city by Y," citing authoritative sources in both cases?
• Heraclius says: "However, in recent times Israeli settlers and their supporters have used the word Shechem to refer to the whole city." Guy doesn't want this.

What is the relative importance of these three issues to each party? SlimVirgin ^(talk) 03:17, August 12, 2005 (UTC)

I was merely following Rammalite's compromise. It is his wording that the city is a major Palestinian population center, and I did not object. Shechem does lie in the eastern section of the modern city, so it is removing relevent information if it is not included. And the sentence that only Israeli settlers and their supporters...blah blah blah, is patently false.

Guy Montag 17:36, 12 August 2005 (UTC)

My input: I have had a problem removing the word "Palestinian" (first point above). Despite the fact that I came up with the sentence "it comprises the second largest Palestinian population center" as a compromise, the current reality is that Nablus is regarded worldwide as a Palestinian city, as well as by the Israeli government, and all reputable Western sources. I feel that denying this is inappropriate. Nablus is listed under the WP category "List of Palestinian Cities" and is also Area A according to the Oslo Accords. That's it for me Ramallite ^(talk) 03:39, 12 August 2005 (UTC)

Thanks Ramallite. I'm wondering whether Guy will agree it should be called a Palestinian city, if Heraclius will agree to the removal of the settler reference? It seems to me that most of the world calls it a Palestinian city, including sources in Israel; and that, for the settler issue, no authoritative sources have been provided to show either that Shechem is used mainly by settlers and their supporters, or that it's used by anyone else. Does that sound fair? SlimVirgin ^(talk) 04:16, August 12, 2005 (UTC)

Why would I agree when we already reached a compromise in the beginning of this dispute?

Guy Montag 17:36, 12 August 2005 (UTC)

whether Guy will agree it should be called a Palestinian city, if Heraclius will agree to the removal of the settler reference

You read my thoughts exactly!! :) That sounds fair to me, but we'll obviously need their input. Thanks also for the Britannica entry (how recent is that entry?) It should definitely be helpful to Guy and Heraclius. In order to avoid a repeat of the revert wars, could I please ask you not to unlock the site until things are settled in discussion to your satisfaction? Thanks Ramallite ^(talk) 04:43, 12 August 2005 (UTC)

I'm glad we're thinking in the same direction, Ramallite. The Britannica entry is the current one online. And I agree there's no point unlocking until it's settled. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 04:56, August 12, 2005 (UTC)

I actually think the insistence on putting "Palestinian" in where apartheid.guy reverted it back in makes the sentence sound "bumpy". Can we agree to just link to Palestinian in the following sentence, where it says it's the 2nd largest Palestinian population center? Someone should check out that assertion too, because there seem to be some disagreements about what exactly constitutes "Palestinian", and whether or not Hebron and Ramallah aren't, in fact, bigger. Also, I'm pretty sure that Amman, which is 10x the size of Shablus, is like 90% Palestinian... Tomer ^TALK 05:09, August 12, 2005 (UTC)

I haven't looked at what apartheid.guy did but I do know that the phrase "is a Palestinian city" was there for a long time before the recent edit wars began (see older talk discussions). Guy saw the page and strongly objected, and in order to reach a compromise I rephrased as shown (despite my objections). I did this to compromise on Nablus being a Palestinian city, not to open a new can of worms about Jordan being Palestine (which is how your proposal may be construed by some). Nablus is definitely bigger than Ramallah or Hebron according to all statistical bureaus I've seen. There are no official statistics about Amman (but I can tell you it is nowhere near as high as you claim), and I wouldn't touch that subject because they are considered by Jordan to be "Jordanians of Palestinian Origin" just like "American of Irish origin". And who are we to push our opinions on Jordan? As for what constitutes a Palestinian city, well, what constitutes a Norwegian city? I think the same logic can apply. Just my two agorot.... Ramallite ^(talk) 13:13, 12 August 2005 (UTC)

Encyclopaedia Britannica entry

I don't know how accurate or helpful this is. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 04:32, August 12, 2005 (UTC)

Nabulus, also spelled Nablus, biblical Hebrew Shechem, or Sichem, Greek Neapolis, city of central Palestine, the largest community of the West Bank (Judaea and Samaria) territory under Israeli administration since 1967 ...

The later city of Nabulus is not identical with the ancient site, but the two have been closely (though erroneously) linked for almost 2,000 years. Both rabbinic and early Christian literature commonly equated Nabulus with ancient Shechem, and Nabulus has been called Shekhem in Hebrew to the present. Founded under the auspices of the Roman emperor Vespasian in AD 72 and originally named Flavia Neapolis, it prospered because of its strategic site and the abundance of nearby springs. Later called Julia Neapolis, or simply Neapolis (Greek: “New City”), it is portrayed on the 6th-century Ma'daba map (see Ma'daba). It was conquered by the Arabs in AD 636; the modern name is an Arabic corruption of the Greek form. It was held by the Christian crusaders from 1099 until 1187; they called it Naples, and it was briefly the crusader capital.

Though it is the principal centre of the numerically tiny Samaritan community, Nabulus has been a Muslim Arab city for centuries. In modern times, it was part of the Palestine mandate from 1923 until 1948; taken by Arab forces in the Arab–Israeli war of 1948–49, it was subsequently annexed to Jordan. A principal centre of Arab opposition both to Britain and to the Zionist movement during the mandate, it was the scene of frequent unrest. Much of the city was destroyed in a severe earthquake in 1927. The economy, both under the mandate and under Jordanian rule, was based on agricultural trade and handicrafts. An important and long-established industry is the manufacture of soap from olive oil. A centre of terrorist activities against Israel from 1948 to 1967, it was the southern anchor of “the triangle” of Arab guerrilla centres (Nabulus, Tul Karm, Janin). Resistance to Israeli occupation continued after the Six-Day War of 1967, but by the early 1970s the situation had tempered; in 1972, Nabulus was the site of the first all-West Bank agricultural fair. After the war of October 1973, Nabulus once again became a centre of Arab unrest toward the occupying forces.

Merriam Webster Geographical Dictionary (©1997) entry

Shechem. See NĀBULUS.

Nābulus or Nablus; anc. Shechem; later Neapolis. Town, W Jordan, 30 mi. (48 km.) N of Jerusalem in a valley bet. Mts. Ebal and Gerizim; pop. (1987e) 106,944. Long thought to be ancient Shechem which actually was close by in hill country of Ephraim; important in early biblical period; home of Hebrew patriarch Jacob; site of Jacob's well, and tomb of his son Joseph; scene of King Jeroboam's rebellion, and, as chief city of Samaria, became his * [capital] of Israel 10th cent. B.C.; fell into decay following Assyrian conquest of Israel 8th cent. B.C.; refounded near the site of earlier town and renamed Neapolis by Roman Emperor Vespasian first cent. A.D.; occupied by Christians and suffered damage in Crusades 11th-12th cents.; included in British mandate of Palestine 1923-48; taken by Arabs 1949 in Arab-Israeli War and passed to Jordan; part of territory occupied by Israel in 1967; Israeli troops withdrawn late 1995.

Looks like someone needs to write an article on Jacob's well and Mount Ebal.  :-) Tomer ^TALK 04:55, August 12, 2005 (UTC)

Go for it, Tomer. ;-D SlimVirgin ^(talk) 04:57, August 12, 2005 (UTC)

Maybe after I figure out List of Jews... :-p Tomer ^TALK 04:59, August 12, 2005 (UTC)

Suggested compromise

Just a suggestion, taking into account both versions and the points raised on this page:

Nablus (Arabic: نابلس; pronounced Naablus), also called Shechem (Hebrew שכם pronounced Shchem); 32°13′N 35°16′E) is a major Palestinian city in the West Bank located 63 km north of Jerusalem, between Mount Ebal and Mount Gerizim. With over 100,000 inhabitants, it comprises one of the largest Palestinian population centers in the Middle East. The archaeological site known as Tell Balatah, about 2 km east of the modern city, marks the location of the biblical city of Shechem, [9] but the whole city is often referred to by its Hebrew name in Israel, as well as in some textbooks and maps elsewhere. An ancient city with a rich history, Nablus is a site of religious significance to the three major Abrahamic faiths, and is also a scene of political instability related to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 19:06, August 12, 2005 (UTC)

Minor question for those who have first-hand knowledge: Is Tel Balatah outside the city still? I'm not clear on whether or not Neapolis was founded 2 km to the west, and has long since grown as far as Tel Balatah and encircled it, or if it was founded to the west and has grown thus far, to the extent that Tel Balatah lies 2 km to the east of the present outskirts of the city. Tomer ^TALK 19:35, August 12, 2005 (UTC)

Thank you SlimVirgin for the paragraph, to looks good to me, I would only change it to read "...is a major Palestinian city of over 130,000 in the West Bank. It is located 63 km north of Jerusalem, between Mount Ebal and Mount Gerizim" and delete the sentence about "largest population center" because it is no longer necessary. Tomer, the site is actually outside the municipal boundaries of the city, but there are buildings scattered all over the landscape... If you take the main road through Nablus heading east, the city's buildings start to taper off except for some structures along the highway, then another concentration of buildings appear which belong to neighboring communities but have their own names and local municipalities (kind of like a US city and its separate suburbs except condensed into a much smaller geographical area). The ruins are located around there. I don't have a great memory right now because I haven't headed to the Balata area for years, there are too many Israeli checkpoints and restrictions that don't make it worth the hassle, but I hope this gives you a general idea. Ramallite ^(talk) 21:25, 12 August 2005 (UTC)

A lot of the problem seems to be about the name. How about: "Nablus (Arabic: نابلس; pronounced Naablus), the former Biblical City of Shechem (Hebrew שכם pronounced Shchem), a name which persists amongst Hebrew Speakers in the area; 32°13′ N 35°16′ E) is a major Palestinian city in the West Bank located 63 km north of Jerusalem, between Mount Ebal and Mount Gerizim." Now that really is pretty neutral. Uses both versions of the name, stresses that the name Shechem is 1. of historical importance, 2 used by only a subset of the population. Thoughts? 62.252.0.6 23:00, 12 August 2005 (UTC)

I'm still waiting for a source that calls the entire modern city of Nablus "Shechem". We should probably find that before starting any compromises.Heraclius 23:33, 12 August 2005 (UTC)

I'm normally with people on avoiding politically based revisionism but a google search shows that the two names do appear to be used as synonymous at least amongst the the fringe of the Christian and Jewish religious communities http://www.google.co.uk/search?hl=en&safe=off&q=Shechem+Nablus&btnG=Search&meta= on a good number of (usually Israeli sponsored) web sites. I think giving the alternative name equal provenance with the name that the twon is called by its inhabitants is wrong - but there is definitely a case of compormise here. The nearest analogy I could find is Mumbai and Chennai - both of which have two names (imperial and current) - both names are stated though a clear distinction is made between the two. This seems like a reasonable approach to me. 62.252.0.7 10:33, 13 August 2005 (UTC)

Thanks English dude. However, even that Google search does not convince me of its universal usage. All I see is an Israeli settler website and a biblical tour website that talks about the touring of ancient Shechem.Heraclius 15:49, 13 August 2005 (UTC)

Please re-read my version above - I explicitly dont say that there is even near universal usage.

"the former Biblical City of Shechem (Hebrew שכם pronounced Shchem), a name which persists amongst Hebrew Speakers in the area;" - ties to make it clear that this name is a minority one only. 62.252.0.7 17:27, 13 August 2005 (UTC)

Heraclius, correct me if I'm wrong, but you seem to be insisting that anyone who calls the city "Shkhem" or "Shechem" is "wrong". Confirm/deny? Tomer ^TALK 06:15, August 14, 2005 (UTC)

You don't seem to understand my question. I am asking for a source in ENGLISH that calls the ENTIRE modern city of Nablus (NOT THE BIBLICAL ARCHAEOLOGICAL SITE, NOT ISRAELI SETTLEMENTS NEARBY) Shechem. You don't really have to ask about my personal feelings toward the subject, as I'm sure you can guess those.Heraclius 06:19, 14 August 2005 (UTC)

Also, since Shechem (what an ugly word) itself is located in the village of Balatah, perhaps we should be having an argument at the Shechem article about including the words or Balatah.Heraclius 06:34, 14 August 2005 (UTC)

Both the EB and MWGD definitions make clear that the name Shechem refers to the modern city called Nablus. What point do you think you have? Your protest seems illogical to me. Tomer ^TALK 10:20, August 14, 2005 (UTC)

Eh?? The EB entry only gives Shechem as the "Biblical Hebrew" name and says the linkage with Nablus is erroneous. The MWGD only gives Shechem as the ancient name (that's what "anc." means). Who is being illogical here, I wonder? --Zero 11:09, 14 August 2005 (UTC)

No, the EB says the link is erroneous, but that it exists regardless. MWGD says that Nablus and ancient Shechem are the same place. It's pretty clear that both of them indicate that they're the same place. The difference is like Memphis/Nof/Mit Rahina, or like any of the many cities I listed up in the "Protection" section above... Tomer ^TALK 22:49, August 14, 2005 (UTC)

Saying that Nablus contains the site of ancient Shechem is not the same as saying "Nablus or Shechem". Please find a source in English that refers to the entire city of Nablus as Shechem.Heraclius 23:15, 14 August 2005 (UTC)

Zero's roadmap for starters. Tomer ^TALK 01:51, August 15, 2005 (UTC)

Demographics

Here, for adding when the article gets unprotected, are some older population figures I came across. In the first two, h=households.

• 1170: Muslims ???, Jews 0, Samaritans 100 (Benjamin of Tudela)
• 1533: Muslims 984h, Jews 71h, Christians 15h, Samaritans 29h (Cohen&Lewis, 1978)
• 1596: Muslims 796h, Jews 15h, Christians 18h, Samaritans 20h (Cohen&Lewis, 1978)
• 1856: Jews 59, Total 20,000 (Montefiore census in Parfitt 1987, Doumani IJMES 26 1994 1-17)
• 1908: No Jews (Ben Tzeri quoted in Parfitt 1987)
• 1922: Muslims 15238, Jews 16, Christians 544, Others 149 (census, others mostly Samaritans)
• 1931: Muslims 16708, Jews 6, Christians 617, Others 167 (census)
• end of 1946: Muslims 23740, Jews 0, Christians 690, Others 230 (British statistics)

--Zero 12:44, 15 August 2005 (UTC)

The reason for the low Jewish population in the 19th century (and maybe earlier), is that the Chief Rabbis of Jerusalem strongly discouraged Jews from settling there. The reason given was that "tempted by the advantages of Nablus, [the Jews of Jerusalem] would forsake the holy places". Parfitt comments: "It is probable that the Jerusalem Rabbis were motivated as much by economic factors as they were by such fine theological considerations." [T. Parfitt, The Jews in Palestine 1800-1882 (Royal Historical Society, 1987)] --Zero 02:32, 22 August 2005 (UTC)

Page protection

The page has been locked for nearly a week, so I'd like to unlock it unless there are reasonable objections. Let me know please if there are. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 02:12, August 18, 2005 (UTC)

We still haven't reached a compromise.Heraclius 02:13, 18 August 2005 (UTC)

Nablus (Arabic: نابلس; pronounced Naablus, Hebrew שכם pronounced Shchem); 32°13′N 35°16′E) is a major Palestinian city in the West Bank located 63 km north of Jerusalem, between Mount Ebal and Mount Gerizim. With over 100,000 inhabitants, it comprises one of the largest Palestinian population centers in the Middle East. The archaeological site known as Tell Balatah, about 2 km east of the modern city, marks the location of the biblical city of Shechem, [10] but the whole city is often referred to by its Hebrew name in Israel, as well as in some textbooks and maps elsewhere. An ancient city with a rich history, Nablus is a site of religious significance to the three major Abrahamic faiths, and is also a scene of political instability related to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

How about this? Shechem is bolded if that's all that is bothering people.Heraclius 15:58, 20 August 2005 (UTC)

My opinion doesn't count toward consensus because I protected, but for what it's worth, I'd say that's a fair compromise. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 02:53, August 21, 2005 (UTC)

Looks good to me too.--John Z 03:53, 21 August 2005 (UTC)

I'm fine with it too. שכם receives prominent mention in the currently-protected form of the article, as I (obviously, by now) feel it should, without overshadowing the fact that its population is presently nearly 100% Arab. Tomer ^TALK 23:23, August 21, 2005 (UTC)

It is not a major Palestinian city. I don't understand why Hearclius keeps pushing this pov. In no other article is this mentioned. Not in Hebron, Bethlehem, or Jericho. This is the only article that this is mentioned. Stop trying to prejudge the peace process and stop trying to erase Jewish history with Arab revisionism.

Guy Montag 06:59, 21 August 2005 (UTC)

Of course it is a Palestinian city. It has been a Palestinian city for many centuries. And given that you are the worst POV pusher here, your accusations of bias are a joke. --Zero 07:12, 21 August 2005 (UTC)

So is Amman, Jordan a Palestinian city too? When did population size determine whose city it was? What the hell do you mean by it bieng a Palestinian city for many centuries? There were no Palestinians until 50 years ago. It was a city with an Arab population, it was an Ottoman controlled city, but never a Palestinian city, unless you are talking about loose geography. Anyway, I respect you to much to waste my time bickering with you.

Guy Montag 07:18, 21 August 2005 (UTC)

Note that the Hebrew Wikipedia entry also calls it a Palestinian city, right in the first sentence. It's a simple fact, and your belief that it should be a Jewish city is of no interest. Even the official Israeli government position is that it's a Palestinian city. --Zero 09:37, 21 August 2005 (UTC)

I didn't say anything about putting Jewish in front of the city, you got that out of thin air.

Guy Montag 04:16, 22 August 2005 (UTC)

I don't think that's particularly relevant. I don't think anybody's saying it's a "Jewish city"; what Guy's saying, if I read him right, is that not mentioning שכם is an attempt to erase Jewish history in the city. If you've got a good source, perhaps you could find something that discusses the population composition at the time of the muslim conquest, that could be added. I'm glad you took the work to find these figures, even incomplete as they are, and think they'd make a fine addition to either the History or Demographics sections of the article. Tomer ^TALK 23:23, August 21, 2005 (UTC)

In case anyone's interested, I engaged in a little bit of playful vandalism with the proposed lead.  :-) Tomer ^TALK 23:28, August 21, 2005 (UTC)

LOL!! SlimVirgin ^(talk) 23:48, August 21, 2005 (UTC)

Heraclius (and anyone else who's still listening), a question: Would you be opposed to changing it from just "Nablus" to "Nāblus or Nābulus" at the beginning, and just referring to it thereafter as "Nāblus"? I'll be happy to do the change from "Nablus" to "Nāblus" throughout the article if nobody has a reasonable objection... Tomer ^TALK 23:33, August 21, 2005 (UTC)

Heraclius, would you be prepared to change it to "Nablus ... is a major Arab city in the West Bank ..." and then somewhere else in the lead say: "Its residents refer to themselves as Palestinian Arabs"? Guy, you raised the issue of Amman being a large Palestinian population center, but not a Palestinian city, but the difference is that Amman's status as part of Jordan isn't disputed, so we can't really compare it to Nablus. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 23:48, August 21, 2005 (UTC)

I am not proposing to make the introduction that Nablus is a Jewish city, just as I am not pushing for Jerusalem to be named the Eternal, indivisable Jewish capital. What I oppose is censoring information about Jewish history and prejudging the peace process by claiming that Nablus is a Palestinian city. On what basis? Population size? "Right"? Is there a "Palestine" to claim that this is a Palestinian city? No. What we have is a disputed city on disputed territory. This is the only article where it Palestinian comes before city, and there is no reason it should.

Guy Montag 04:16, 22 August 2005 (UTC)

I don't know if that would be a proper intro, SlimVirgin, because "Arab" is an ethnicity in this context, and not a nationality - it would be as if one were writing "Oslo is a Scandinavian city, it's inhabitants refer to themselves as Norwegians" or something like that. I agree with you about Amman, nobody knows for sure if Palestinians are a majority in Amman (Jordanians refuse to perform - or publicize the results of - a census), plus the fact is that Amman is in its own sovereign country (Jordan) and I think we can all agree that the occupied territories are not yet sovereign. Tomer, I can't hear you but I can read you :) I'm not sure I understand your proposal though, why change the name like that? Also, this is English Wikipedia (as I've been reminded myself in the past) so I'm not sure what you're getting at. Ramallite ^(talk) 00:11, 22 August 2005 (UTC)

• Ramallite, I think Guy's point was (either or both) that Palestinian isn't a nationality either, or that Nablus isn't recognized formally by everyone as part of Palestinian territory. The problem with my suggestion is that it's not only the residents of Nablus who refer to themselves as Palestinian Arabs; most of the world does too. I thought we could perhaps say: "With over 100,000 inhabitants, who refer to themselves as Palestinian Arabs, it comprises one of the largest Palestinian population centers in the Middle East ..." but that makes it sound as though only they call themselves that, and expanding it to say who else refers to them as Palestinian would make it an awkward sentence." SlimVirgin ^(talk) 00:22, August 22, 2005 (UTC)
• Ramallite, I've found several references that refer to the city as Nābulus instead of simply Nāblus (or simplier "Nablus"). I was just taking a stab at being an inclusionist.  :-) Tomer ^TALK 03:01, August 22, 2005 (UTC)

It seems that we are trying to accommodate a very small minority POV, and even though I wrote the compromise language that Guy accepted, I can understand why many will be offended at deleting that Nablus is a Palestinian city (not based on any biases or POV pushing, but just on present-day reality). And you're right, it seems like most attempts to accommodate these minority views will sound awkward. This is especially true considering the Hebrew entry on Shchem: "Shchem (Arabic: Nablus) is a Palestinian city of 300,000 (that lies) in the territory of the Palestinian Authority, 63 km north of Jerusalem". I almost think that, if we do want to accommodate everybody's ideology, that we may need to have two separate articles, one on "Nablus" with a linked "(See also Shechem) along with the intro that Heraclius and most of us prefer, and another almost identical article called "Shechem" (See also Nablus) with the intro that emphasizes the Jewish roots of the city. I know this may sound a little childish, but I'm just trying suggestions. Note I do not support removing references to the Jewish roots of Shechem in the Nablus article, but I also see, despite my desire to compromise, that removing reference to Nablus as being a Palestinian city is also POV pushing. Ok I need chocolate now. Ramallite ^(talk) 02:13, 22 August 2005 (UTC)

Yes, I agree, though I'm not so sure about creating an alternative page, as it would be a POV fork. I take the view that either the POV is significant enough to be accommodated in an article about Nablus/Shechem, or it isn't. Now you that you've mentioned chocolate, I need some too. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 02:53, August 22, 2005 (UTC)

How about: "The city of Nablus (Arabic: ... Hebrew: ... Shechem) is one of the largest Palestinian population centers of the West Bank."? That doesn't say the city is Palestinian but only says the population is Palestinian. --Zero 02:20, 22 August 2005 (UTC)

That would do it too. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 02:53, August 22, 2005 (UTC)

As long as it doesn't say Palestinian before city, you can word it as you want. I still believe that Rammalite's original compromise is the best.

Guy Montag 04:16, 22 August 2005 (UTC)

There seems to be a consensus of sorts, so I'm going to unlock it. I hope this won't be a case of "Cry Havoc! and let slip the dogs of war." ;-) SlimVirgin ^(talk) 02:54, August 23, 2005 (UTC)

Redoing the lead

I don't think Slim's statement that there's consensus is entirely accurate...at least not with how to open the article. The only consensus I think we've reached is that it's better to hash it out here than to engage in ultimately pointless revert wars. I hope.

Guy, you said you were happy with Ramallite's compromise version. I'm unclear. What, exactly, is Ramallite's compromise version? Tomer ^TALK 05:07, August 23, 2005 (UTC)

Rammalite's version says Nablus or Schechem is a major city in the West Bank and the second largest Palestinian population center in the Middle East.

Guy Montag 05:14, 23 August 2005 (UTC)

Guy, I'm having trouble finding this... Do you have a diff you can give us to look at? Tomer ^TALK 05:16, August 23, 2005 (UTC)

Are you saying that the way you've put the lead in is the compromise? I'm not arguing with you, just wondering... Tomer ^TALK 05:19, August 23, 2005 (UTC)

Here you go [11]. I added Middle East after your note about Amman.

Guy Montag 05:20, 23 August 2005 (UTC)

Truth be told, I like that rather better, since the current version sounds like an attempt to illegitimize calling the city שכם. There's a big difference between saying the city is not on the same site as the ancient city of שכם and characterizing anyone who calls it that as "Israeli settlers and their supporters". I've also corrected the pronunciation of the city to reflect its Hebrew pronunciation, as what was there before reflected its English pronunciation (of "Shechem", not of "שכם"), as though that were the Hebrew pronunciation. Tomer ^TALK 05:30, August 23, 2005 (UTC)

Thats what I've been trying to get across. Shechem is the English pronounciation, and Schem is the Hebrew pronounciation. That is why it is legitimate to include the English name of the city. In any case, Flavia Neapolis (in Arabic Nablus) is regarded historically to be an extension of the ancient settlement of Schem.

Guy Montag 05:37, 23 August 2005 (UTC)

Guy, I see you've removed my putting in the IPA pronunciation of שכם and I'm not sure why. What you've replaced it with, namely "Schem", will be interpreted by the vast majority of English speakers as שם which is, in a word, "wrong". Tomer ^TALK 05:38, August 23, 2005 (UTC)

Weird, mostly because it appears as a bunch of gobbelty gook on my screen. I don't know why but add it back if you wish.

Guy Montag 05:40, 23 August 2005 (UTC)

Hmmm. What browser are you using? I'll try forcing it to work with the Unicode template. Try it in a minute or so and see whether or not it works... it should look like a really stretched out s followed by xem. I'll put in "Škhem" after it, just in case it's messing up on other peoples' browsers as well... Tomer ^TALK 05:44, August 23, 2005 (UTC)

OK, I put it back in using {{Unicode}} instead of {{IPA}}. Hopefully it doesn't show up as jibberish anymore. If you don't recognize the symbols, that's something different. :-p I hadn't considered that initially, which is why I added in the "Shkhem" pronunciation. That aside, I see it now says that it's "one of the largest"...I thought Ramallite had pretty authoritatively established for us that it is the largest, so I don't see that "one of" really adds anything. There's something else I wanted to talk about wrt the opening, but I'll just post this and figure out what that was in a minute... Where'd Heraclius go? :-( Tomer ^TALK 05:52, August 23, 2005 (UTC)

Alright, thats fine.

Guy Montag 05:55, 23 August 2005 (UTC)

I remember now what it was. Two things, actually, not only is Shechem no longer linked in the lead, it isn't bolded. I'm not so concerned about the bolding, but it should at least be linked. Was this an oversight? Tomer ^TALK 05:56, August 23, 2005 (UTC)

I mean where it says "Ancient Shechem", not where it says Shechem in the opening "or Shechem", where I'd consider a link to be an invitation to start the whole rv war over. Tomer ^TALK 06:00, August 23, 2005 (UTC)

I suggest you fix it where you see that something is lacking. That way, I am not the only one editing.

Guy Montag 06:05, 23 August 2005 (UTC)

OK, nm. I redid what I was talking about, as well as wikifying the harim. The one question I still have, besides "Where did Heraclius go?", wrt the opening is, would you be opposed to including "sometimes Nābulus", probably inside the parentheses after Nablus. Also, of less importance, but probably worth mentioning, it's a long /a/, not a short one in the name, and while I'm not particularly interested in moving the article to a unicode-correct location, I don't think it would be such a bad idea to change "Nablus" to "Nāblus", not only at the beginning, but throughout the article. Gedächte? Tomer ^TALK 06:06, August 23, 2005 (UTC)

Brushing up on my Hebrew, Ani Mvin.

Guy Montag 06:09, 23 August 2005 (UTC)

OK, I just went ahead and did it. What a chore. I didn't realize how much more work it was going to be than I initially thought! Crazily, I only had to deal w/ 1 edit conflict!!! :-D Tomer ^TALK 06:20, August 23, 2005 (UTC)

I'm happy now w/ the lead. I don't know about you [Guy]. Since Heraclius has previously objected to certain portions thereof, however, I'd like to hear his views on it before we declare a lasting peace. Tomer ^TALK 06:30, August 23, 2005 (UTC)

Kol hakavod l'shneichem. A couple of points for your general knowledge. First, that "Nablus is a Palestinian city" was never in dispute during the Pal-Isr negotiations, so Guy's assertion that calling it Palestinian is pre-empting the peace process is moot. (I'm not saying these things to change the article, just responding to statements above to fill you guys in on some facts). Referring to Amman as a Palestinian population center is inflammatory and misleading, because while it *may* be true that there is a majority Palestinian population in Jordan, almost every single one of them (save a bunch of people in specific refugee camps) are full-fledged Jordanian citizens, and while they may be "Jordanians of Palestinian origin", they are still Jordanians first in as much as there are Israeli Jews of Polish origin (such as a few prime ministers I could mention). So let that argument go please. Jerusalem is regarded by us as occupied territory and part of the West Bank, and by most Israelis as not so. Therefore, as you can see, I left that part of the intro that (rightly) refers to Nablus as the "second" largest population center ambiguous as to whether E. Jerusalem is on the West Bank or not.Ramallite ^(talk) 13:42, 23 August 2005 (UTC)

I'm not going to let the "or Shechem" and "population center" thing stand. It's one or the other. That's what a compromise is.Heraclius 17:28, 23 August 2005 (UTC)

Censoring relevent information is not compromise.

Guy Montag 00:04, 24 August 2005 (UTC)

Maybe both Heraclius and Guy Montag would agree to content themselves to work on other parts of the article, and leave the lead alone? That way the rest of us aren't held hostage to their edit war. Tomer ^TALK 20:12, August 23, 2005 (UTC)

Just to get a clear view - Guy, you wrote above "I didn't say anything about putting Jewish in front of the city, you got that out of thin air" (also read Tomer's sentence below that and see if you agree with it), and you also say it's not a Palestinian city. So I'm only asking out of curiosity: what is Nablus then? If "Palestinian city" is a POV, what is the opposing POV in your view? ThanksRamallite ^(talk) 23:12, 23 August 2005 (UTC)

It is a disputed city. i've been hammering this into talk since this dispute began. I am just stating objective facts. It is a fact that it is a major city, it is a fact that it has a large Palestinian Arab population. It is not a fact that it is a Palestinian city. It is a fact that Schem is the Hebrew name and pronounciation and that Shechem is the English name and pronounciation. There is very little pov involved in any of this. People keep mistaking my ideological honesty in my user page as a statement that I will constantly push something despite the facts, when in fact I do all of this in good faith. I just want it to stay a "major city" until the whole Palestinian Israeli conflict is solved.

Guy Montag 23:57, 23 August 2005 (UTC)

I thought a compromise had been reached but it seems I may have unprotected too soon. If people want it locked again, let me know. I agree with Tomer's suggestion that Guy and Heraclius should agree not to edit the lead and allow others to sort it out. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 00:40, August 24, 2005 (UTC)

This page needs more flowers

Guy wants no compromise. My version was the compromise, but he keeps reverting to his version.Heraclius 00:42, 24 August 2005 (UTC)

Heraclius' edit seems fair. [12] Guy, it doesn't say Palestinian city, and it doesn't say only settlers and their supporters call it Shechem. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 00:48, August 24, 2005 (UTC)

Looks fair to me too. Jayjg ^(talk) 19:05, 24 August 2005 (UTC)

The lead dispute, as far as I am concerned, is over. Kol Hakavod Lanu! Anyways, I am off to the Ulpan.

22:06, 24 August 2005 (UTC)

Historical demographic information

Any thoughts on where Zero's demographics information should be included? I'm thinking it should go in the History section, and that the Demographics section should concentrate on the current demography of the city, and can reference the historical demography as a "see below" or whatnot. Tomer ^TALK 06:33, August 23, 2005 (UTC)

The spelling

What's the point of the accent on the name? It is almost never used except in a few very limited places where someone wants to suggest the pronunciation. None of the academic books or papers that I have (quite a lot) use it. The official web site doesn't use it. Why are we? --Zero 12:32, 23 August 2005 (UTC)

Are you talking about the macron? Tomer ^TALK 18:20, August 23, 2005 (UTC)

The macron on a indicates a long vowel and is in principle correct. The main reason it is not used in the mainstream press is simply that the character is not on standard US keyboards. The same way, the surname of Gerhard Schröder is often spelled Schroeder. It is a common fact of English that imported words "lose" their diacritics. However, Nāblus is the correct transcription of the Arabic name, and I feel that using it provides a more "professional" look to the article. I would be in favour, actually, of renaming the article to Nāblus (obviously with a redirect from Nablus), since the short-vowel version Nablus (نبلس) may mean something else, just like sheet with a short /i/ does in English. --Orzetto 13:52, 9 November 2005 (UTC)

I'm pretty sure he is, the macron is used to suggest pronunciation but is not the English language spelling of the name of the city. It's pretty awkward to change the name like that, actually. Ramallite ^(talk) 19:29, 23 August 2005 (UTC)

I don't care if someone takes it back out. It appears that way in other English encyclopediae as well as in my MW Geographical Dictionary. I put it in because nobody objected to it beforehand. For comparison tho, check out Tokyo, where it is clarified that the Japanese name uses long o's. As for the pronunciation, nobody knows what "naablus" means any more than "nablus". I don't know how /ā/ is pronounced in Nablus, whether it's /a:/ or /ɔ:/ or some vowel somewhere in between. Tomer ^TALK 20:10, August 23, 2005 (UTC)

Possible Plagiarism

Plagiarism may be the wrong term, but the Shechem section appears to be copied verbatim from other sources. I guess the wiki contributor could be the author of those sources, but that seems unlikely. I do not believe that the sources given below copied from the wikipedia since the Shechem section was added fairly recently.

1. At Shechem, Abram ... seen from that peak Source
2. The Bible states that Abraham ... Abimelech was crowned king Source
3. An influential commercial center ... by the Roman Emperor Hadrian Source --Jebro 21:03, 19 September 2005 (UTC)

Are you saying some of the sentences are identical? Jayjg ^(talk) 21:12, 19 September 2005 (UTC)

Yes -- here's a quote from the current Shechem section of this article (example 1 above):

at Shechem, Abram "built an altar to the Lord who had appeared to him . . . and had given that land to his descendants" (Gen 12:6-7). This was the first recorded place where Abram stopped when he and Sarah and Lot and their entourage entered the land. On this occasion, God confirmed to Abram the promise He had first made to him in Ur of the Chaldees, that He would give him this land. It is possible that Abram climbed nearby Mount Ebal to view his inheritance, much of which could be seen from that peak.

Here's the exact same text from Shechem - Walking in Their Sandals which includes a bibliography that does not have Wikipedia as an entry:

At Shechem, Abram "built an altar to the Lord who had appeared to him . . . and had given that land to his descendants" (Gen 12:6-7). This was the first recorded place where Abram stopped when he and Sarah and Lot and their entourage entered the land. On this occasion, God confirmed to Abram the promise He had first made to him in Ur of the Chaldees, that He would give him this land. It is possible that Abram climbed nearby Mount Ebal to view his inheritance, much of which could be seen from that peak.

--Jebro 21:59, 19 September 2005 (UTC)

I removed the questionable text from both this article and from Shechem where it had migrated -- Jebro 04:26, 22 September 2005 (UTC)

It doesn't matter how it is phrased, the information is the same, and this is from an open source website. Guy Montag 06:24, 22 September 2005 (UTC)

It does matter how the information is phrased. Wikipedia:How_to_write_a_great_article says, "You cannot simply cut-and-paste from one of the external resources mentioned above." Wikipedia:Policies_and_guidelines gives as key policy number three "Don't infringe copyrights."

You say, "This is from an open source website." Are you claiming that the information you cut-and-pasted came from an open source website? Because I've shown it comes from three websites -- and I'll now show that none of those are open source.

Walking in Their Sandals

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-- Jebro 16:10, 22 September 2005 (UTC)

"as well as serious mismanagment by the Palestinian Authority"

In response to my removal of the phrase above, User:Julian Diamond wrote on my talk page:

The passage you removed [. . .] is not really disputed by very many people. I understand it's a touchy subject but do you seriously doubt it's validity?

The claim may or may not be valid; I have no comment either way. However, it is not found in the cited UN document, and it should not be presented as if it were. If the UN has concluded in another document that mismanagement by the PA is responsible for the city's economic woes, that source needs to be cited; if a different source is making the claim, then it too should be attributed and cited separately. —Charles P. (Mirv) 22:40, 5 November 2005 (UTC)

Ah I see, I will change it so it is not attributed to the UN.- Moshe Constantine Hassan Al-Silverburg 22:56, 5 November 2005 (UTC)

K the passage no longer is attributed to the UN. The source is the cia world factbook and it is listed at the bottom.- Moshe Constantine Hassan Al-Silverburg 09:57, 6 November 2005 (UTC)

You can't avoid the responsibility to cite sources just by changing it to "most sources". --Zero 10:09, 6 November 2005 (UTC)

Do you have poor eyesight? just as I wrote right above your comment the source is the cia world factbook, despite being written by the cia they are an unbiased source that avoids controversy, the link is at the bottom of the article under external links.- Moshe Constantine Hassan Al-Silverburg 11:58, 6 November 2005 (UTC)

My eyes are fine, but I'm concerned about yours. Here is what your source says about the causes of the poor economy: "The downturn has been largely the result of the Israeli closure policies - the imposition of border closures in response to security incidents in Israel - which disrupted labor and commodity market relationships. In 2001, and even more severely in 2002, Israeli military measures in Palestine Authority areas resulted in the destruction of much capital plant, the disruption of administrative structure, and widespread business closures." Not a word about mismanagement by the Palestinian Authority. You are headed for a RfA listing. --Zero 12:31, 6 November 2005 (UTC)

Nevermind, I suppose they changed it since last time I looked at it, it was probably causing controversy or something. I guess you win, but don't say I told you so.- Moshe Constantine Hassan Al-Silverburg 21:23, 6 November 2005 (UTC)

Here is a link to a page illustrating my point [13], if anything there is a anti-israel slant but it still states that PA mismanagement is a secondary contribution. Paragraphs 6-9 contain some of the criticism directed towards the PA. In the future do not threaten me unless you know the whole story, I would have to be pretty stupid to purposely fabricate a source then include a link right next to the passage.- Moshe Constantine Hassan Al-Silverburg 22:43, 6 November 2005 (UTC)

Maps of West Bank.

There are 2 maps with the same filename but different sources. See what I mean:

• http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Image:We-map.png

This is the same basic map, but with the names of Judea and Samaria added:

• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:We-map.png

Be sure to capitalize the "W", or the map without the names of Judea and Samaria will be the one pulled up.

Please use the map at full size. Otherwise it paradoxically uses more kilobytes. Also, one can't read the text unless at full size. Can read "West Bank" at full size.

It doesn't matter to me which map is used. But until we find a better one we should probably use one of them for now.--Timeshifter 22:32, 2 November 2006 (UTC)

Thanks Timeshifter, my take on the issue is that it is better for the user to see both sides represented equally, however, the map with only the city names would do for now. Frankly, this discussion could go toward whatever we should include Palestinian Territories on the map and so on. --Palestine48 22:46, 02 November 2006

I agree that "Palestinian Territories" should also be on the map. Maybe at the top or bottom. Since Judea and Samaria are names on the map also. --Timeshifter 00:44, 3 November 2006 (UTC)

I added some info to the image caption. Here is the caption below as of now. Feel free to change it.

Map of the West Bank, with Nablus in the center north. The West Bank and the Gaza Strip make up the Palestinian territories. --Timeshifter 00:57, 3 November 2006 (UTC)

I felt quite free to change it. The map is there to illustrate Nablus' location, and the version to which you refer (including Judea & Samaria) is no longer included. Tewfik^Talk 19:05, 31 December 2006 (UTC)

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