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::::'''Who''' has agreed with your edits? How on earth can you claim you have consensus for your edits? And, as a matter of policy, secondary sources are preferred to primary sources. And you would be wise to take your own advice on 'promoting political views' here. <small style="border: 1px solid;padding:1px 3px;white-space:nowrap">'''[[User talk:Nableezy|<font color="#C11B17">nableezy</font>]]''' - 00:25, 26 February 2010 (UTC)</font></small> |
::::'''Who''' has agreed with your edits? How on earth can you claim you have consensus for your edits? And, as a matter of policy, secondary sources are preferred to primary sources. And you would be wise to take your own advice on 'promoting political views' here. <small style="border: 1px solid;padding:1px 3px;white-space:nowrap">'''[[User talk:Nableezy|<font color="#C11B17">nableezy</font>]]''' - 00:25, 26 February 2010 (UTC)</font></small> |
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::::::Everyone except you, Tiamut and Harlan. I hope you are not suggesting the the entire editors' community is the three of you... [[User:Drork|DrorK]] ([[User talk:Drork|talk]]) 09:05, 26 February 2010 (UTC) |
::::::Everyone except you, Tiamut and Harlan. I hope you are not suggesting the the entire editors' community is the three of you... [[User:Drork|DrorK]] ([[User talk:Drork|talk]]) 09:05, 26 February 2010 (UTC) |
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:::::::Really? You are beginning to make me concerned for your health. Have you suffered any blows to the head recently? Please, step away from the computer and seek medical attention. <small style="border: 1px solid;padding:1px 3px;white-space:nowrap">'''[[User talk:Nableezy|<font color="#C11B17">nableezy</font>]]''' - 14:25, 26 February 2010 (UTC)</font></small> |
Revision as of 14:25, 26 February 2010
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Template:Outline of knowledge coverage
The State of Palestine
All these entries ride rough-shod over international law and treaties. The entire entry is political and not about the legal entities. The Arabs were given land east of the Jordan for the Arab state in Palestine and the Jews all the land west of the Jordan for their state in Palestine. There is no Palestine as an entity save for that invented by Arafat in 1964. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 78.146.163.1 (talk) 21:59, 22 December 2009 (UTC)
Wikipedia policy regarding forks is very clear, information and references regarding the entity "Palestine" should be located in that article. The phrase "State of Palestine" should not be redirected to an article about negotiations for a final settlement on compensation, return of refugees, or delineation and demarcation of borders, when Palestine has already been extended de jure recognition by dozens of other states.
The Declaration of the State of Palestine was acknowledged by a numerical majority of the member states of the United Nations. The vote was 104 to 2, with 44 abstaining. Since then, the entity known as "Palestine" has been recognized as the "State of Palestine" by 117 countries. see Kurz, Anat N. (2005) Fatah and the Politics of Violence: The Institutionalization of a Popular Struggle. Sussex Academic Press. ISBN 1845190327, 9781845190323, page 123.
The 1989 Israeli Yearbooks on International Law contained many articles from experts discussing the implications of the Declaration of the State of Palestine. Dr. L.C. Green explained that "recognition of statehood is a matter of discretion, it is open to any existing state to accept as a state any entity it wishes, regardless of the existence of territory or an established government." see page 135-136 of Israel Yearbook on Human Rights, 1989, Yoram Dinstein, Mala Tabory eds., Martinus Nijhoff Publishers, 1990, ISBN 0792304500.
Palestinian Foreign Minister Riad al-Malki recently said that he and Palestinian Justice Minister Ali Kashan had provided proof that Palestine had been extended legal (de jure) recognition as a state by 67 countries, and had bilateral agreements with states in Latin America, Asia, Africa and Europe. see ICC prosecutor considers ‘Gaza war crimes’ probe. harlan (talk) 20:23, 4 June 2009 (UTC)
- There currently is no political entity, "Palestine." The State of Palestine is a proposal. I redirected this page back to Proposals for a Palestinian state, where it belongs. 6SJ7 (talk) 21:29, 4 June 2009 (UTC)
- I think that the best thing is to just restore the latest independent article version of "State of Palestine", perhaps with some more content and references, and was going to do it eventually. This seems to have more support than opposition at the Proposals page. As I said there, the AfD was mistaken and based on arguments not grounded in policy. A redirect to Palestine is problematic because the word has many meanings and that article is big, the Proposals article has most of the old content.John Z (talk) 21:35, 4 June 2009 (UTC)
- I disagree, the deletion was appropriate. The article in question was, in most versions, a work of fiction. Wikipedia should have facts, not fiction. 6SJ7 (talk) 21:39, 4 June 2009 (UTC)
- There was no deletion, the article was merged and redirected. That is a type of keep. (The merge could have been made clearer in the AfD / history, almost all the content now under the heading in the Proposals article was originally from the SoP article.)
- I disagree, the deletion was appropriate. The article in question was, in most versions, a work of fiction. Wikipedia should have facts, not fiction. 6SJ7 (talk) 21:39, 4 June 2009 (UTC)
- I think that the best thing is to just restore the latest independent article version of "State of Palestine", perhaps with some more content and references, and was going to do it eventually. This seems to have more support than opposition at the Proposals page. As I said there, the AfD was mistaken and based on arguments not grounded in policy. A redirect to Palestine is problematic because the word has many meanings and that article is big, the Proposals article has most of the old content.John Z (talk) 21:35, 4 June 2009 (UTC)
- There was no fiction at all in the SoP article that I noticed, which was well enough referenced (e.g. by me). Whether and in what way the "State of Palestine" "exists" or not is utterly irrelevant to whether we have an article on it. The opposition to the article seemed to be based on misunderstanding of wikipedia policy and reading things into the article which were not there. "Palestine" should be treated the same way as other notable, reliably-sourceable, partially recognized "states", with an article of its own based on reliable sources. The "State of Palestine" was a proposal when it was debated in the PNC in 1988, once the declaration was made, and Arafat made the President, etc it was clearly more than that, an existent organization, laying claim to territory which it did not then control any part of. (Compare the Baltic states, say, before the collapse of the Soviet Union, whose paper governments would similarly have deserved articles on a 1980s Wikipedia.) By the time of the UNGA resolution recognizing it, it was clearly notable (third party RS) and deserving of an article since then. Harlan has adduced numerous new sources which have persuaded some on this issue.John Z (talk) 23:12, 4 June 2009 (UTC)
- 6SJ7, it is a verifiable published fact that the UN has already acknowledged "Palestine" (not Proposals for a Palestinian state) as a political, economic, and legal "entity". see Non-member States and Entities It is also a verifiable and published fact that same "entity" has been extended de jure recognition as "a State" by at least 67 other nations, and de facto recognition by 50 or more other nations. It was even recognized as a sovereign state in a ruling handed down by the District Court in Jerusalem, until the Supreme Court decided it was a matter of political discretion and handed the question off to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. See J'lem court: Palestinian Authority meets criteria to be classed as a sovereign state. Therefore, it is "a fact" that one very NOTABLE meaning of the term "Palestine" is the existing political, economic, and legal entity known as the "State of Palestine". There is an existing article by that name, which mentions that "fact" with appropriate references in the lede and Current status sections. It also mentions the [Proposals for a Palestinian state] in line with the pre-1967 borders. That information takes up about 6 or 7 lines in the entire article, and about the same in the references section.
- There was no fiction at all in the SoP article that I noticed, which was well enough referenced (e.g. by me). Whether and in what way the "State of Palestine" "exists" or not is utterly irrelevant to whether we have an article on it. The opposition to the article seemed to be based on misunderstanding of wikipedia policy and reading things into the article which were not there. "Palestine" should be treated the same way as other notable, reliably-sourceable, partially recognized "states", with an article of its own based on reliable sources. The "State of Palestine" was a proposal when it was debated in the PNC in 1988, once the declaration was made, and Arafat made the President, etc it was clearly more than that, an existent organization, laying claim to territory which it did not then control any part of. (Compare the Baltic states, say, before the collapse of the Soviet Union, whose paper governments would similarly have deserved articles on a 1980s Wikipedia.) By the time of the UNGA resolution recognizing it, it was clearly notable (third party RS) and deserving of an article since then. Harlan has adduced numerous new sources which have persuaded some on this issue.John Z (talk) 23:12, 4 June 2009 (UTC)
- John Z, the political entity has already been added under the term "Palestine" on the disambiguation page. I have no objection to restoring a full-length independent article with links, and leaving a modest amount of information in the main article. In the mean time, the redirect to "Proposals for a Palestinian state" is definitely not appropriate, since "Palestine" is the most easily recognized name. harlan (talk) 23:27, 4 June 2009 (UTC)
The UN itself explains in its volumes on International law that it has no authority whatsoever to recognize an entity as a state. The power to legally recognize any entity as a state is vested exclusively in other States.
Wikipedia editors, Op-Ed pundits, and private political action committees have no standing to contest those decisions. For example, UNESCO's volume on International law says:
there is no definition binding on all members of the community of nations regarding the criteria for statehood, and as long as there is no organ which could in casu reach a binding decision on this matter, the decision as to the statehood of an entity depends upon the other members of the community of nations. The governments of various states are the organs responsible for reaching individual decisions in a given case. The decision-making is called the recognition of states. The term signifies the decision of the government of an already existing State to recognize another entity as a State. The act of recognition is in fact a legal decision which depends on the judgment of the recognizing government. see "IV Recognition of States", beginning on page 47 of International Law
I cited an expert opinion in my post above from Dr. L.C. Green which explained that "recognition of statehood is a matter of discretion, it is open to any existing state to accept as a state any entity it wishes, regardless of the existence of territory or an established government.". In this case, even an organ of the State of Israel - the District Court of Jerusalem - disagrees with your assessment. It ruled that Palestine fulfilled the criteria for a sovereign State. Over 100 States have already recognized Palestine. I happen to think that an article titled "Proposals for a Palestinian State" which says that over 100 countries have already recognized the State of Palestine presents the reader with a logical contradiction that makes Wikipedia look very stupid. harlan (talk) 19:20, 6 June 2009 (UTC)
article move to "Palestine"
This has been spoken to before, but the context was incomplete and confusing. I propose moving this article to "Palestine" and the current article by that name to "Palestine (region)" or "Palestine (Region)". This is the common name of the country, and when it is used it is most often used in reference to the country (or semi-country), not the region which includes, among others, modern Israel (ie. they are not including Israel in a reference to Palestine.) In addition, all United Nations actions refer to the country as Palestine. Agree/Disagree/Comment? Int21h (talk) 01:29, 26 November 2009 (UTC)
Most of the Palestine article isn't about a region. It is either about the Ottoman era country or the State of Palestine. The rest is simply an anachronistic regurgitation of History of the Southern Levant. During most of the periods mentioned in the article, "the region" wasn't known as Palestine.
I started some threads about that on the Palestine article talk page: |The_Statehood_Issue |Palestine (country)
harlan (talk) 19:15, 30 November 2009 (UTC)
Merger
I think the article "Palestinian National Authority" should be merged with this one.99.247.60.143 (talk) 01:19, 10 December 2009 (UTC)
Partition Plan
If we want to start adding explanations as to why the Arabs rejected the plan, we can't only mention the "unfair partition" claim; we'll also have to mention that they categorically rejected any sort of partition. They opposed any Jewish state on any part of Palestine, no matter how small, and refused any plan to make Palestine anything less than completely Arab. For instance, they rejected the Peel Commission (1937), which suggested a very, very small Jewish state.
So, we can add all these things, and make the background section long and irrelevant for this article, or we can just keep the stable version phrasing - there was a plan for two states, Arabs rejected it, only the Jewish state came to be. This isn't saying anything about why they rejected, or if they were justified in doing so, and the interested reader can go to the relevant article to find out. okedem (talk) 10:20, 11 December 2009 (UTC)
- There is no "IF" about it. Articles on Wikipedia grow and get broken down into multiple articles all the time. This article is subject to general sanctions. You are not going to delete published information by reliable sources about the Palestinians and the Palestinian leaders who accepted partition, so that you can say "the Arabs" rejected it. The UN Security Council also rejected the partition plan according to the Assistant US Secretary of State. Other editors DO NOT have to clear the inclusion of well sourced material from published sources through you.
- You are misquoting your sources too. John Wolffe says that while Zionists have attributed Palestinian rejection of the plan to intransigence, others have argued that it was rejected because it was unfair. Mehran Kamrava also said the plan was one-sided. I don't even know why this article cites Rubin, his area of expertise is Arab Theater, and that is the subject of his book. None of those authors said that ONLY the state of Israel emerged, talked about the Kings of Israel, and etc. There are a range of views. The union of the Kingdom of Palestine and Transjordan was formally recognized by other governments, and even the Gaza government was formally recognized by other Arab League member states. You do not get to sweep that material aside. harlan (talk) 14:04, 11 December 2009 (UTC)
- I'm not quoting any reason for rejection from the sources I added, so your claim is false. If I wanted to quote, I could explain that they opposed any partition at all. We're not discussing the merits of the plan, just what actually happened - the Arabs rejected it, in full. I'm sure some individual Arab supported it, but the leadership of both Palestine Arabs and the Arab League opposed. Are you claiming an independent Arab state emerged? The UNSC didn't reject the plan, it didn't vote on it at all.
- An in-depth discussion of the plan belongs in the article about it, not here. okedem (talk) 14:20, 11 December 2009 (UTC)
- In case you haven't read the article, John Quigley said the Palestinians based their claim to statehood on the law regarding the succession of states. There is a link in the article to a clipping from the Palestine Post about the Palestinians who said that "the Arabs" weren't their legal representatives, and that they wanted to save the remainder of their homeland by crowning Abdullah the King of Arab Palestine and making the two areas a "joint kingdom". That is exactly what happened. Jordan was a joint Kingdom of the East and West Banks, Palestine and Transjordan. see Jericho Declaration; and Hebron Mayor Challenges Egyptians to Tell the Truth [1]
- You are not allowing your sources to speak for themselves. John Wolffe says that while Zionists have attributed Palestinian rejection of the plan to intransigence, others have argued that it was rejected because it was unfair: it gave the majority of the land (56 percent) to the Jews, who at that stage legally owned only 7 percent of it, and remained a minority of the population. Mehran Kamrava also notes the disproportionate allocation under the plan, and adds that the area under Jewish control contained 45 percent of the Palestinian population. The proposed Arab state was only given 45 percent of the land, much of which was unfit for agriculture. Jaffa, though geographically separated, was to be part of the Arab state. You have deleted that several times now, and I don't think your reasons are educational. harlan (talk) 15:27, 11 December 2009 (UTC)
- You don't seem to understand something - when one cites a source, one does not have to repeat everything that source says. I cite these sources for the fact that the Arabs rejected the plan. I didn't go into the reasons for it, as this is not the place. Some claim it's because of unfair allocation, but the Arabs themselves (like the Arab Higher Commission) opposed any partition at all, on principle, which is why they also opposed the 1937 plan, which gave the Jews only a very small part of Palestine, much smaller than the 1947 plan. The place for reasons and motivations is the article about the plan, not this one.
- I'm sure some Arabs supported partition, but minorities aren't the point - the leadership is. What the Arabs of Palestine wanted to do with regards to Transjordan isn't the issue here - we're discussing the partition plan, that they rejected. After their rejection backfired, and they ended up with much less of what they could've had, they wanted to "save" the remainder, but that's not the topic of this section.
- As you seem to insist on these things, I've added the fact that they opposed any partition. It seems relevant to me, as you want more details in that section, but I prefer the original version - just citing the facts - there was a plan, Jews supported, Arabs rejected.
- Anyway, for accuracy, I've clarified who exactly rejected the plan. okedem (talk) 15:42, 11 December 2009 (UTC)
Issues for Moderation
I'm going to insist on a lot of things. There are a range of published views, like those of Simha Flapan in "The Birth of Israel: Myths and Realities", which say that it is only a myth that the Jews accepted partition and that the Arabs rejected it. One of the sources that you introduced, Wolff, discusses Plan Dalet. You cannot decide to exclude significant viewpoints about such things by simply trying to bully other editors.
For example, Wahlid Kahlidi wrote that partition was simply the first step in Ben Gurion's plan for Palestine. Kahlidi said that Ben Gurion had adopted Avnir's plans to take over the rest of the territory by force. Two of his papers on that subject are available online: Revisiting the UNGA Partition Resolution and Plan Dalet Revisited. In 1937-1938 the Jewish Agency developed its own partition proposal. see Partner to Partition, Yossi Katz, Frank Cass, 1998. In "Letters to Paula and the Children (page 153), Ben Gurion wrote that he was in favor of partition because he didn't envision a partial Jewish state as the end of the process. He said that "What we want is not that the country be united and whole, but that the united and whole country be Jewish." He explained that a first-class Jewish army would permit the Zionists to settle in the rest of the country and complete the historic task of redeeming the entire land with or without the consent of the Arabs.
Where did you get the idea that a minority favored partition? The majority of the Arab citizens of the former mandate formed a state under the leadership of Abdullah. The Encyclopedia of the Modern Middle East and North Africa, 2nd Revised edition edition (1 Jun 2004), published by Macmillan Library Reference;ISBN: 0028657691, has an article on the All-Palestine Government. It says King Abdullah of Transjordan's plan was to accept the partition of Palestine with the Jews and to incorporate the Arab part into his kingdom.
You've deleted this information several times now: Ian Bickerton says that few Palestinians joined the Arab Liberation Army because they suspected that the other Arab States did not plan on an independent Palestinian state. Bickerton says for that reason many Palestinians favored partition and indicated a willingness to live alongside a Jewish state. See "A Concise History of the Arab-Israeli Conflict,(4th Edition), Ian J. Bickerton, and Carla L. Klausner, Prentice Hall, 2001, ISBN: 0130903035, page 88. He also mentions that the Nashashibi family backed King Abdullah and union with Transjordan. ibid, page 103 Abdullah appointed Ibrahim Hashem Pasha as the Governor of the Arab areas occupied by troops of the Arab League. He was a former Prime Minister of Transjordan who supported partition of Palestine as proposed by the Peel Commission and the United Nations. Fakhri Nashashibi and Ragheb Bey Nashashibi were leaders of the movement that opposed the Mufti during the mandate period. Both men accepted partition. Bey was the mayor of Jerusalem. He resigned from the Arab Higher Committee because he accepted the United Nations partition proposal. Fu’ad Nasar, the Secretary of Arab Workers Congress, also accepted partition. The United States declined to recognize the All-Palestine government in Gaza by explaining that it had accepted the UN Mediator's proposal. The Mediator had recommended that Palestine, as defined in the original Mandate including Transjordan, might form a union. See memo from Acting Secretary Lovett to Certain Diplomatic Offices, Foreign relations of the United States, 1949. The Near East, South Asia, and Africa, Volume VI, pages 1447-48 Bernadotte's diary said the Mufti had lost credibility on account of his unrealistic predictions regarding the defeat of the Jewish militias. Bernadotte noted "It would seem as though in existing circumstances most of the Palestinian Arabs would be quite content to be incorporated in Transjordan." See Folke Bernadotte, "To Jerusalem", Hodder and Stoughton, 1951, pages 112-13
You also deleted this statement and left the reference dangling: "Avi Plascov said that the Palestinian Congresses were conducted according to prevailing Arab political custom, and that contrary to the widely held belief outside Jordan, the representatives did reflect the feelings of a large segment of the population." See "The Palestinian Refugees In Jordan 1948-1957, Routledge, 1981, ISBN: 0714631205, pages 11-16 harlan (talk) 16:55, 11 December 2009 (UTC)
- You're not answering to the point. Whatever reasons or motives the Jews had for accepting the plan are not relevant here; the fact is - they accepted. The Arabs, though perhaps not as coherently led as the Jews, still had some leadership, in form of the Higher Committee. That body vehemently rejected the plan, and rejected any form of partition. Did some Arabs dissent? Sure, just like some Jews dissented. But did those Arab dissenters do anything about it? Did they form an alternative government? Any sort of movement to accept the plan? Of course not. They continued to stand behind the Mufti, even after his collaboration with the Nazis, calling for the eradication of all Jews. Apparently, Palestine's Arabs didn't find that too sensational.
- If the only leadership they had at the time rejected the plan, and no alternative voices gained popular support, saying "the Arabs rejected the plan" remains accurate. Regardless, I have clarified this in the text.
- The Arabs of Palestine might have wanted a State under the leadership of Abdullah, but they wanted that state to encompass all of Palestine, not just the 45% allocated in the plan. What they did after the war isn't the issue here, but their reaction to the 1947 plan. You say that "King Abdullah of Transjordan's plan was to accept the partition of Palestine", but that's inaccurate. He wanted to take over the territory, and was willing to share it with a Jewish state, but he, too, opposed a new independent Arab state in Palestine. Officially, he opposed partition, along with the other Arab leaders ([2]). okedem (talk) 18:00, 11 December 2009 (UTC)
Okedem it is a misuse of the talk page to continue to discuss verifiable published material from reliable sources that represent a range of opposing viewpoints. Abdullah was declared the King of Arab Palestine by a Palestinian Congress. That was an act of state that happened before any annexation or union with Transjordan ever occurred and it is reported by a host of reliable sources. WP:NPOV says that significant published viewpoints must all be fairly represented, as far as possible, without bias -- and that is NON-NEGOTIABLE. John Quigley, Dean Rusk, Simha Flapan, David Ben Gurion, The Palestine Post, The Encyclopedia of the Modern Middle East and North Africa, and Walid Khalidi are sources that meet the burden of proof (verifiability) for inclusion in THIS article. The policy says that if a section of the article gets too big, it gets spun-off and linked back to the main article. See WP:SUMMARY harlan (talk) 19:10, 11 December 2009 (UTC)
- Again, your post is so confused I don't understand what you want. What point are you arguing? What phrasing would you like to change? What is this related to? okedem (talk) 19:34, 11 December 2009 (UTC)
Dean Rusk memos
Okedem keeps saying that it is important to say "the Arabs" rejected partition to explain why no Arab state was established. He has deleted references to the official historical record published by the U.S. State Department, even though it is part of a narrative about the U.S., British, and French-backed plan to partition Palestine on a de facto basis between the Jewish Agency and Transjordan.
Future Secretary of State, Dean Rusk, was the Assistant Secretary of State for United Nations Affairs during the Truman administration. He reported that the United Nations Security Council refused to accept the General Assembly resolution on partition as the basis for Security Council action. He said that the majority of the members indicated that they would never vote for partition. See Foreign relations of the United States, 1948. The Near East, South Asia, and Africa, Volume V, Part 2, page Page 750
The UN Security Council members were NOT intransigent "Arabs". Rusk commented on the Jewish Agency's refusal to accept on-the-spot truce negotiations by the UN on May 3, 1948. He also commented on reports that had been forwarded from Palestine, written by U.S. Consul General Wasson, and the Commanding British General Officer about the probable course of military events after British withdrawal on May 15 1948. He also mentioned an earlier report about a plan for de facto partition:
If these predictions come true, we shall find ourselves in the UN confronted by a very anomalous situation. The Jews will be the actual aggressors against the Arabs. However, the Jews will claim that they are merely defending the boundaries of a state which were traced by the UN and approved, at least in principle, by two-thirds of the UN membership. The question which will confront the SC in scarcely ten days' time will be whether Jewish armed attack on Arab communities in Palestine is legitimate or whether it constitutes such a threat to international peace and security as to call for coercive measures by the Security Council.
The situation may be made more difficult and less clear-cut if, as is probable, Arab armies from outside Palestine cross the frontier to aid their disorganized and demoralized brethren who will be the objects of Jewish attack. In the event of such Arab outside aid the Jews will come running to the Security Council with the claim that their state is the object of armed aggression and will use every means to obscure the fact that it is their own armed aggression against the Arabs inside Palestine which is the cause of Arab counter-attack. ...
...Given this almost intolerable situation, the wisest course of action might be for the United States and Great Britain, with the assistance of France, to undertake immediate diplomatic action seeking to work out a modus vivendi between Abdullah of Transjordan and the Jewish Agency. This modus vivendi would call for, in effect, a de facto partition of Palestine along the lines traced by Sir Arthur Creech Jones in his remark to Ambassador Parodi on May 2, as indicated on Page 3 of USUN's telegram [549], May 2, which has been drawn to your attention. See Memo from Rusk to the Under Secretary of State Lovett, May 4, 1948, Subject: Future Course of Events in Palestine. Foreign relations of the United States, 1948. The Near East, South Asia, and Africa , Volume V, Part 2, page 848
If we are going to pillory "the Arabs", then I'm going to insist that this published viewpoint also be included. harlan (talk) 14:38, 11 December 2009 (UTC)
- Both you, and, earlier, Tiamut, made a sin of omission. Mention the partition plan for two states, and then say only the Jewish state emerged. Careful to omit the fact that the Arabs (both the Arab Higher Committee in Palestine, and the Arab League) rejected the plan categorically (opposing it on principle, not on points of exactly how much land was allocated to each). By this tactic, you'd like the reader to assume that only a Jewish state was created because the evil Jews wouldn't let the Arabs create their state. Extremely deceitful, and unacceptable.
- The relevant sides here the Arabs and Jews, not the security council, which simply didn't discuss this. Maybe if it had, it would have rejected it, and maybe not (perhaps the Soviet Union, the US, and France, all supporting the plan, would have managed to convince other members). As they didn't discuss it, "what would have been" is a matter of scholarly debate, and ridiculously far outside the scope of this article.
- I've added another couple of sources about the Arab response. Don't like - tough. I've also added a source explaining the painfully obvious to everyone but harlan - no Arab state was created in Palestine following the war. okedem (talk) 14:50, 11 December 2009 (UTC)
- It's you that's being decietful, attempting to phrase the narrative in the propaganda terms of one side. There are lots of reasons why no Arab state was born, but the rejection of the partition (by both sides) doesn't appear to have much to do with it. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.159.70.117 (talk) 17:54, 11 December 2009 (UTC)
- Okedem, the Arab communities of Palestine were recognized as an independent nation in 1920. The record of the 1947 General Assembly special session on Palestine states a very obvious legal fact: "The Egyptian representative explained, in reply to various statements, that the Arab States did not represent the Palestinian Arab population." see YEARBOOK of the UNITED NATIONS, 1946-47. [3]
- After the Mandate was terminated, the Arab Higher Committee advised the Security Council that it formed a coalition that represented the local districts.[4] The Mayor of Hebron and the Jericho Congress were on very firm legal ground when they asserted their own independence; denounced the other Arab States and the "Gaza puppet government"; and said they were going to pursue a peaceful solution. See the Palestine Post article "Hebron Mayor Challenges Eygptian Government to tell the Truth." [5] West Virginia did the same thing during the US Civil War. The same newspaper clipping reports that Abdullah, the King of Transjordan, had just been declared the King of Arab Palestine and a joint kingdom was under consideration. That means a change of sovereignty had already legally occurred in Central Palestine, before the union was formed and the territory was annexed. Jordan was a new Arab state that was formed by the communities of the Palestine mandate.
- The source you were citing, Don Rubin, did not say many of the things that were attributed to him. The Google search terms embedded in your subsequent links indicate that you simply looked for any source that said the partition plan was rejected. However, you keep deleting the statements made by Wolffe and Kamrava which say the terms of the partition plan were unreasonable. Don Rubin, John Wolffe, and Mehran Kamrava did not mention the Arab Higher Committee or the Arab League. harlan (talk) 18:31, 11 December 2009 (UTC)
- The only recognized leadership of Palestine's Arabs at the time was the Higher Committee, and they rejected the plan. I've yet to see a single source of any notable Arab leader saying - "I support the UN partition plan". Privately, some said other things, but their public statements are what matters, and those were all terribly negative of partition.
- We're discussing the reaction to the UN plan, approved on 29/11/1947. Whatever happened in the middle of the war, as your clipping reports, and as you discuss in your second paragraph, has no bearing on the subject. Please keep your comments confined to the subject at hand. I must also note that your use of primary sources, like newspaper clippings, or letters, is strictly forbidden WP:OR. We are not qualified to judge such sources, and must rely on experts, like historians, to analyze them, and publish their opinions.
- I don't recall citing Rubin, actually. I cited Wolffe, Plascov, Bovis, Kamrava and Golan (and Robins on the talk page).
- I just included those terms so it would highlight the relevant paragraphs, to make it easier for the readers to check that the source actually supports the assertion, and find the relevant pages of the book; I try to search for things like "Arab reaction", etc. But that's irrelevant - are you disputing the veracity of the sources? Can you provide books that say the Arabs accepted the plan (I'll save you the trouble - I tried to find such books, and failed)? This is a complete non-issue.
- I deleted their statements because there's no need to discuss the reasons. In this article, it makes much more sense to stick to the cold, hard facts - they rejected the plan. I don't want to discuss why - sure, you can claim the terms were unreasonable, though even that's debatable - you count the contemporary Jewish population of Palestine, but don't take into account that the Jewish state was supposed to be the home of millions of Jews who would emigrate to it, drastically changing the composition. The Arabs also rejected the Peel partition plan, which gave Jews much less land; they actually rejected any partition, on principle, so the details of the plan aren't even the issue. Maybe they rejected because their leader, Haj' Amin, was essentially an honorary Nazi. Could be many reasons, and I'm not judging them here - and neither should you, by trying to rationalize and provide excuses for them. The discussion of this (using secondary sources, I remind you), belongs in the article about the partition plan.
- Some of the sources don't explicitly discuss the Committee, because they don't delve into details of this. That's why I added two other sources, Plascov and Bovis, who explain it more deeply. What's the problem with that? Are you denying that the Committee rejected the plan? Or are you just trying to sideline the discussion? okedem (talk) 20:08, 11 December 2009 (UTC)
- In the reply to the UNSC that harlan provided above, the Arab Higher Committee says "Arabs claim to have authority over all the area of Palestine as being the political representative of the overwhelming majority of the population. They regard Palestine a one unit". That sure sounds like a rejection of the Partition Plan. No More Mr Nice Guy (talk) 22:22, 11 December 2009 (UTC)
(outdent) In Secretary Lovett's memo to Diplomatic Offices declining recognition of the All-Palestine government, he noted: '"Govt" apparently being set up without prior consultation wishes Arab Palestinians.' Conversely, the State Department told the British and French Foreign Ministers that the union between Arab Palestine and Transjordan "represented a logical development of the situation which took place as a result of a free expression of the will of the people." harlan (talk) 22:57, 11 December 2009 (UTC)
Moved for discussion
Neither the Montevideo Convention nor the Foreign Relations Law of the United States require that a State actually conduct its own foreign relations. They only require that a state be capable of conducting its own foreign relations. Nothing prevents states from recognizing the PA as the government of the State of Palestine.
I moved this here for discussion:
Created by the Oslo Accords signed between Israel and the PLO, the PA is not a synonym for the government of Palestine, though it is associated with it.
Other states and international organizations have recognized the Palestinian Authority as the government of the State of Palestine. The Forward article [6] said that the Palestinian Authority has been working to expand the number of countries that recognize Palestine as a country and that "Costa Rica, a small Central American country, decided to open official ties with a “state of Palestine” through a document signed February 5 by Costa Rica’s ambassador to the United Nations and Riyad Mansour, the P.A.’s U.N. mission chief."
The Today's Zaman article [7] said the Palestinian Justice Minister and Palestinian Foreign Minister announced that "the Palestinian Authority submitted documents recognizing the ICC's authority."; and also announced "that they had submitted documents to Moreno-Ocampo that proved Palestine was a legal state".
During the Security Council hearings regarding Israel's application for membership in the UN, the US Ambassador explained:
[W]e already have, among the members of the United Nations, some political entities which do not possess full sovereign power to form their own international policy, which traditionally has been considered characteristic of a State. We know however, that neither at San Francisco nor subsequently has the United Nations considered that complete freedom to frame and manage one's own foreign policy was an essential requisite of United Nations membership.... ...The reason for which I mention the qualification of this aspect of the traditional definition of a State is to underline the point that the term "State", as used and applied in Article 4 of the Charter of the United Nations, may not be wholly identical with the term "State" as it is used and defined in classic textbooks on international law." See page 12 of S/PV.383, 2 December 1948[8]
Dr. L.C. Green explained that "recognition of statehood is a matter of discretion, it is open to any existing state to accept as a state any entity it wishes, regardless of the existence of territory or an established government." see page 135-136 of Israel Yearbook on Human Rights, 1989, Yoram Dinstein, Mala Tabory eds., Martinus Nijhoff Publishers, 1990, ISBN 0792304500 harlan (talk) 18:56, 19 December 2009 (UTC)
Deletion of Comments Made by Kamrava, Flapan, Weizmann, Khalaf, Caplan, and etc.
Okedem you cannot use the neutral voice of the article to make a controversial statement of opinion. You have to attribute it to the author. You certainly don't get to delete material and references that support any opposing points of view. harlan (talk) 13:27, 22 December 2009 (UTC)
- The statement that the Arabs rejected the plan is well sourced. Even the source you mention, Wolffe, doesn't dispute that the Arabs rejected the plan, but only says they did it because it wasn't fair, not due to "intransigence" - and our article doesn't claim any such thing anyway. okedem (talk) 14:03, 22 December 2009 (UTC)
- You have not addressed the arbitrary deletion of sourced material which expresses the published view that Jewish acceptance and Arab rejection of partition is a myth. I've asked you to attribute the comment to an author, and to stop speaking about non-factual matters of opinion in the voice of the encyclopedia. harlan (talk) 14:17, 22 December 2009 (UTC)
- This is not a controversial statement of opinion. It is recognized fact. The authors you wish to source as definitive statements of fact are indeed the controversial deviants from the historically accepted sequence of events. If you wish to present their opinion, it needs to be presented neutrally, by stating that the authors stated that the evil Zionists made up the scheme to blame it on the Arabs, blah blah blah. The current version of the article does this appropriately. In terms of the fact that the Arabs rejected the plan, this is not controversial, it is widely accepted and as such widely sourced, and it is completely inappropriate of you to be editing the article to make it seem as if it is a deviant claim made by an individual source. Breein1007 (talk) 23:53, 22 December 2009 (UTC)
- That statement has not changed, but it has been challenged multiple times. Okedem has attributed it to several different sources, but it turned out they said nothing of the kind. Several of them actually labeled it an outright myth. So it certainly is a controversial opinion. The article also references several sources including the US State Department and Palestine Post that noted the announcement of Abdullah as the "King of Arab Palestine" and a subsequent union between Arab Palestine and Transjordan. It also cites several sources which say that many states extended de jure and de facto recognition to the union. So, you need to specify which sources say no Arab state materialized and attribute that opinion to the author in the text. The Wikipeda policy contained in WP:CITE#CHALLENGED requires you to make your writing verifiable by attributing controversial opinions to their authors in the text:
find a specific person or group who holds that opinion and give a citation to a reputable publication in which they express that opinion. Remember that Wikipedia is not a place for expressing your own opinions or for original research. Opinions, data and statistics, and statements based on someone's scientific work should be cited and attributed to their authors in the text.
- That statement has not changed, but it has been challenged multiple times. Okedem has attributed it to several different sources, but it turned out they said nothing of the kind. Several of them actually labeled it an outright myth. So it certainly is a controversial opinion. The article also references several sources including the US State Department and Palestine Post that noted the announcement of Abdullah as the "King of Arab Palestine" and a subsequent union between Arab Palestine and Transjordan. It also cites several sources which say that many states extended de jure and de facto recognition to the union. So, you need to specify which sources say no Arab state materialized and attribute that opinion to the author in the text. The Wikipeda policy contained in WP:CITE#CHALLENGED requires you to make your writing verifiable by attributing controversial opinions to their authors in the text:
- Okedem is currently citing Bovis, page 40, completely out of context as if he were talking about the UN partition plan. He is actually talking about the British proposal that the Jewish Agency rejected. His statement in that connection is noted elsewhere in the article and attributed as his opinion.
- In 1937 the US Consul General at Jerusalem told the State Department that the Mufti refused the principle of partition and declined to consider it. He said the Emir Abdullah urged acceptance on the ground that realities must be faced, but wanted modification of the proposed boundaries and Arab administrations in the the neutral enclave. The Consul also noted that Nashashibi side-stepped the principle, but was willing to negotiate for favorable modifications.[9] Abdullah and Nashashibi were Arab leaders. harlan (talk) 07:35, 4 January 2010 (UTC)
Recognition
Night w (talk) 16:28, 30 December 2009 (UTC)
I just made edits to the list of states that recognise the state. See this talk page for more background. The number was 114 before, and I reduced it to 101. The source used for the previous figure didn't include a list of states, while the source for the latter does. The number 101 can be increased if other editors can find supplementary sources for each individual case, which--given the plague of conflicting sources regarding the figure--I think is the best way to approach the matter. I also removed the figure pertaining to the number of states with other kinds of diplomatic ties to the SOP. I did this because of inaccuracies regarding the aforementioned list, sources that don't link anywhere of value, sources with dead links, and contradictions with the map shown beside it (which are all still an issue).
The map now (and indeed also did before) shows data that contradicts the information in the list. This is probably due to the inaccuracies of the previous list, although it doesn't show 114 as having recognised. It needs to be updated to mirror the sourced information we have on the list, but I don't know anything about editing images on Wikipedia... so if anybody could lend a hand it'd be greatly appreciated. Cheers!
- Thanks for edits and comments. There is one thing though. You moved Turkmenistan out of the section of countries that recognize Palestine as a state. All member states of the OIC recognize Palestine as a state, given that it is a member state of the OIC itself. So I would like to move it back and add other OIC members that may not be listed there currently as well. Hope that's cool. Tiamuttalk 16:44, 30 December 2009 (UTC)
- Just to clarify, are you basing formal recognition by each individual government of the OIC on the fact that the organisation as a whole includes it as a member state? I'm all for increasing the number, but unless the source plainly states that all members of the OIC recognise the SOP's sovereignty, I think the one we have now could be viewed as WP:Synthesis or something... Also, I've readded the source you removed, as it's the most authoratative one we have on the subject. It's a government website, so it's certainly not based on Wikipedia ;P
- I'll leave the OIC additions in, but I think if Turkmenistan, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan and Azerbaijan all recognise the SOP, then we should be able to find some credible source plainly stating so. If not, I don't see any basis for keeping them on the list. Night w (talk) 05:00, 31 December 2009 (UTC)
- Hi NightW. I'm sorry I missed you question. Actually, I'm basing the inclusion of the four OIC states on my knowledge of OIC policy. I realie that's insufficient, so I looked for a source confirming that it is indeed the case that all OIC member states recognize Palestine as a state, and I found this: "The 21 other states of the Arab League, for example, already recognise Palestine as a state. So too do the 56 other member states of the Organisation of the Islamic Conference (OIC)." If you need a better source, let me know. For now I'll include it in the footnotes for those entries. Thanks for the question. Tiamuttalk 10:04, 1 January 2010 (UTC)
- Many states have a published policy of neither confirming nor denying their recognition of other states, and of NEVER recognizing other governments. Francis Boyle was the legal counsel to the PLO. He published an article which said the number of other states that had recognized the State of Palestine was 114. Under customary international law, diplomatic recognition and recognition of a government may be conditional or revocable. However, recognition of statehood (another people) is not. The Montevideo Convention reflects customary state practice "The recognition of a state merely signifies that the state which recognizes it accepts the personality of the other with all the rights and duties determined by international law. Recognition is unconditional and irrevocable."[10] You can't really lower Boyle's number without making some WP:Synth assumptions. harlan (talk) 01:56, 1 January 2010 (UTC)
- Boyle's article doesn't mention the names of any states, so we can't give the figure 114 and list 105 names. And if a state has not (to quote the clarifyer in the section we're talking about) "formally recognised" the State of Palestine--and thereby rendering any attempts to later confirm or deny neither necessary nor consequential (because, as you say, the act of recognition of statehood is irrevocable)--then it doesn't belong on the list. We need a reference that plainly states that the 4 aforementioned Central Asian states have formally recognised the State of Palestine. Even just details of an embassy or something would convince me, altho I can't speak for other editors. Night w (talk) 05:08, 1 January 2010 (UTC)
That's fine with me Tiamut! Thanks! Night w (talk) 12:19, 1 January 2010 (UTC)
(outdent) Yes we can. I'll cite and quote both Boyle and Talmon to explain that many states have adopted a policy against making formal announcements. harlan (talk) 16:31, 2 February 2010 (UTC)
Does anyone know how to edit the map? The following cases don't match up with the data we have in the article:
- Argentina — has General Delegation (source)---light green
- Peru — has Special Delegation (source)---brown
- Georgia — has diplomatic relations (source)---?
- Singapore — I can't find any sources showing any diplomatic ties... ---grey (at least for now)
- Bosnia — Embassy (source)---?
I've searched and searched for info on Palestinian delegations in the following two states, but I've come up blank. Does anyone know if either has a special delegate? Otherwise, I'd consider removing them.
- Bolivia
- Singapore
If anybody can help out with the map, I'd greatly appreciate it! I have no idea about editing images. Also, does anyone know why Ireland and Mexico are listed separately in the second list? Night w (talk) 13:29, 1 January 2010 (UTC)
- Unfortunately, I don't know how to edit the map. I think it has to be done by taking the file into a program that will allow for re-colouring of the bits that need to be recoloured and then uploading it as a new file.
- I also can't find any sources about the status of Singapore's relationship with Palestine. And while I can find lots of articles about Bolivia cutting off its relations with Israel over the Gaza War, I can't find anything on what its relationship is with Palestine at present. So I agree with removing them both until sources can be found.
- I think we are missing about another 20+ countries in our list. I've seen sources cite figures of 130 countries or 2/3 of UN members so I'm pretty sure we are missing those here. Its hard to find inidividual sources though. There is a "Palestine Diplomatic Handbook" dated 2009, which I wish I could my hands on since its likely to have a full listing of the countries with which Palestine has relations. Unfortunately, there is no preview function of it available on google books (and Amazon does not deliver here and no libraries around here would have it, I don't think). Anyway, I've added a few more entries that were missing and uppsed the number to 107. Thanks for all your input everyone. Tiamuttalk 16:39, 1 January 2010 (UTC)
- I applaud your efforts Tiamut! Thankyou. Is it possible for you to cite in the footnotes a quote from Tessler regarding Greece? Do you know anything about Georgia's relationship? All I have is this, but it doesn't mean much. Also Eritrea might be one to look at. I'll continue in my search.
- After those additions, the map needs the following corrections (sources above and within article):
- Argentina — has General Delegation ---light green
- Peru — has Special Delegation ---brown
- Singapore — no ties yet identified ---grey
- Kyrgyzstan — recognised ---dark green
- Guyana — recognised ---dark green
- Suriname — recognised ---dark green
- Cote d'Ivoire — recognised ---dark green
- Kenya — recognised ---dark green
- Greece — recognised ---dark green
Night w (talk) 18:02, 2 January 2010 (UTC)
- This doc says that e.g. Paraguay "supports" Palestinian statehood http://www.venezuelanalysis.com/news/4962 I'm not sure if this means recognition or a different colour. --Dailycare (talk) 22:24, 4 January 2010 (UTC)
- The relevant quote from Tessler, of whose book I can only see fragments, is: "Within two weeks of the PNC meeting, at least fifty-five nations, including states as diverse as the Soviet Union, China, India, Greece, Yugoslavia, Sri Lanka, Malta, and Zambia, had recognized the Palestinian state."
- I'll look into Georgia, Eritrea, Paraguay, etc., further ovr the next few days. Thanks to both of you for your efforts. Tiamuttalk 22:37, 4 January 2010 (UTC)
- The Tessler quote reminded by the way, that while I having difficulty finding info on Boasnia and Herzagovina, the states that were born out of the former Yugoslavia most likely renewed their recognition of Palestine upon independence. That was the case for states such as the former Zambia in any case. Tiamuttalk 22:39, 4 January 2010 (UTC)
- Here's Montenegro and Bosnia&Herzegovina:
- http://www.mip.gov.me/en/index.php/Missions-to-Montenegro/palestine.html
- http://www.mfa.gov.ba/HTML/Ambasade/AmbasadeUBiH_eng/AmbuBiH_Palestina_eng.html
- The latter can be found via http://www.mfa.gov.ba/ ->Embassies&Consulates->Embassies in BiH and selecting Palestina from the drop-down menu. Cheers, --Dailycare (talk) 16:43, 5 January 2010 (UTC)
- The Tessler quote reminded by the way, that while I having difficulty finding info on Boasnia and Herzagovina, the states that were born out of the former Yugoslavia most likely renewed their recognition of Palestine upon independence. That was the case for states such as the former Zambia in any case. Tiamuttalk 22:39, 4 January 2010 (UTC)
Hey Tiamut, I reduced the figure back down to 110. I think you must have counted Montenegro and Bosnia-Heregovina as recent additions by Dailycare, but they were actually already on there prior to your revision anyway. Either way, the list only had 110 names when you updated it...the double-counting of the Yugoslav republics is what I've pinpointed the error as being. It's all good now though. Night w (talk) 15:19, 29 January 2010 (UTC)
Sorry if this question has been asked before but...
This article seems to suggest that there is a state called the State of Palestine. If so, why do Palestinian leaders "threaten" to declare independence, as written here [11] [12] [13] [14] [15] [16] [17]? DrorK (talk) 02:59, 1 January 2010 (UTC)
The State of Palestine existed for 25 years before the Zionist Executive threatened to declare their independence in part of it. In the jurisprudence of the United States and most other countries a state does not cease to exist simply because its territory is occupied. harlan (talk) 03:50, 1 January 2010 (UTC)
- The State of Palestine you refer to was declared in Algeria. You mean it was occupied by Algeria? Does the English Wikipedia have an article about the Republic of Quebec? Padania is not mentioned in en-wp as a sovereign country even though it declared independence from Italy. Does this article try to convey knowledge or make political statements? DrorK (talk) 09:02, 1 January 2010 (UTC)
Correcting and NPOVizing the lead
- The geographical area known in English as Palestine includes areas in the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan, the Lebanese Republic and the Syrian Arab Republic. Since the Palestinians do not claim territories within these countries, the term "former British Mandate of Palestine" is much more accurate.
- The State of Palestine is not a state in the regular meaning of the world, because it controls no territory. Even the territories claimed by it and internationally considered occupied, were captured from Jordan and Egypt and not from the State of Palestine. Hence, it is important to emphasize that there is no territory in which the declared state could exercise its claimed sovereignty.
- It is important to mention that Jerusalem serves as the Israeli seat of government. People may think we are talking about two different cities with the same name.
- It is important to mention that the countries that recognized Palestine did not take any steps to actually promote the materialization of it. For example, no sanctions were imposed on Israel.
- Some of the countries that have diplomatic delegations in Ramallah do not recognize the State of Palestine. DrorK (talk) 11:06, 2 January 2010 (UTC)
- The lede is supposed to summarize the contents of the article. It already explains the legal aspects of state succession and occupation with references to the US State Department Digest of International Law, the Permanent Court of International Justice, and the International Court of Justice.
- You don't seem to be familiar with the applicable customary law regarding governments in exile or under occupation. The article cites the Restatement (Third) of the Foreign Relations Law of the United States which covers customary state practice, Stephen Talmon, John Quigley, an several other legal scholars on that subject. The article mentions a number of steps that have been taken to help the State of Palestine by the EU and USAID West Bank and Gaza, the Quartet Roadmap, the UN recognition of permanent sovereignty, and etc. The international community didn't do anything to make the Baltic States "materialize", they considered them occupied and illegally annexed.
- The states of Palestine and Transjordan were legally recognized by two international courts in 1925, they were not merely geographical areas. The Arab Congress at Jericho declared Abdullah King of Arab Palestine and proposed a joint kingdom through a union with Transjordan. The US State Department and the Palestine Post took note of those acts of state, and the union was recognized by other other countries. The political union was dissolved after Israel invaded and occupied the territory, but a confederation was proposed. Delineation and recognition of the international boundary between Israel and Jordan was delimited with reference to the boundary definition under the Mandate. But, without prejudice to the status of any territories that came under Israeli military government control in 1967. Under international law a state does not cease to exist simply because its territory is occupied, and the acquisition of territory by war is prohibited.
- Some of the states with delegations in Ramallah have publicly stated that their policy is not to make formal declarations regarding recognition. Talmon explains that rather than formally announcing their recognition of a new government, States following this policy, as a rule, implicitly recognize a new authority in power as the government of a foreign State by dealing with it as such. L.C Green and Ruth Lapidoth have explained that recognition of successor governments is a political act that is a matter of discretion. It is open to any existing state to accept as a state any entity it wishes, regardless of the existence of territory or an established government. Some states do require that a government exercise control over its territory, but the majority do not. harlan (talk) 12:15, 2 January 2010 (UTC)
Your edit summary assumes bad faith and the lead is making editorial statements that are not supported by actual state practice or the law. harlan (talk) 12:20, 2 January 2010 (UTC)
- Could you please tell me what kind of legal education you possess before suggesting I am ignorant? And what does a legal interpretation have to do with this article? Wikipedia is not a legal site, but an informative site. BTW, wasn't it you suggesting that the president of what you refer to as "exiled government" (which in fact lives in Ramallah) was a Zionist agent? I have no choice but to revert your reversion, as you clearly try to make political statement instead of trying to provide information. DrorK (talk) 13:13, 2 January 2010 (UTC)
- One other remark, the British Mandate of Palestine was established based on the Balfour Declaration of 1917. It was indeed recognized as a political entity (not an independent state), and the League of Nations granted the UK the mandate to administer it in order to fulfill the commitment to establish a Jewish national home in Palestine: "...the Principal Allied Powers have also agreed that the Mandatory should be responsible for putting into effect the declaration originally made on November 2nd, 1917, by the Government of His Britannic Majesty, and adopted by the said Powers, in favor of the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people...". The Hebrew official name of the Mandate was "Palestina-Eretz-Yisrael". Palestine is not listed as a sovereign state on Wikipedia's list, and there are at least two other articles Palestinian National Authority and Palestinian Territories that contradict the original phrasing of this article. What you're doing is basically a violation of the "No Original Research" Rule and the common sense that Wikipedian articles must not contradict one another. DrorK (talk) 13:30, 2 January 2010 (UTC)
- I'll be happy to apply the sync tag to the other articles for you. Statehood is a legal status that is governed by customary and conventional international laws. Reciting the terms of the Mandate really doesn't have anything to do with whether or not Palestine was legally recognized as a state by other states.
- Since the 1890s, the American States have repeatedly affirmed that international law is the standard of conduct of States in their reciprocal relations, and that international order consists essentially of respect for the personality, sovereignty, and independence of States, and the faithful fulfillment of obligations derived from treaties and other sources of international law. They believe that recognition of governments is discretionary, but that recognition of states is a legal obligation.
- They also believe that States are juridically equal, enjoy equal rights and equal capacity to exercise these rights, and have equal duties. They think the rights of each State depend not upon its power to ensure the exercise thereof, but upon the mere fact of its existence as a person under international law. See the OAS Charter [18] and the The Inter-American System of Agreements and Conventions [19]
- None of the material I've cited contains any information that originated with me or Wikipedia, and all of it can be independently verified in tertiary sources like The American Society of International Laws' Restatements of the Foreign Relations Law of the United States and secondary sources like John Quigley, and Francis Boyle. So, it isn't original research at all. Palestine was a newly-created state. Many of the founding members of the League of Nations were Latin American or Caribbean states. The members of the Inter-American system were former colonies. Their own "mother countries" refused to recognize their independence, so they adopted a system of public international law that did not mention sovereignty or independence as qualifications for statehood. They insisted that the existence of a state did not depend upon recognition by other states at all. They formally rejected the notion of a hierarchy of states in the Montevideo Convention, and only listed qualities that an entity should (not shall) possess as a person of law. I hope that answers some of your questions about the relevance of the law. harlan (talk) 14:57, 2 January 2010 (UTC)
- I have restored the lead as it was before Drork's changes here. I find the commentary that was inserted to be POV and misleading. There is no need to replace the link to Palestine with one to British Mandate Palestine. I prefer we retain the link to the geographical region page, rather than invoking a defunct political entity. There is dispute over whether or not the State of Palestine does control some of the territory it claims as its own, and this depends on how you define the government (as including the PA or not and to what degree). I'd prefer we not place OR and disputed claims such as "it controls no territory" in the lead. There is no need to mention that Jerusalem is Israel's seat of government. No one is goin g to be confused and if they are, they can read the Jerusalem article. Similarly, there is no need a for a mention of the other two points raised by DrorK. If these issues are discussed at length in the main body, and are presented in an NPOV fashion there and are not in dispute, we can consider including sme of the points in the lead. But the lead is a summary of the article, not a place to set the tone to one's liking. Tiamuttalk 22:01, 2 January 2010 (UTC)
- From a strict informative perspective, the fact that the declaration proposed to use a capital that is already the capital city of an existing state is very notable and relevant. It's not about setting the tone; it's just about including important information that will help the reader develop a more complete grasp of the basic situation. Breein1007 (talk) 22:05, 2 January 2010 (UTC)
- Sorry Breein1007, but I don't agree with that and reverting it to restore it twice while there are stated objections on the talk page isn't very respectful. As I wrote in my edit summary, the statement "Jerusalem is Israel's capital" is in fact disputed, and the information surrounding the dispute is already mentioned in the footnote. Based on lengthy discussion at the article Israel, it was decided not to give undue weight to the issues of that dispute in the lead. And making disputed statements in the lead that aren't even mentioned in the article goes against lead. So I'd appreciate you removing it. Tiamuttalk 22:43, 2 January 2010 (UTC)
- My revert was only in response to your revert with summary "per talk" which I found to be equally disrespectful. I'm glad you recognized that it wasn't appropriate to act in that manner. There was an ongoing discussion here about the issue with no consensus reached, and the only reason it was ever removed from the article after being originally inserted was because the IP pointblank reverted all the changes with an explanation that they are "OR and BS". I undid this revert because it was inappropriate (and deleted sources), and then you came in and redeleted the line about Israel's capital even though the discussion here was ongoing. So really, please, don't try to make it seem as if I am the one who was disrespectful. Because that is the exact way I felt when you came in with your edits. In terms of the "dispute", you aren't really understanding it (or admitting to understand it) correctly. There is absolutely no dispute that Jerusalem is Israel's capital. The only dispute of this would have to be internal (ie: in Israeli law). A country chooses its own capital; this is not an opinion. It is supported by law and on Wikipedia. There is nothing in Israeli law disputing that Jerusalem is Israel's capital. It is clearly set out in plain language that Jerusalem shall be the capital of the State of Israel. Therefore, at Israel's selection (just like every other nation gets to choose its capital if they choose to), Jerusalem is the undisputed capital of Israel. What IS disputed is international recognition of this. That is a different issue. And if you take a look at the Israel talk page, you will see a lengthy discussion dealing with this very issue. If your issue is that it is only mentioned in the lead and nowhere else in the body of the article, we could take a look and find some place to insert more information in the body. We could have a brief paragraph about Jerusalem; it is fitting. Breein1007 (talk) 23:02, 2 January 2010 (UTC)
- Let me break it down for you, Breein1007: The lead summarizes the content of the article. If there is no paragraph on Jerusalem being the capital of Israel in this article, there should be no mention of this issue in the lead. There is no such paragraph because it was decided that the dispute surrounding Jerusalem is not the central subject of this page, which deals with the state of Palestine (the relevant info here being that it is proclaimed capital of that state). So, the information about the dispute over Jerusalem is discussed in two footnotes appended to the two places where Jerusalem is mentioned. Including the statement "capital of Israel" in the lead, a disputed statement by any measure, fails to abide by lead because it includes 1) a controversial/disputed statement that no space can be given to cover there and 2) a subject not discussed in the body of the article. Please remove it. Tiamuttalk 23:16, 2 January 2010 (UTC)
- Sorry Breein1007, but I don't agree with that and reverting it to restore it twice while there are stated objections on the talk page isn't very respectful. As I wrote in my edit summary, the statement "Jerusalem is Israel's capital" is in fact disputed, and the information surrounding the dispute is already mentioned in the footnote. Based on lengthy discussion at the article Israel, it was decided not to give undue weight to the issues of that dispute in the lead. And making disputed statements in the lead that aren't even mentioned in the article goes against lead. So I'd appreciate you removing it. Tiamuttalk 22:43, 2 January 2010 (UTC)
- From a strict informative perspective, the fact that the declaration proposed to use a capital that is already the capital city of an existing state is very notable and relevant. It's not about setting the tone; it's just about including important information that will help the reader develop a more complete grasp of the basic situation. Breein1007 (talk) 22:05, 2 January 2010 (UTC)
- I have restored the lead as it was before Drork's changes here. I find the commentary that was inserted to be POV and misleading. There is no need to replace the link to Palestine with one to British Mandate Palestine. I prefer we retain the link to the geographical region page, rather than invoking a defunct political entity. There is dispute over whether or not the State of Palestine does control some of the territory it claims as its own, and this depends on how you define the government (as including the PA or not and to what degree). I'd prefer we not place OR and disputed claims such as "it controls no territory" in the lead. There is no need to mention that Jerusalem is Israel's seat of government. No one is goin g to be confused and if they are, they can read the Jerusalem article. Similarly, there is no need a for a mention of the other two points raised by DrorK. If these issues are discussed at length in the main body, and are presented in an NPOV fashion there and are not in dispute, we can consider including sme of the points in the lead. But the lead is a summary of the article, not a place to set the tone to one's liking. Tiamuttalk 22:01, 2 January 2010 (UTC)
I have changed the lead to say "The declaration designated Jerusalem, which Israel also claims as its capital, as the capital of the state". It's still grammatically a little awkward, but conveys the (to me) important point that two countries (potential countries, whatever) claim the one city as their respective capitals. Hence much woe and gnashing of teeth has come about, so it seems worth saying. I do wish Breen would stop pushing a point of view quite so hard here and elsewhere and write an encyclopedia. Newt (winkle) 23:53, 2 January 2010 (UTC)
- Newt: try to focus your comments on content, not contributors. See WP:NPA. Please stop edit-warring your weaasel-wording about Israel "claiming" that Jerusalem is its capital. Nobody out there says that Israel doesn't see Jerusalem as its capital.--brewcrewer (yada, yada) 06:56, 3 January 2010 (UTC)
::@Brewcrewer: Nobody out there says that Israel doesn't see Jerusalem as its capital. Well, that is certainly true, and no one, especially me, is trying to say otherwise. However, this article is on the State of Palestine, not Israel. Regarding claims on Jerusalem, there is a whole article on the topic, but there also also these citations: 1) Israeli claims to Jerusalem as its capital: [20][21][22]; regarding similar Palestinian claims: [23][24]. Here's one (from the BBC) that says "the international consensus is that the status of Jerusalem has yet to be decided."[25]. Here is Israeli newspaper Haaretz saying (non-editorially) "The competing claims to East Jerusalem remain the most intractable issue in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict."[26] But of course sending me out for sources is a deliberate time-wasting effort (though these sources are so easy to find it seems pointless). The point is this: It is undeniably true that Israel claims Jerusalem as its capital. It is not undeniably true that Jerusalem is the capital of Israel, as that position is refuted by most of the world. Both of those positions can be said to be true of the Palestinian claim to Jerusalem. Your and Breen's edit-warring to make the statement, in the article on the Palestinian state that Jerusalem is in some way definitively recognize as the capital of Israel is simply carrying a torch for a political cause, not editing an encyclopedia, however much mud you choose to throw at me. I will make a final revert, and then I am done with this BS for a considerable time. Edit: Some IPs (no pun intended) are now going at it, so I'll leave it alone, for now. Newt (winkle) 07:41, 3 January 2010 (UTC)
- the links above don't exactly prove what it seemed like you set out proving that it is not undeniably true that Jerusalem [b]is[/b] the capital of Israel, as that position is refuted by most of the world. Lets have one source for that please.--brewcrewer (yada, yada) 07:50, 3 January 2010 (UTC)
::::(sigh). "the international consensus is that the status of Jerusalem has yet to be decided."[27] Goodbye. Newt (winkle) 07:54, 3 January 2010 (UTC)
- Your playing games. We all know that "the international consensus is that the status of Jerusalem has yet to be decided." That's because Arabs want it. What we don't know, but what you're neverhtheless trying to shove into this article is that 'it is not undeniably true that Jerusalem [b]is[/b] the capital of Israel, as that position is refuted by most of the world. We're still waiting for a source for the latter. Until then, please stop adding your OR weasel-wording about Israel "claiming" it to be the capital. Other countries may not like it, but states must be recognized by international law, not capitals. States decide where they have their capitals and there's nothing anybody can do about that. Israel is not "claiming" Jerusalem is its capital, it is its capital.--brewcrewer (yada, yada) 16:13, 3 January 2010 (UTC)
- Sorry, but I am not comfortable with including a disputed statement in the lead of this article when its not really related to the subject matter. I can accept Newt's formulation because its not disputed. No one disputes that Israel claims Jerusalem as its capital. However, international consensus is that its not. So please respect that there are many objections here to your formulation and refrain from restoring it again. If you feel the current wording is objectionable as well, we can simply remove it altogether, since the dispute is covered in a footnote and that's really enough for a page where this is not the subject of discussion. Tiamuttalk 16:19, 3 January 2010 (UTC)
- I just realized that at Talk:Israel#Request for Comment/Jerusalem we have the same exact discussion and there is an overwhelming consensus not to weasel-word about Jerusalem being Israel's capital. You were involved in that discussion and hence aware of that discussion so its kind of unfortunate that you couldn't tell me about it. Its also unfortunate that you claimed a consensus for the weasel-wording was reached in between yourself, some recycled editor, and some Spa-IP-meat/sockpuppet when there is a clear consensus to the contrary at another talkpage.--brewcrewer (yada, yada) 05:54, 4 January 2010 (UTC)
- There is a rule on Wikipedia that says "No original research". An original research can be based upon sources, that's basically what academics do - write an innovative idea and base it upon previously suggested theory. Your definition of a state is an original research, and in any case it is incompatible with the criteria used in other Wikipedian articles. From what I understood, you see the State of Palestine as a country that was established with the British Mandate, than "occupied" by the Zionists, redeclared as an Arab state in 1988 and stayed under occupation ever since. This is the common sense of what you've written in this article, and yet it is not supported by any source. It is supported by certain users' interpretation to sources they read which are not even mainstream sources. The fact these users persistently reject any change to the article casts a dark shade on the method of writing of this article.
- As I mentioned earlier, the declaration in 1988 was in Algiers, not in the West Bank or Gaza. It had no practical meaning. Palestinians kept carrying Jordanian passports or Israeli lessez-passer after the declaration, the "exiled government" was in fact the PLO leadership with different titles, this "government" did not issue ordinances or regulations to its alleged citizens. Also, the countries that recognized this state did not start to recognize the population of the WN&Gaza as Palestinian citizens. They gave Yasser Arafat the title "President", but none of them suggested there were Palestinian citizens. The British Mandate of Palestine was not an Arab state under British guardianship. Its founding document said explicitly that the Mandate's goal is to establish a Jewish homeland while catering for the rights of other communities in Palestine as well. The fact that it was called Palestine (or Palestina-Eretz-Yisrael in Hebrew) doesn't make it a predecessor of the declared Palestinian Arab state. It was a different entity altogether.
- You could say, in a way, the the Palestinian Authority established in 1994 is a kind of state - it has a government, an legislative body, a police, it issues passports to its subjects (these passports are recognized by about 50 countries) etc. But then again, harlan himself claimed the legitimacy of this entity was questioned in the eyes of the Palestinians, and they certainly do not enjoy full independence as they have to get an Israeli approval for most of their actions. Furthermore, there is already a special article about the PNA.
- The main problems here is are both "original research" and misleading readers to think that a Palestinian state already exists. Someone who reads about the vehement debate whether or not the Palestinians should declare independence, comes here and sees that this state already exists, as if Wikipedia lies in a parallel universe. DrorK (talk) 07:24, 3 January 2010 (UTC)
- Please read the archives. We already had this discussion. Your opinion, while welcome, is not the material from which this article is written. If there are specific sections or sentences that you feel exhibit OR, please tag them or bring them here for discussion. Making generalized statements about how the reality on the ground does nto match what is it in this article does no one any service. There is much more information that can be added here, such as information on the obstacles to Palestine exercising sovereignty over the territory it has declared as part of its state. While the state is already declared, been reognized by the majority of the world, and does exist, its border remain a soruce of dispute, and its attempts at independent management over its territory have been frustrated by the Israeli authorities. We need more information on these issues from reliable sources. Tiamuttalk 09:05, 3 January 2010 (UTC)
- Hasn't it become a trend on en-wp? A group of editors starts an article which is not compatible with the state of affairs in reality. They object any attempt to improve the article, and send anyone who tries to do so to the archives where he would find long tedious discussions conducted between the small group that initiated the article. Your saying that "making generalized statements about how the reality on the ground does not match what is it in this article does no one any service" actually means that Wikipedia may have articles that do not describe reality. This is not in line with the goals of this project. I am deeply sad to see such an inspiring project turned into another political forum like thousands of useless sites throughout the web. DrorK (talk) 11:36, 3 January 2010 (UTC)
- Drork, if you want to improve this article, please find reliable sources that speak to the reality you would like to represent. No one is stopping you. However, it is quite objectionable for you to come along, express a lack of interest in taking the time to review previous discussions in the archive or do some real research. Adding your own unsourced WP:OR analysis into the introduction of an article is not improving the article. Its using the article as your own political forum. Tiamuttalk 11:42, 3 January 2010 (UTC)
- Reliable sources to what? To the fact that the proclaimed State of Palestine never issued passports? That it never managed a registrations of its citizens? That it never issued ordinances as a normal state does? How can I bring sources to something that never existed. It is you who need to bring sources to prove that the proclaimed state did all that. Diplomatic recognition is not enough to make a declaration a state. For example, in May 1948 shortly after its declaration of independence, the State of Israel started to register its citizens, issued draft call for the newly established army, issued ordinances about the legal system, appointed judges, imposed taxes and so forth. I've brought you an evidence that the British Mandate was not an Arab country in any way, hence it cannot be regarded as a predecessor of the 1988 proclaimed state. As for the rest, it is your duty to prove that the declaration had some practical effect beside turning PLO representations into embassies in certain countries. Even an exiled government has some kind of power over its citizens and some kind of relations with them. Here, you claim that a state was born in 1988 but bring no proof that this step has any practical meaning. It's like saying a baby was born but you cannot see it nor feel its movements. When I say maybe nothing took place, you ask me to bring proofs that there is no baby. DrorK (talk) 14:11, 3 January 2010 (UTC)
- DrorK, have you read the article? Some legal scholars' opinions that echo your own are mentioned in this section. Other scholars cited there disagree with the opinion you have expressed. I'm sure you can find more reliable sources that agree with you as well and you can include their opinions if you feel that the section is currently unrepresentative of the different views. Contrary to what say above, there is a huge body of literature discussing those very issues. Its not hard to find. I encourage to go about doing so, if your interest in improving this article is genuine. Tiamuttalk 14:16, 3 January 2010 (UTC)
- One minute, is this an article about the concept of a Palestinian state or the idea to establish a Palestinian state? If so, its name should change. The existence of a state is not a matter for scholars, either you see it or you don't. Indeed, there are borderline cases such as Kosovo, Somaliland, the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus and others. As I said you can even consider the Palestinian Authority as a borderline case or maybe even the Hamas government in Gaza Strip, but this article either of them. The state that you describe here is a smile without a cat (to cite Lewis Carrol), and you entitle it a state per original research. DrorK (talk) 14:45, 3 January 2010 (UTC)
- Have you read the archives, as I suggested? I think you'll find some of the answers to your questions there. Furthermore, I have no objection to changing the title of this article to Palestine (state), to differentiate it from Palestine (region). After all ,the official name of the state is simply "Palestine". The reason it is named state of Palestine is to disambig it from Palestine, which people there object to renaming Palestine (region) and since "State of Palestine" is used by a number of of reliable sources, that title is just fine too. But read the archives, and this talk page above. We don't need to rehash everything simply for your benefit if you're going to make no effort to understand what transpired previously.Tiamuttalk 14:51, 3 January 2010 (UTC)
- All I'm asking is several simple things:
- #A reader of this article must not get the impression that a state called Palestine already exists in practice. Otherwise he would never understand what the Israelis and Palestinians have been discussing for the past 16 years, why so many Palestinians have to wait in line at the Israeli Ministry of the Interior's offices to get a lessez-passer, why so many of them are defined as refugees with no nationality, why so many Palestinian localities in the WB are administered by UNRWA, why the Israeli withdrawal from the Gaza Strip was considered problematic and so forth.
- DrorK, have you read the article? Some legal scholars' opinions that echo your own are mentioned in this section. Other scholars cited there disagree with the opinion you have expressed. I'm sure you can find more reliable sources that agree with you as well and you can include their opinions if you feel that the section is currently unrepresentative of the different views. Contrary to what say above, there is a huge body of literature discussing those very issues. Its not hard to find. I encourage to go about doing so, if your interest in improving this article is genuine. Tiamuttalk 14:16, 3 January 2010 (UTC)
- Reliable sources to what? To the fact that the proclaimed State of Palestine never issued passports? That it never managed a registrations of its citizens? That it never issued ordinances as a normal state does? How can I bring sources to something that never existed. It is you who need to bring sources to prove that the proclaimed state did all that. Diplomatic recognition is not enough to make a declaration a state. For example, in May 1948 shortly after its declaration of independence, the State of Israel started to register its citizens, issued draft call for the newly established army, issued ordinances about the legal system, appointed judges, imposed taxes and so forth. I've brought you an evidence that the British Mandate was not an Arab country in any way, hence it cannot be regarded as a predecessor of the 1988 proclaimed state. As for the rest, it is your duty to prove that the declaration had some practical effect beside turning PLO representations into embassies in certain countries. Even an exiled government has some kind of power over its citizens and some kind of relations with them. Here, you claim that a state was born in 1988 but bring no proof that this step has any practical meaning. It's like saying a baby was born but you cannot see it nor feel its movements. When I say maybe nothing took place, you ask me to bring proofs that there is no baby. DrorK (talk) 14:11, 3 January 2010 (UTC)
- Drork, if you want to improve this article, please find reliable sources that speak to the reality you would like to represent. No one is stopping you. However, it is quite objectionable for you to come along, express a lack of interest in taking the time to review previous discussions in the archive or do some real research. Adding your own unsourced WP:OR analysis into the introduction of an article is not improving the article. Its using the article as your own political forum. Tiamuttalk 11:42, 3 January 2010 (UTC)
- Hasn't it become a trend on en-wp? A group of editors starts an article which is not compatible with the state of affairs in reality. They object any attempt to improve the article, and send anyone who tries to do so to the archives where he would find long tedious discussions conducted between the small group that initiated the article. Your saying that "making generalized statements about how the reality on the ground does not match what is it in this article does no one any service" actually means that Wikipedia may have articles that do not describe reality. This is not in line with the goals of this project. I am deeply sad to see such an inspiring project turned into another political forum like thousands of useless sites throughout the web. DrorK (talk) 11:36, 3 January 2010 (UTC)
- Please read the archives. We already had this discussion. Your opinion, while welcome, is not the material from which this article is written. If there are specific sections or sentences that you feel exhibit OR, please tag them or bring them here for discussion. Making generalized statements about how the reality on the ground does nto match what is it in this article does no one any service. There is much more information that can be added here, such as information on the obstacles to Palestine exercising sovereignty over the territory it has declared as part of its state. While the state is already declared, been reognized by the majority of the world, and does exist, its border remain a soruce of dispute, and its attempts at independent management over its territory have been frustrated by the Israeli authorities. We need more information on these issues from reliable sources. Tiamuttalk 09:05, 3 January 2010 (UTC)
- The article explains that statehood is a legal status accorded by other states, and that in any event the General Assembly definition of Aggression allows any entity to be considered a state without regard to recognition or UN membership. The ICC cites the General Assembly resolution in the final draft of the Special Working Group on the Crime of Aggression. [28] It also contains provisions that would allow ICC prosecutions without a referral from the Security Council, although that is already possible in the national courts of countries exercising universal jurisdiction.
- Many of your questions were addressed in the 2004 ICJ advisory opinion. It found that Israel had severely impeded the exercise by the Palestinian people of its right to self-determination, and the applicable provisions of international humanitarian law and human rights instruments by destruction and requisition of property, restrictions on freedom of movement, and the impediment to the exercise by those concerned of the right to work, to health, to education and to an adequate standard of living. The court found that those breaches could not be legally justified by military exigencies or by the requirements of national security or public order.
- Security Council resolution 1544 (2004) called on Israel to address its security needs within the boundaries of international law, and to respect its obligations under international humanitarian law. The Security Council insisted, in particular, on Israel's obligation not to undertake demolition of homes contrary to that law. In 2009 a UN Fact Finding Mission reported widespread destruction of residential housing in the Gaza Strip caused by air strikes, mortar and artillery shelling, missile strikes, the operation of bulldozers and demolition charges. The mission also reported that Since 1967, the Israeli authorities have demolished thousands of Palestinian-owned structures in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including an estimated 2,000 houses in East Jerusalem.
- This is your personal interpretation of the international law, which presupposes that a Palestinian state always existed. The UN itself, whose resolutions you mention, never recognized an Arab state called Palestine, it merely recognized the Palestinian right for self determination. Self determination and statehood are not the same things. Furthermore, it presupposes an Israeli aggression, a thing that was never claimed by the international community except the Arab League countries. UN resolutions 242 and 338 clearly talk about the responsibility of both parties to the conflict, and do not accuse Israel of an aggression. It also conditions Israeli withdrawal from territories it captured on the other side's recognition in Israel within secure borders. Furthermore, the General Assembly is not in a position to recognize countries according to the UN rules, and it is also worthwhile mentioning that a country may exist when the UN does not recognize it (e.g. Taiwan, Somaliland) and vice versa. The Goldstone report you refer to is highly controversial, and it also lays responsibility on both parties (Hamas is scathingly criticized there). And yet, this is totally irrelevant. There is no question about Saddam Hussein aggressions towards the Kurds in Iraqi Kurdistan. Does it make Kurdistan an independent country? DrorK (talk) 20:31, 4 January 2010 (UTC)
- Many, if not most, of the members of the ICC Assembly of States already recognize that the state of Palestine exists, and that much of its territory is under an illegal form of military occupation. The Jerusalem Post reports that some Israeli officials have started to worry about that. See "A real threat of ICC prosecution." [29] harlan (talk) 19:33, 4 January 2010 (UTC)
- The General Assembly
- Security Council resolution 1544 (2004) called on Israel to address its security needs within the boundaries of international law, and to respect its obligations under international humanitarian law. The Security Council insisted, in particular, on Israel's obligation not to undertake demolition of homes contrary to that law. In 2009 a UN Fact Finding Mission reported widespread destruction of residential housing in the Gaza Strip caused by air strikes, mortar and artillery shelling, missile strikes, the operation of bulldozers and demolition charges. The mission also reported that Since 1967, the Israeli authorities have demolished thousands of Palestinian-owned structures in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including an estimated 2,000 houses in East Jerusalem.
- #The British Mandate of Palestine cannot be presented as a predecessor of a Palestinian Arab state. The fact that the Mandate charter so evidently refers to the Balfour Declaration of 1917 as the basis of the Mandate, makes such an interpretation an absurd. There are a lot of scholars claiming all sorts of things. There are suggestions that the Palestinian are actually Canaanites, there are suggestions that the Proto-Semitic language was actually Arabic, and that all Semitic peoples are actually Arab descendants, there are theories claiming that Palestinians are actually converted Jews. At least in this case we have an explicit source that overrules this non-mainstream theory.
- That is a common misconception. The United States was a party to the Anglo-American Palestine Mandate Treaty. It recognizes and treats Palestinian nationality as a federally protected characteristic. See for example:[30] Many states have laws which make it a crime to harass another person on the basis of ethnicity, see for example: [31] Like all "common carriers" Wikimedia Foundation has a policy prohibiting the harassment or intimidation users on the basis of any legally protected characteristic.
- The Anglo-American Committee suggested a Jewish-Arab federated state. This proposal never materialize, and it was eventually replaced by the 181 Partition Plan resolution, which in turn was not materialized mainly due to strong Arab rejections. Arab newspaper published in Jaffa on November 30, 1947 announced that the Arab League planned to take control over the Mandate territory in order to prevent the implementation of the plan. DrorK (talk) 20:31, 4 January 2010 (UTC)
- The UNSCOP Commission found that the term Jewish national home had no meaning in international law, and that the term had not been defined in either the Mandate or the Balfour Declaration. They concluded that it was employed because there wasn't adequate support for the establishment of a Jewish state. See paragraphs 140-144 of the UNSCOP report UN Doc A/364 of 3 September 1947 [32] In any event, the San Remo Resolution, of April 25, 1920 contained a provision which said the mandate would not involve the surrender of the rights hitherto enjoyed by the non-Jewish communities in Palestine. The recitals in the preamble of the Mandate alluded to that fact, and several articles of the Mandate contained safeguarding clauses for "existing rights" and "immunities". The ICJ noted that some of those rights were contained in Article 62 of the Treaty of Berlin 1878. It guaranteed the non-Jewish communities complete equality and non-discrimination in all religious, political, and civil matters. [33]
- Very well then, but does it determine that there was a decision to establish an Arab Palestinian state? Let's say for the sake of argument that there was no intention to establish a Jewish state in Palestine, does it entails that there was an intention to turn the Mandate into an Arab state? And who says that this document you cite is better than other document that contradict it. Once again you suggest an original research.
- The article already cites reliable sources which explain the application of the laws of state succession with regard to treaties, and the mandate era laws. It also explains that the UN Mediator proposed a union of the Arab portions of the Mandate, and that many countries did in fact recognize Arab Palestine and its union with Transjordan. harlan (talk) 19:33, 4 January 2010 (UTC)
- What reliable source? What if the mediator suggested that, does it mean that it was realized? Does Jerusalem become a corpus separandum according to the UN recommendation? Would you like to write in the lead of the article about Jerusalem that it is a UN-controlled territory per UN resolution supported by many countries? BTW, the UN GA resolution 181 was not enough to account for recognition in Israel and membership in the UN. There was a long process of recognition and admition. You suggest Palestine is a sovereign state based on UN and certain countries non-materialized proposals. DrorK (talk) 20:31, 4 January 2010 (UTC)
- That is a common misconception. The United States was a party to the Anglo-American Palestine Mandate Treaty. It recognizes and treats Palestinian nationality as a federally protected characteristic. See for example:[30] Many states have laws which make it a crime to harass another person on the basis of ethnicity, see for example: [31] Like all "common carriers" Wikimedia Foundation has a policy prohibiting the harassment or intimidation users on the basis of any legally protected characteristic.
- #It is very important to mention that the recognition issued by 110 countries following the 1988 declaration in Algiers was not accompanied with practical measures. Those countries that hosted a PLO delegation named it a Palestinian Embassy, but beside that nothing happened, even in Arab countries. For example, I cannot recall a call on Palestinians to register as Palestinian citizens and receive proper documents on behalf of the new state. Surely, many Palestinians living in Arab countries could do such thing. The Palestinian State could have even issued them passports and ask the 110 countries to honor them, but nothing of this kind had been done. The whole issue remained purely declarative. DrorK (talk) 09:45, 4 January 2010 (UTC)
- I'd be happy to add information on the number of countries that have either hosted peace conferences, or mediated negotiations with Israel regarding the State of Palestine.
- I've just added information on US funding of development projects in Arab Palestine. The article already mentioned funding for democracy and governance projects through the USAID West Bank and Gaza and the EU. The 192 members of the United Nations are represented in the Middle East Quartet. Quartet Envoy Tony Blair, President Bill Clinton, President Obama's National Security Advisor Gen. James Jones, and former National Security Advisors Brent Scowcroft, and Zbigniew Brzezinski have endorsed a NATO force to assume responsibility for the occupied territories.[34] The Foreign Minister of the EU recommended that the Security Council go ahead and impose a territorial settlement in the event that the parties concerned fail to conclude an agreement. [35] Those things are not merely declaratory. harlan (talk) 19:33, 4 January 2010 (UTC)
- Harlan, all you said above is irrelevant because it constitute an ORIGINAL RESEARCH. It is a very interesting original research, and yet Wikipedia is not the place for it. The fact that no one noticed it so far is just a matter of luck. Actually, I am more encouraged by explanation, because I know sooner or later someone with more weight than I would notice the serious problem here and profoundly change this article. The problem is even more serious, because this is a politically motivated original research. I know that because you revealed you motives above, and I quote: The State of Palestine existed for 25 years before the Zionist Executive threatened to declare their independence in part of it. In the jurisprudence of the United States and most other countries a state does not cease to exist simply because its territory is occupied. You said "Zionist Executive" referring to the government of the Palestinian Authority in Ramallah. I asked you how this article complies with the recent news about an intention of the PA to declare independence, and this was your answer. Furthermore, your responses to my questions entails that you regard "Palestine" as an everlasting political entity that was occupied since the establishment of the State of Israel. This is a political approach that is tolerable in a blog, not in Wikipedia. DrorK (talk) 19:49, 4 January 2010 (UTC)
(outdent) Anyone who is reasonably well read is routinely accused of WP:OR, but you haven't mentioned any information or analysis in the article that originated with me or Wikipedia, or which can't be verified using the sources that are cited. Unlike most editors, I supply links to published sources for what I say on the talk page, even though discussions here are not subject to WP:OR policy. I'll provide the necessary sources when I include the information in the article.
I was referring to the Zionist Executive and the Declaration of the State of Israel in part of Palestine. I did not mention the Palestinian Authority, you did. The United States Government has two political branches (some say three). If you don't like their published views, you'll have to take it up with them.
Robert Donovan wrote that Under Secretary Lovett gave the President's Legal Counsel, Clark Clifford, a copy of an advisory opinion written by a senior legal counsel at the State Department, Ernest Gross. It was used by the President and his staff in making decisions regarding US recognition of the newly partitioned states in Palestine. It was decided that neither state would be recognized if it attempted to form a unitary state governing all of Palestine. Abdullah advised the State Department he was willing to negotiate. There are a number of published accounts which say that Ben Gurion and the Provisional Council had decided to leave the matter of borders "open to developments". Simha Flapan wrote that Ben Gurion was very displeased when he discovered that Elihu Epstein's request for US recognition contained the stipulation that Israel had been established within the boundaries of the 29 November UN resolution. Years later Clark Clifford, wrote an account for the JCPA explaining that he had insisted upon that written clarification regarding Israel's borders:
Epstein was ecstatic. He did not realize that the President had still not decided how to respond to the request I had just solicited. It was particularly important, I said, that the new state claim nothing beyond the boundaries outlined in the UN resolution of November 29, 1947, because those boundaries were the only ones which had been agreed to by everyone, including the Arabs, in any international forum. [36]
The article says that two international tribunals ruled that Palestine was a newly-created successor state of the Ottoman Empire as of 1920, with responsibilities for a share of the Ottoman public debt and its concessions. Those facts and a very extensive analysis regarding the legal status of the "A" Mandates was published in the US State Depart Digest of International Law. The Digest, and FRUS, also contain information and analysis about the partition of the Mandate; the armistice agreements; US recognition of Israel; and US recognition of the union of Arab Palestine and Transjordan. Even the Palestine Post reported that Abdullah had been declared the King of Arab Palestine and that a proposal for a joint kingdom was under consideration by the parliament of Transjordan.
The Digest, the FRUS, Allan Gerson, Raja Shehadeh, and John Quigley each discuss the 1950 act of union and the fact that it contained provisions for the emergence of a Palestinian State. The article cites an Arafat interview in the NY Review of Books and a Brittanica article with regard to the proposal for a confederation between Jordan and Palestine, and the eventual dissolution of the union. Thomas Grant's book on Recognition of States includes a chapter on the General Assembly's Definition of Aggression. Judge Jessup's speech regarding Israel's membership in the UN has been cited and analyzed in other articles,[37] but speaks for itself. Quigley and Dugard both wrote articles about the Declaration the Palestinian Authority submitted to the ICC, and the Statehood Issue. Quigley said Palestine's existence as a state predates the 1988 declaration. He cited the corollary of the Stimson Doctrine, and the customary prohibition on the use of force contained in the Restatement of Foreign Relations Law of the United States, "[a]n entity does not necessarily cease to be a state even if all of its territory has been occupied by a foreign power". harlan (talk) 22:18, 4 January 2010 (UTC)
- Now that you clarified your previous statement, I see we are in much worse situation than I thought. Your interesting lecture above is YOUR ORIGINAL INTERPRETATION giving UNDUE WEIGHT to minority opinions. You consider British Mandate Palestine to be an Arab territory under foreign influence. This statement is contradictory to the Mandate's official documents. The fact that certain tribunals recognized it as a successor of a department of the Ottoman Empire doesn't make your personal interpretation convincing, because the Ottoman Empire was not Arab either, and because these tribunals' rulings were probably related to a certain specific issue. Again, the fact that you base your personal arguments on scholars' opinion does not make it less original. Any academic thesis is based on scholars' opinions. Had you found a reliable source saying: British Mandate Palestine was in fact an Arab state under heavy British influence (like Egypt at that time, or like the Emirate of Transjordan), that was another story, but you bring no source of the kind. You just bring various claims that could be interpreted in several ways, and force your personal interpretation upon them. Your interpretation of Quigley is also extremely problematic. Did he refer specifically to a Palestinian state? If so, then he suggested that Israel was an illegitimate state occupying the territory of another state. This position is held today only by the Iranian government, Hamas, Hizbullah and Al-Qaeda. If he referred to WB&Gaza then his interpretation is extremely unusual. First of all, the 242/338 resolutions clearly overruled any claims about Israeli aggression or illegal occupation. According to these decisions the Israeli occupation is legal as long as the relevant countries do not recognize Israel in secure borders. The ICC is not in a position to establish states or recognize them, and even if it were, so what? Kosovo is in much better position than proclaimed Palestine in terms of recognition and exercising its authority on the ground, and yet it is still not considered a state in the usual meaning of the word, and the Serbian claim for this territory is very significant. DrorK (talk) 03:13, 5 January 2010 (UTC)
- I'm citing and quoting the official US Government publications and the explanations they contain or the interpretations of Sanford R. Siverburg, Allan Gerson, Thomas Kuttner, Joseph Weiler, and the others I've already mentioned. For example, Joseph Massad said that the members of the Arab League granted de facto recognition of the union between Arab Palestine and Transjordan and that the United States had formally recognized the annexation, except for Jerusalem. See Joseph A. Massad, Colonial Effects: The Making of National Identity in Jordan (New York: Columbia University Press, 2001),ISBN: 023112323X, page 229
- The United States extended de jure recognition to the Government of Transjordan and the Government of Israel on the same day, January 31, 1949. See Foreign relations of the United States, 1949. The Near East, South Asia, and Africa Volume VI, Page 713
- In 1978 the U.S. State Department published a memorandum of conversation that took place on June 5, 1950 between Mr. Stuart W. Rockwell of the Office of African and Near Eastern Affairs and Abdel Monem Rifai, a Counselor of the Jordan Legation. Here is a verbatim quote: "In response to Mr. Rifai's question as to when the US was going to recognize the union of Arab Palestine and Jordan, I explained the Department's position, stating that it was not the custom of this country to issue formal statements of recognition every time a foreign country changed its territorial area. The union of Arab Palestine and Jordan had been brought about as a result of the will of the people and the US accepted the fact that Jordanian sovereignty had been extended to the new area. Mr. Rifai said he had not realized this and that he was very pleased to learn that the US did in fact recognize the union." --Foreign relations of the United States, 1950. The Near East, South Asia, and Africa, Volume V (1950), Page 921
- That's the information as it is provided in the article. There is no personal interpretation involved. If you disagree with each of those authors and the US State Department, you should write them about it, not me. harlan (talk) 04:53, 5 January 2010 (UTC)
- Extremely interesting information and totally irrelevant to the subject of this article. The linkage that you make between this information and the alleged existence of a state called Palestine is the original research, which is not in line with Wikipedia's guidelines. This article used to be part of Proposals for a Palestinian state after a long fruitful debate. Why was that decision overridden in July 2009? DrorK (talk) 07:15, 5 January 2010 (UTC)
- Extremely platitudinous, inaccurate, condescending, and repetitive. harlan (talk) 09:50, 5 January 2010 (UTC)
- Can I have a serious response from you? You seem to be incapable of dealing with my comments. Apparently you have a thesis which you are very anxious to introduce to Wikipedia no matter what. DrorK (talk) 15:43, 5 January 2010 (UTC)
- The so-called "thesis" is the topic of the Rutgers law review article by John Quigley, and the section of the Third restatement of the US Foreign Relations Law that he quotes in that work applies to existing states that are occupied. He also wrote a chapter in the Silverberg book that is listed in the bibliography regarding the existence of the state of Palestine.
- And another remark - you misread the memorandum which you quoted. By saying "Arab Palestine" the US official didn't mean "an Arab state called Palestine" but rather "those areas of the former British Mandate of Palestine that came under Arab control", namely the West Bank. It is very clear from the context. I doubt if this memorandum ever became an official position of the US (As far as I know, the US never officially recognized Jordanian sovereignty over the WB), and yet you just prove my point - the US did not assume that an Arab Palestinian state should be established. They were happy with the situation in which Israel (a Jewish state) became the main successor of the British Mandate, and the Arab-populated area are annexed to the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan (an Arab kingdom). To sum it up, not only is you thesis original, it is also groundless, because it is based on misinterpretation of the text. DrorK (talk) 15:54, 5 January 2010 (UTC)
- The so-called "thesis" is the topic of the Rutgers law review article by John Quigley, and the section of the Third restatement of the US Foreign Relations Law that he quotes in that work applies to existing states that are occupied. He also wrote a chapter in the Silverberg book that is listed in the bibliography regarding the existence of the state of Palestine.
- Can I have a serious response from you? You seem to be incapable of dealing with my comments. Apparently you have a thesis which you are very anxious to introduce to Wikipedia no matter what. DrorK (talk) 15:43, 5 January 2010 (UTC)
- Extremely platitudinous, inaccurate, condescending, and repetitive. harlan (talk) 09:50, 5 January 2010 (UTC)
- Extremely interesting information and totally irrelevant to the subject of this article. The linkage that you make between this information and the alleged existence of a state called Palestine is the original research, which is not in line with Wikipedia's guidelines. This article used to be part of Proposals for a Palestinian state after a long fruitful debate. Why was that decision overridden in July 2009? DrorK (talk) 07:15, 5 January 2010 (UTC)
- That's the information as it is provided in the article. There is no personal interpretation involved. If you disagree with each of those authors and the US State Department, you should write them about it, not me. harlan (talk) 04:53, 5 January 2010 (UTC)
- You very obviously have not read the State Department Digest of International Law. Territories don't have resolutions or make proclamations that "King Abdallah Bin Hussein is the constitutional King over Arab Palestine", governments do. The Jericho Congress proclaimed that fact, and the US government accepted the principle contained in the Jericho resolutions. That was an act of state that had immediate legal effect, even before the Transjordanian Parliament began deliberating the measures required for a joint kingdom. The Jewish Agency for Palestine and the National Council of the Jews of Palestine (Vaad Leumi) had declared themselves the Provisional State Council and the Provisional Government of the State of Israel in the same fashion.[38] Although the Jericho resolutions provided the legal basis for the union of Central Palestine with Transjordan, it applied to all of Arab Palestine. Sandra Berliant Kadosh wrote an article that presented an analysis of United States policy toward the West Bank in 1948, based largely on the Foreign Relations Documents of the United States. She noted that the US government supported the union of "the greater part of Arab Palestine" with Transjordan and accepted the underlying Principle contained in the Jericho resolutions. She said that the delegates claimed to represent 90 percent of the population, and that they ridiculed the Gaza government which, they asserted, represented only its eighty-odd members. See United States Policy toward the West Bank in 1948, Jewish Social Studies, Vol. 46, No. 3/4 (Summer - Autumn, 1984), pp. 231-252.
- The US State Department says the Foreign Relations of the United States series is the official documentary historical record of major U.S. foreign policy decisions that have been declassified and edited for publication.[39] [40] I also have a published secondary source, Joseph Massad, who said that the United States had formally recognized the annexation, except for Jerusalem. See Joseph A. Massad, Colonial Effects: The Making of National Identity in Jordan (New York: Columbia University Press, 2001),ISBN: 023112323X, page 229.
- I am amazed at the fact that you yourself apparently don't read the links that you present here. You've brought a link to Jessup's statement, but that statement does not entail an existence of Palestinian state in any way. Quite the contrary. According to the article in which the citation appears, he reiterated the conditions stipulated in the Montevideo Convention of 1933. The writers of the article raise the question whether a territory is an essential criterion and quote Lauterpacht saying it is. They say, however, that fixed borders to this territory are not an essential criterion. Now, the proclaimed Palestinian state does not even have a population registry that says exactly who is entitled to a Palestinian citizenship, so they fail to comply with another criterion. No land, no defined population, only some form of international relations and a kind of government. This kind of state resembles the "Sovereign Order Malta" or the Baha'i community's representation. Now, don't get me wrong, there are many people in the world, including Israelis, who deem the establishment of a Palestinian state a much-needed step, and then again, this is the very proof that such state does not exist yet. DrorK (talk) 16:17, 5 January 2010 (UTC)
- Sir Hersch Lauterpacht rather famously noted that "A State is, and becomes an International Person through recognition only and exclusively." See Oppenheim vol 1 page 125. The Montevideo Convention represents the competing declarative theory of law which holds that a states' existence does not depend on recognition by other states. In any event, Montevideo is a treaty agreement between state parties, not people. There is no disagreement between the two competing theories of law regarding the matter of recognition: only other states can deduce the existence and recognize another state. The decisions of other states are legally binding and irrevocable. So, the majority of states have already decided that Palestine has an adequate government, territory, and population.
- I'm very familiar with Jessup's remarks. He said Israel only needed to be considered a state for the purposes of the UN Charter. The State of Israel announced its independence. It had been recognized within the boundaries contained in the resolution of 29 November 1947. A representative of the United States government told a member of the Jordanian Legation, "The union of Arab Palestine and Jordan had been brought about as a result of the will of the people and the US accepted the fact that Jordanian sovereignty had been extended to the new area." President Truman told King Abdullah that the policy of the United States Government as regards a final territorial settlement in Palestine had been stated in the General Assembly on Nov 30, 1948 by the American representative. On that occasion, Dr. Jessup had endorsed the Mediator's plan for a union between the Arab portions of the former mandate, including Transjordan. Truman said the US supported Israeli claims to the boundaries set forth in the UN General Assembly resolution of November 29, 1947, but believed that if Israel sought to retain additional territory in Palestine allotted to the Arabs, it should (not shall) give the Arabs territorial compensation. That presented the Ad Hoc committee with a problem during the membership hearings because Israel didn't have a defined territory. You added an unsourced reference that implicitly acknowledged the ambiguity <ref>While the West Bank and Gaza Strip are included in the claimed territory, it is unclear whether, and to what extent, Israeli sovereignty is contested in areas within the Green Line</ref> [41] harlan (talk) 08:40, 6 January 2010 (UTC)
- You are very eloquent, and yet your theory is not supported by reality, so I find it hard to believe that you cite the sources accurately. Here's a simple example you are probably acquainted with: Iran was one of the first countries to recognize Israel, and the two countries had productive mutual relations until 1979. In 1979 Iran revoked its recognition in Israel. Not only did it cut its relations with it, it revoked its recognition. In the eyes of the Islamic Republic's regime, there is a place called "occupied Palestine" run by the illegitimate "Zionist regime", but no State of Israel. This is not in line with the quotes you mentioned above about a recognition being irrevocable. Now, "international Person" is not a sovereign state. The Order of Malta is also an "international person", so is the European Union, the Red Cross and Red Crescent, the United Nations and many other organizations. Lauterpacht rightfully stated that a state turn into "international person" by recognition. He did not say that recognition makes an "international person" a state. Once again you misinterpret the source so it would comply with your views. Your information about Truman's recognition in the annexation of the WB to the Hashemite Kingdom is very interesting, because in all sources I checked so far, it said that only Britain and possibly Pakistan recognized the annexation (the Arab League rejected it strongly). It is possible that the US recognized this annexation too. Israel recognized it de facto only after capturing the territory, by acknowledging that the law in this territory is the Jordanian law. However, all this information just proves my point - you cannot claim that a proclaimed Arab state of Palestine is the successor of the British Mandate. It is an unsupported opinion. I added two "controversy templates" to the article in order to encourage more input from other users. DrorK (talk) 16:31, 6 January 2010 (UTC)
- I'm very familiar with Jessup's remarks. He said Israel only needed to be considered a state for the purposes of the UN Charter. The State of Israel announced its independence. It had been recognized within the boundaries contained in the resolution of 29 November 1947. A representative of the United States government told a member of the Jordanian Legation, "The union of Arab Palestine and Jordan had been brought about as a result of the will of the people and the US accepted the fact that Jordanian sovereignty had been extended to the new area." President Truman told King Abdullah that the policy of the United States Government as regards a final territorial settlement in Palestine had been stated in the General Assembly on Nov 30, 1948 by the American representative. On that occasion, Dr. Jessup had endorsed the Mediator's plan for a union between the Arab portions of the former mandate, including Transjordan. Truman said the US supported Israeli claims to the boundaries set forth in the UN General Assembly resolution of November 29, 1947, but believed that if Israel sought to retain additional territory in Palestine allotted to the Arabs, it should (not shall) give the Arabs territorial compensation. That presented the Ad Hoc committee with a problem during the membership hearings because Israel didn't have a defined territory. You added an unsourced reference that implicitly acknowledged the ambiguity <ref>While the West Bank and Gaza Strip are included in the claimed territory, it is unclear whether, and to what extent, Israeli sovereignty is contested in areas within the Green Line</ref> [41] harlan (talk) 08:40, 6 January 2010 (UTC)
Rejecting edits and revision is one thing, removing a template is another. I gave a very serious explanation why many paragraphs in this article seem more like an academic thesis than an encyclopedic article. I expect a much more productive discussion about this issue, and in the meantime, the least we can do is to inform the readers about the controversy. DrorK (talk) 09:25, 7 January 2010 (UTC)
- To be honest, I am wondering whether the problem of this article is "synthesis" or "undue weight". There are clearly some problems with the neutrality of the introduction. As for the rest of the article, i am not convinced that harlan's interpretation of the sources he brings is correct, and I think he might have been using them to establish ideas not originally intended in the sources. However, even if he is right in his interpretation of the sources, these are still marginal views. DrorK (talk) 09:31, 7 January 2010 (UTC)
Arbitrary Break
All you have demonstrated is that you haven't read the sources cited in the article, and that you don't know the damn difference between recognition of an entity; recognition of a government; recognition of a State; and diplomatic recognition. You can't even cite a published source to support your story about Iran's withdrawal of diplomatic recognition. If anyone is engaging in unpublished synthesis and WP:OR around here it's very definitely you. The burden of proof for inclusion is verifiability. That is why your edits were reverted. The majority of States legally recognize Palestine as a state. So, your opinion that it isn't one should be characterized as the minority view.
- Talmon explains the difference between recognizing a government (conditionally) and a state (unconditional) "With regard to US recognition of Israel, Dr Jessup, Deputy US Representative in the Security Council, informed the Security Council on 17 December 1948 that 'so far as the Provisional Government of Israel is concerned, the United States did extend de facto recognition to that Provisional Government of Israel.' In this connection it is also of interest to note Dr Jessup's telegram of 13 July 1948 to Secretary of State Marshall stating: 'it is our understanding that US recognition of State of Israel is unqualified, that is, de jure, while our recognition of PGI [Provisional Government of Israel] was a de facto recognition of government [of] that state. Is this interpretation correct?' The Department, on 15 July, stated its agreement with New York's understanding and set forth its belief that 'in case of recognition of new states as distinguished from new governments no question of de facto as against de jure recognition is involved'. --Stefan Talmon, Recognition of Governments in International Law: With Particular Reference to Governments in Exile (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1998) page 62
- Talmon illustrates that recognition of a state is not the same as diplomatic recognition: "Another case concerning the recognition of Israel is also informative. On 25 January 1964 the Republic of Ireland disclosed that it had granted de jure recognition to Israel 'some time ago'. However, it was not until 12 December 1974 that the Irish Republic and Israel announced that they had agreed to establish diplomatic relations." --Stefan Talmon, Recognition of Governments in International Law: With Particular Reference to Governments in Exile (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1998) page 72
- In 1987 the United States repeatedly criticized the Soviet Union for withholding 'diplomatic recognition' of Israel. Diplomatic recognition in this context referred to the unwillingness of the Soviet Government to re-establish diplomatic relations which had been severed in 1967. The USSR had been the third State, after the USA and Guatemala, to recognize 'officially' the State of Israel and its Provisional Government on 17 May 1948--a recognition which had never been withdrawn.--Stefan Talmon, Recognition of Governments in International Law: With Particular Reference to Governments in Exile (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1998) page 111
- Israeli forces had shot down a British aircraft over Egypt in January 1949. Despite nonrecognition, Britain addressed to Israeli authorities Britain's intention to seek compensation. Britain dealt with unrecognized Israel as if the country possessed international legal personality. --Thomas D. Grant, The Recognition of States: Law and Practice in Debate and Evolution (Westport, CT: Praeger, 1999) page 20 harlan (talk) 11:23, 7 January 2010 (UTC)
- Let me bring you back to our discussion. You claim that the very fact that 110 countries extended their recognition following the 1988 declaration in Algiers was enough to determine that there is an Arab state called "The State of Palestine". This is an interesting thesis that is not commonly supported. I saw the source you've brought and I am convinced now that you didn't make this claim up, and yet it is a very unusual view. You try to back it with other sources, but you misinterpret them. True, a state needs international recognition in order to become an "international personality", but that doesn't mean that declaring a state and getting recognition is enough to say that the body in question is a sovereign state. This is not in line with most of the sources you've brought and the mainstream view about the subject.
- I brought the example of Iran's recognition in Israel to show you that you rely to much on legal interpretation and try to manipulate them in order to make them valid for this article. You brought a source saying a recognition is irrevocable, but we both know it is not true. In 1950 Iran extended a de facto recognition in Israel. In 1960 it extended a de jure recognition. And yet, in 2008 the official representative of Iran in Argentina says "We do not recognize Israel as a state. For us no such country exists" [42]. A slip of the tongue? Hardly, because Iranian passports bear an inscription saying that the passport holder may not visit "occupied Palestine". I strongly doubt if they mean any other place but Israel, but they avoid mentioning it by its name (it is a bit like calling the US "the former British colonies in North America"). So, please don't be too quick to rely on an academic paper that claim things that are not compatible with reality.
- You also claimed that an Arab country called Palestine always existed. This is another claim not supported by mainstream views. The Ottoman Empire was not Arab, the British Mandate was established upon the Balfour Declaration of 1917, you can even look at McMahon–Hussein Correspondence and see that the UK official position was that Palestine was not Arab. The fact that the US said in its letter of recognition that Israel was a Jewish state established in Palestine, doesn't mean it recognized Palestine as an Arab country. Quite the contrary in fact. So basically, you bring one or two marginal views and base an entire article on them.
- I updated the templates. I think two solutions should be considered: (1) revising the article so it will not imply that an Arab Palestinian state already exists. (2) Changing the article's title into "Views about Palestinian statehood" or something similar. DrorK (talk) 14:14, 7 January 2010 (UTC)
You are bringing up the usual nonsensical issues that have already been discussed on the talk page above, and you are not citing what published sources have said, you are discussing what you'd like to say.
The sources that I cited in the article very specifically stated that the post war treaties provided for the application of the principles of state succession to the "A" Mandates, and that the boundaries of two new states were laid down within the territory of the Palestine Mandate, i.e. Palestine and Transjordan. You are suggesting that I said the new mandate era state of Palestine was a continuator state of the Ottoman Empire, but I never said that and the article doesn't either. Please stick to discussions of the article and cite previously published sources.
You have still NOT provided a published source to support the claim that "In 1979 Iran revoked its recognition in Israel." That's when Iran's Imperial government went into exile, and was replaced in the aftermath of a revolution by a new government, with a new constitution. The customary rule on recognition of successor regimes founded by a revolution is the "clean slate" and the test of continued relations with existing states. The source you cited doesn't establish that the new regime, the Islamic Republic of Iran, ever recognized Israel in the first place, or that it desired continued relations. It claimed to the successor in interest to the assets, property, and claims of the former Imperial regime in other states, but those claims and counterclaims were the subject of international adjudication and arbitration.
In the case of an established revolutionary regime or continuator state, the governments are not new. A government is one of the elements that comprise a state as a "person of law". In practice, International Tribunals use the terms "state" and "government" interchangeably when treating an existing or established regime. They apply the laws of succession to determine ownership of assets and responsibilities for the international obligations of the former regime. This article cites the decisions of two international tribunals involving Palestine and the British and US law digest analysis of the legal status of Palestine and Transjordan. The determinations of tribunals regarding the succession of responsibility in the case of Iran have filled volumes. For the purposes of our discussion, see "What constitutes a State?" on pages 179 and 180 of "The International Law of Expropriation As Reflected in the Work of the Iran-U. S. Claims Tribunal (Developments in International Law, Vol 17), By Allahyar Mouriexample [43]
The declassified War Cabinet and Peace Conference documents regarding Palestine and the McMahon-Hussein agreements contradict your thesis. They were published in the official Documents on British Foreign Policy series edited by Woodward & Butler, and were also compiled and analyzed in "Palestine Papers 1917-1922: Seeds of Conflict", by Doreen Ingrams. Balfour was present at War Cabinet and Peace Conference meetings where the Cabinet discussed the fact that Great Britain had made "a general pledge to Hussein in October 1915, under which Palestine was included in the areas as to which Great Britain pledged itself that they should be Arab and independent in the future." See Palestine Papers, 1917-1922, Doreen Ingrams, page 48, Minutes of the 41st meeting of the Eastern Coommittee, EC-41, December 1918, UK Archive files PRO CAB 27/24.
Balfour himself wrote Nº. 242, Memorandum by Mr. Balfour (Paris) respecting Syria, Palestine, and Mesopotamia' [132187/2117/44A] from the Paris Peace conference which said the Arabs had been promised their independence in 1915, and that "In 1918 the promise was by implication repeated; for no other interpretation can, I think, be placed by any unbiased reader on the phrases in the declaration about a “National Government’, and “an Administration deriving its authority from the initiative and free choice of the native population’." He went on to say "In our promises with regard to the frontiers of the new Arab States we do not seem to have been more fortunate than in our promises about their independence. In 1915 it was the Sherif of Mecca to whom the task of delimitation was to have been confided, nor were any restrictions placed upon his discretion in this matter, except certain reservations intended to protect French interests in Western Syria and Cilicia." See EL Woodward and Rohan Butler, Documents on British Foreign Policy, 1919-1939. (London: HM Stationery Office, 1952), 340-348. harlan (talk) 02:01, 8 January 2010 (UTC)
- First of all, let's make one historical fact clear. Henry MacMahon, who negotiated with Sharif Hussein ben Ali of Mecca send a very clear message to him:
- "The two districts of Mersina and Alexandretta and portions of Syria lying to the west of the districts of Damascus, Homs, Hama and Aleppo cannot be said to be purely Arab, and should be excluded from the limits demanded." (A letter from McMahon to Husayn, October 24, 1915).
- MacMahon, like many other people at that time, did not bother to distinguish Syria from Palestine (as geographical regions), and it is very clear that when he said "west of Damascus, Homs, Hama and Aleppo" he meant the region later designated as the British Mandate of Paletine. So there is no need to search declassified archives, the facts are on the table (unless you want to investigate the problems of communication within the British government of that time).
(outdent) The British government apologized because the language used in the McMahon correspondence was unclear "His Majesty's Government regret the misunderstandings which have arisen owing to the lack of precision in the language used in the correspondence." See CAB/24/285 CP. 79 (39).
In any event, there were no "problems of communication" between Foreign Secretary Grey and McMahon. Their telegrams regarding the clause you just mentioned dated 19 October 1917 have been declassified and published in UK National Archives CAB/24/214, CP 271 (30). You are also ignoring the fact that Balfour admitted, in writing, that the Arabs had been promised their independence; that Hussein was supposed to lay down the boundaries; and that the Arabs had been double-crossed.
The declassified British Cabinet Papers revealed that Sir Henry McMahon had telegramed the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, Lord Grey, requesting instructions. McMahon said the clause you mentioned had been suggested by a man named al Faroqi, a member of the Abd party, to satisfy the demands of the Syrian Nationalists for the independence of Arabia. It wasn't discussed during the negotiations with Mecca at all. Faroqi had said that the Arabs would fight if the French attempted to occupy the cities of Damascus, Homs, Hama and Aleppo, but he thought they would accept some modification of the North-Western boundaries that had been proposed in the letter McMahon showed him, from the Sherif of Mecca. Faroqi suggested the language: "In so far as Britain was free to act without detriment to the interests of her present Allies, Great Britain accepts the principle of the independence of Arabia within limits propounded by the Sherif of Mecca." Lord Grey authorized McMahon to pledge the areas requested by the Sherif, subject to the reserve for "the Allies" (NOT just France).
In the areas with Maronite, Orthodox, and Druze populations the Great Powers were still bound by an international agreement regarding non-intervention, the Reglement Organique Agreement of June 1861 and September of 1864. The French plans for Syria contradicted the plans and war aims of the other Allies for liberation of the Arab peoples in Lebanon and Syria. See UK National Archives CAB/24/143, Eastern Report, No. XVIII, May 31, 1917. During a War Cabinet meeting on policy regarding Syria and Palestine held on 5 December 1918, it was stated that Palestine had been included in the areas Great Britain had pledged would be Arab and independent in the future. The Chair, Lord Curzon, also noted that the rights that had been granted to the French under the terms of the Sykes-Picot agreement violated the provisions of the Reglement Organique Agreements and the war aims of the other Allies. Balfour attended the meeting. See UK National Archives CAB 27/24, EC-41. The publication of the Sykes-Picot Agreement caused the resignation of Sir Henry McMahon. See CAB 24/271, Cabinet Paper 203(37)
The British Foreign Secretary also published papers which explained that the British government's legal arguments were completely unsupportable:
- (i) the fact that the word " district" is applied not only to Damascus, &etc, where the reading of vilayet is at least arguable, but also immediately previously to Mersina and Alexandretta. No vilayets of these names exist. It would be difficult to argue that the word " districts " can have two completely different meanings in the space of a few lines.
- (ii) the fact that Horns and Hama were not the capitals of vilayets, but were both within the Vilayet of Syria.
- (iii) the fact that the real title of the " Vilayet of Damascus " was " Vilayet of Syria."
- (iv) the fact that there is no land lying west of the Vilayet of Aleppo.'
The analysis concluded "It may be possible to produce arguments designed to explain away some of these difficulties individually (although even this does not apply in the case of (iv)), but it is hardly possible to explain them away collectively. His Majesty's Government need not on this account abjure altogether the counter-argument based on the meaning of the word "district," which have been used publicly for many years, and the more obvious defects in which do not seem to have been noticed as yet by Arab critics." See UK National Archives CAB/24/282, Cabinet Paper 19 (39) All of that is explained in the articles on Sykes-Picot and the McMahon-Hussein correspondence. harlan (talk) 05:31, 13 January 2010 (UTC)
- This is very much in line with the 1917 Balfour Declaration, and the Mandate granted to the UK by the League of Nations:
- "Whereas the Principal Allied Powers have also agreed that the Mandatory should be responsible for putting into effect the declaration originally made on November 2nd, 1917, by the Government of His Britannic Majesty, and adopted by the said Powers, in favor of the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people, it being clearly understood that nothing should be done which might prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine, or the rights and political status enjoyed by Jews in any other country; and Whereas recognition has thereby been given to the historical connection of the Jewish people with Palestine and to the grounds for reconstituting their national home in that country" [44].
- Note the distinction between "a national home for the Jewish people" vs. "civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities".
- So we have a very serious problem with John Quigley's view, with all due respect, unless he does not regard "Palestine" as an Arab state, but then again, the 1988 declaration refer to Palestine as such. While we can write an article about the view of Quigley regarding Palestinian statehood, I am not sure it is notable enough as a subject. I believe Quingley's opinion receives undue weight in this article.
- This is very much in line with the 1917 Balfour Declaration, and the Mandate granted to the UK by the League of Nations:
(outdent) No, you have a very serious problem. The Anglo-American Committee and the UNSCOP Committee both concluded that there was no requirement to establish a Jewish State in either the Balfour Declaration or the Mandate. The UNSCOP report noted that the 1922 White Paper had placed a restrictive construction upon the Balfour Declaration. The statement excluded "the disappearance or subordination of the Arabic population, language or customs in Palestine" or "the imposition of Jewish nationality upon the inhabitants of Palestine as a whole", and made it clear that in the eyes of the mandatory Power, the Jewish National Home was to be founded in Palestine and not that Palestine as a whole was to be converted into a Jewish National Home. The Committee noted that the construction, which restricted considerably the scope of the National Home, was made prior to the confirmation of the Mandate by the Council of the League of Nations and was formally accepted at the time by the Executive of the Zionist Organization. In fact, Nahum Sokolow had denied that a Jewish state in Palestine was even a part of the Zionist program in 1919, and the Anglo-American Committee noted that Chaim Weizmann had denied it as recently as 1932. The Palestine Mandate article contains a section on the Jewish National home which explains all of that.
The resolution of the San Remo Conference reserved the political rights the non-Jewish communities. This article and the section on Arab Political Rights in the British Mandate article explain that fact. The majority of the UN member states view self-determination and statehood as an inalienable right of the Palestinian people. There are UN subsidiary organs devoted to efforts to assist them in exercising that right. For example, General Assembly resolution 48/158D, 20 December 1993. para. 5(c) stipulated that the permanent status negotiations should guarantee "arrangements for peace and security of all States in the region, including those named in resolution 181(II) of 29 November 1947 harlan (talk) 05:31, 13 January 2010 (UTC)
- John V. Whitbeck's opinion about Palestinian statehood is based upon an allegation that the proclaimed Palestinian state gained control over territories in the WB&Gaza. He identifies the SoP with the PNA. However, he ignores the fact that the PNA control is very limited, and is even less effective than that given to autonomies like Greenland. The pro-Palestinian-statehood Israeli B'Tselem organization scathingly criticizes the Israeli government's refusal to allow Palestinian independence and listed the strict limitations imposed on the PNA, also by internationally recognized agreements (such as the various "Oslo accords" and the "Paris protocol") and not necessarily by ad hoc policy or military force [45]. So, once again, we have a very problematic view which is given undue weight.
(outdent) Whitbeck's 1996 article is somewhat dated, since various governmental and intergovernmental agencies, including the state of Israel, have made statements that affirm the views he expressed. He pointed out that extending diplomatic recognition to foreign states lies within the discretion of each sovereign State. Since 1996:
- The ICJ noted that a number of agreements have been signed since 1993 between Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organization and that those agreements required Israel to transfer to Palestinian authorities certain powers and responsibilities exercised in the Occupied Palestinian Territory by its military authorities and civil administration. The Court said that Israel is under an obligation not to raise any obstacle to the exercise of such rights in those fields where competence has been transferred to Palestinian authorities. See paras 77 and 112 of the Advisory Opinion
- The majority of States have recognized the Palestinian people's permanent sovereignty over the natural resources of the Occupied Palestinian Territory.
- Israel’s representative at the United Nations said that under agreements reached between the two sides, the Palestinian Authority already exercised jurisdiction over many natural resources, while interim cooperation and arrangements were in place for others. [46]
- The Israeli High Court has ruled that Gaza, Judea, and Samaria have not been annexed to Israel; that the military commander is not the sovereign in the territory held in belligerent occupation; and that the military commander's authority is derived from the provisions of public international law governing belligerent occupation. See HCJ 7957/04 Mara’abe v. The Prime Minister of Israel
- The Courts of Israel have ruled that the Palestinian Authority satisfies the legal criteria to be classed as a sovereign state and that the decision to recognize it as a state lies within the discretion of the political branches of the government of Israel. See Elon Moreh College Association v. The State of Israel, April 3, 2006 and Mis. Civ. P. (Jer) 1008/06, Elon Moreh College Association v. The State of Israel [April 3, 2006] [48]
- PM Netanyahu has expressed a willingness to recognize the State of Palestine if it will agree to forgo taking effective control of its airwaves, airspace, military defense, and not enter foreign alliances with Israel's enemies.
- PM Netanyahu recently requested that Palestine recognize Israel as the state of the Jewish people
- In the section about Palestinian passports, it is implied that an Arab Palestinian state should have succeeded the British Mandate's government. This is false. The UK canceled all aspects of the Mandate by adopting the "Palestine Act, 1948". Passports and other official documents of the Mandate became null and void on midnight May 15, 1948, and the UK did not specify any body to which it ceded its authorities. It simply said it was no longer responsible for governing the territory. The current Palestinian passport are issued by the PNA. According to the PNA agreements with Israel, it may issue passports only for WB&Gaza residents. Israel has full control over the definition of WB&Gaza residency. this article explains this state of affairs elaborately, and note, that it refers to "Palestine" as a state-to-be, not as an actual state, based on both Palestinian and international sources.
(outdent)When the European University starts stamping visas in passports I'll let you know. The Passport section of the article doesn't say anything about State succession. Israel does its best to create the impression you are talking about though. The US State Department advises its citizens that Israel reserves the right to make native born US citizens with one or more Palestinian grandparents obtain PA travel and identity documents and enter the territory from Jordan. Israel signed a Treaty agreement with Jordan which said that the international boundary between Jordan and Israel, does not alter the status of any territories that came under Israeli military government control in 1967.[49] From time to time elected officials of the government of Israel still assert that "Jordan is Palestine",[50]; that the West Bank and Gaza should be part of "The United States of Jordan".[51]; or that Palestinians worldwide who want a State of their own need to satisfy their national aspirations in the West Bank and Gaza.[52]
The United Kingdom actually recognized the United Nations as the successor government for the non-self governing portions of Palestine. See UN Document PAL/138, 27 February 1948. Great Britain also recognized the Act of Union that was adopted by the representatives of Transjordan and Palestine. See British House of Commons, Jordan and Israel (Government Decision), HC Deb 27 April 1950 vol 474 cc1137-41.harlan (talk) 05:31, 13 January 2010 (UTC)
- One thing must be stressed - as long as the article bears the title "State of Palestine" it CANNOT rely only on the LEGAL interpretations regarding Palestinian statehood. You can entitle this article "Legal positions regarding Palestinian statehood" or "The Palestinian state in view of the international law" or "International legal aspects of Palestinian statehood" or "The controversy over Palestinian independence" or any similar title. The term "state" is not confined to the juristic field, and you cannot treat it as such. For example, your distinction between "government" and "state" (or better say "regime", because "government" can be interpreted in several ways) is purely juristic and have little relevance, if any, to the common person. Since Wikipedia is not an encyclopedia of law, you cannot base an article upon legal interpretations or opinion of jurists alone. Iran's (non-)recognition in Israel is perhaps the best example to your approach that sees legal interpretation as all-inclusive. You imply that if something can be explained with legal interpretation then it is valid and verified. This is not the case, because law is only one of many aspects of real life.
(outdent) The sources cited in the article explain that States are legal entities. The majority of other States have made calculated political decisions to recognize the State of Palestine, and those formal political declarations have legal consequences. You may not have noticed, but I have cited the decisions of the PCIJ, ICJ, and international arbital tribunals that were established to resolve disputes regarding succession to ownership of state assets and state responsibilities in the cases of Palestine, Transjordan, Israel, and Iran. Whether you like it or not, international law did govern the actions and relations between those States, and that is the viewpoint held by the majority of States. I've also cited sources such as the Foreign Relations of the United States series, the Palestine Post, and etc. regarding historical political decisions and events. There are a variety of secondary sources and authorities who analyze and comment on that material from a political science perspective. harlan (talk) 05:31, 13 January 2010 (UTC)
- To sum up the problems (again): (1) This article gives undue weight to creative legal interpretations, which are not supported by historical documents / recent reliable reports and the mainstream interpretations given to them; (2) this article draws comprehensive conclusions from juristic views and interpretation, while dealing with the subject that has many other aspects (namely, statehood, its meaning and applications). DrorK (talk) 06:03, 8 January 2010 (UTC)
(outdent) To sum up your problem: (i) You are not really trying to summarize the existing contents of the article in the lede. (ii) The majority of States do view Palestine as a State. (iii) You have an unhistorical view of the Balfour Declaration and Mandate that is contradicted by the actual published records of the British Cabinet, the resolution of the San Remo Conference, the report of the Anglo-American Committee, and the report of the UNSCOP Commission. (iv) You haven't cited any significant published sources that support the unsourced editorial comments and weasel words you tried to insert in the article, despite having ample opportunity to explain.[53] (v) This article cites and quotes verifiable and reliable published sources and represents viewpoints that have been discussed by the mainstream in mainstream publictions. harlan (talk) 05:31, 13 January 2010 (UTC)
- Apparently you are not willing to work collaboratively and respect the fact that you are biased. This is not how WP works. You are using this site to promote political views which is explicitly forbidden. DrorK (talk) 17:52, 23 January 2010 (UTC)
- Drop the personal attacks about bias and start citing relevant reliable published sources that meet the minimum burden of proof for inclusion. The material in the lede summarizes the content of the article. The unpublished opinions of Wikipedia editors, like yourself, as to whether, or not, the indigenous population, their government, and the territory that they inhabit exist as a "person of law", a country, or a State are not a suitable subject for the encyclopedia or the talk page.
- The existence of a state of Palestine, although controversial, is nonetheless a reality in the opinion of the many states that have extended recognition, and accepted letters of credence and ambassadors from the State of Palestine. You have not explained how the title can be considered "biased" in light of those facts, and you have not suggested any serious alternatives that are currently under discussion.
- I've been editing an article about a legal entity, a State, that has been recognized by the majority of other States in accordance with international law. The article says that there are a variety of views on the subject, and there is an entire subsection which explains that a state may only exist for the purposes of the UN Charter. Nobody is stopping you from adding material that represents other significant "published" views. The article cites a number of relevant legal, political, up-to-date, and historical sources regarding the subject, and it says the majority of other states have recognized the State of Palestine. The thesis and points you presented at the head of this thread do not change the facts or circumstances. You still have not bothered to support them with citations to WP:RS sources, and have not made a good faith attempt to incorporate them into the body of the article. That after all is the real reason your edits were reverted. harlan (talk) 21:12, 23 January 2010 (UTC)
- The burden of proof is on you, because you are the one who presents a controversial thesis based on weak sources. So far you failed to justify your edits. I am not the one who has to do the work for you. A state called Palestine is a proclaimed state, not an existing state. I can easily prove it to you - let's call the Palestinian Authority in Ramallah and ask it to grant both of us a Palestinian citizenship. You will find out that there is no process of becoming a Palestinian citizen. You have to be listed in the Israeli registrar as a resident of the WB or Gaza, and then you can become a subject of the PA. The Palestinian Authority granted symbolic passports to certain people in the past, but they have no practical value - there is nothing you can do with them. There are many other examples on why Palestine is not a state. In fact, most of the countries you cited as recognizing Palestine, recognize it only symbolically or as a state-to-be, not as a real actual state. It is often said that WP is not about truth but about verifiability. You took this principle into the extreme, and suggest that a list of weak sources can overcome common sense. It is a bit similar to the claim that Creationalism is science. You could cite many sources claiming so, but the common sense and healthy thinking don't allow us to trust these sources. Now, I can tell you support the creation of a Palestinian State, and I do not condemn you for that. I just suggest that you won't use WP as a tool in this political campaign. DrorK (talk) 13:41, 24 January 2010 (UTC)
- By the way, you might want to take a look at this interesting document [54]. Apparently even countries the 1988-declared Palestine cannot guarantee that they would regard a Palestinian passport as an evidence of Palestinian citizenship, and the PA representative admits they have to respect Israeli limitations on issuance of passports. That doesn't sound like an independent state to me. I have never heard of an independent sovereign country that cannot issue passports or another proof of citizenship freely. Even governments in exile can issue documents of citizenship recognized by other countries (my grandfather used to be a citizen of a government in exile back in the 1940ies). DrorK (talk) 14:37, 24 January 2010 (UTC)
- The burden of proof is on you, because you are the one who presents a controversial thesis based on weak sources. So far you failed to justify your edits. I am not the one who has to do the work for you. A state called Palestine is a proclaimed state, not an existing state. I can easily prove it to you - let's call the Palestinian Authority in Ramallah and ask it to grant both of us a Palestinian citizenship. You will find out that there is no process of becoming a Palestinian citizen. You have to be listed in the Israeli registrar as a resident of the WB or Gaza, and then you can become a subject of the PA. The Palestinian Authority granted symbolic passports to certain people in the past, but they have no practical value - there is nothing you can do with them. There are many other examples on why Palestine is not a state. In fact, most of the countries you cited as recognizing Palestine, recognize it only symbolically or as a state-to-be, not as a real actual state. It is often said that WP is not about truth but about verifiability. You took this principle into the extreme, and suggest that a list of weak sources can overcome common sense. It is a bit similar to the claim that Creationalism is science. You could cite many sources claiming so, but the common sense and healthy thinking don't allow us to trust these sources. Now, I can tell you support the creation of a Palestinian State, and I do not condemn you for that. I just suggest that you won't use WP as a tool in this political campaign. DrorK (talk) 13:41, 24 January 2010 (UTC)
- I've been editing an article about a legal entity, a State, that has been recognized by the majority of other States in accordance with international law. The article says that there are a variety of views on the subject, and there is an entire subsection which explains that a state may only exist for the purposes of the UN Charter. Nobody is stopping you from adding material that represents other significant "published" views. The article cites a number of relevant legal, political, up-to-date, and historical sources regarding the subject, and it says the majority of other states have recognized the State of Palestine. The thesis and points you presented at the head of this thread do not change the facts or circumstances. You still have not bothered to support them with citations to WP:RS sources, and have not made a good faith attempt to incorporate them into the body of the article. That after all is the real reason your edits were reverted. harlan (talk) 21:12, 23 January 2010 (UTC)
Harlan, you show no will to discuss the problems in the article, and you try to silence those who object your opinions. May I remind you that this is not a private page of yours. DrorK (talk) 16:53, 24 January 2010 (UTC)
- DrorK, I'm going to be restoring this edit which you reverted. there is nothing wrong with it. I will also (if you don't beat me to it) be adding some of the information you provided in the link above about the limitations surrounding the recognition of the declaration of Palestine. I wish you would add such information to the article, instead of deleting the contributions of others and arguing here on the talk page. It would do much more toward addressing te POV concerns you raised in any case. Tiamuttalk 17:07, 24 January 2010 (UTC)
- That won't do. You cannot present a proclaimed state as an existing state. It is would be like spitting in the face of WP's users. All the sources brought by Harlan to support his thesis are very weak and I explained why. He looks at the issue through the prism of international law, while we are dealing with a case that has numerous aspects, of which international law is one and not the most important one (the question of actual control of territory and population, the question of de facto functioning as a state is much more important). Even when considering the legal information given in this article it is indeed sourced, and yet based on exceptional interpretations often biased. I don't need to source my claims here, the person who bring an exceptional opinion is the one who should explain why it is a good source of information, and Harlan failed to do so. Furthermore, this article contradicts other article on WP. We have an article about the Palestinian Territories claiming they are occupied and cannot be regarded as a country. We have an article about the Palestinian National Authority that does not present it as an independent government. We have an article called Proposals for a Palestinian state that suggest by its very name that such state is non-existent. Do you really think this article respects WP? At least delete all other contradicting articles. DrorK (talk) 17:28, 24 January 2010 (UTC)
- Harlan brings sources, you bring none. Harlan's sources are of the highest quality. Again, you bring none. A state exists, according to the sources, when other states recognize its existence. If you would like to bring sources that contradict this feel free, but you cannot simply say that what the sources say is wrong. nableezy - 21:29, 24 January 2010 (UTC)
- I bring sources which you don't like (see above). Furthermore, Harlan doesn't bring sources of information. He brings theses and presents them as facts. As I said, this is the same as presenting Creationalism as science. There are plenty of pseudo-scientific articles suggesting creationalism is a fact. The fact such articles exist doesn't make them valid. You are abusing the notion of verifiability in order to promote political views. And you still refuse to address the problem of contradiction with other articles on WP. How can a Palestinian state be proposed if it already exists? Should we delete that article? DrorK (talk) 06:41, 25 January 2010 (UTC)
- Harlan brings sources, you bring none. Harlan's sources are of the highest quality. Again, you bring none. A state exists, according to the sources, when other states recognize its existence. If you would like to bring sources that contradict this feel free, but you cannot simply say that what the sources say is wrong. nableezy - 21:29, 24 January 2010 (UTC)
- That won't do. You cannot present a proclaimed state as an existing state. It is would be like spitting in the face of WP's users. All the sources brought by Harlan to support his thesis are very weak and I explained why. He looks at the issue through the prism of international law, while we are dealing with a case that has numerous aspects, of which international law is one and not the most important one (the question of actual control of territory and population, the question of de facto functioning as a state is much more important). Even when considering the legal information given in this article it is indeed sourced, and yet based on exceptional interpretations often biased. I don't need to source my claims here, the person who bring an exceptional opinion is the one who should explain why it is a good source of information, and Harlan failed to do so. Furthermore, this article contradicts other article on WP. We have an article about the Palestinian Territories claiming they are occupied and cannot be regarded as a country. We have an article about the Palestinian National Authority that does not present it as an independent government. We have an article called Proposals for a Palestinian state that suggest by its very name that such state is non-existent. Do you really think this article respects WP? At least delete all other contradicting articles. DrorK (talk) 17:28, 24 January 2010 (UTC)
No Edit Orders and other nonsense
- Drork, the Palestinian territories article has an entire section which explains that the United States and other countries legally recognize it as a country. [[55]] I'd suggest you rename the "Proposals" article "Proposals for a final settlement" if it bothers you so much. Wikipedia editors do not determine whether or not states or governments exist in any case - they are supposed record what reliable published sources have said. Several of the sources that I've cited (Segal, Quigley, Boyle et. al.) have said that the intifadas gave local legal effect to the 1988 Declaration. Millions of lawful inhabitants of the territory let it be known, in no uncertain terms, that they would not acquiesce to permanent Israeli occupation or rule, and that they would only settle for self-government. BTW, the Israeli and other press have reported that there is no longer any local Israel government presence in Gaza, and that a Hamas-led faction of the Palestinian Authority is still exercising nominal control there.
- Nobody is stopping you from adding material that represents other significant "published" views. You provided a link to a reply from the US Immigration and Naturalization Service "Resource Information Center" written in 2002. It contained several significant disclaimers. It stipulated that certain consular officials of three Middle Eastern states "were unable to say" whether their governments viewed Palestinian Authority passports as conferring any proof of citizenship or residency" and that "This response is not, and does not purport to be, conclusive as to the merit of any particular claim to refugee status or asylum." You have repeatedly asserted that I'm promoting a "thesis", when all I've actually done is cite or quote what published sources, like John Quigley, the FRUS, or Miriam Whiteman have said on this subject. You've turned the talk page into a general discussion forum for analogies to "creationism", and so-called "common sense and healthy thinking". You demanded the right to disappear on your talk page, and then complained when your tags were removed, as if there were still an on-going discussion taking place. Drive by tagging, personal insults, and ordering other editors not to edit the article in a certain way violates policy. See Making "no-edit" orders You can't delete sourced material and demand that editors go to ARBCOM, since they are not concerned with CONTENT disputes. harlan (talk) 20:06, 24 January 2010 (UTC)
- According to most of the sources cited in this article (and most other available by scholars in the field), the State of Palestine does exist. It may not be independent, it may not be sovereign, and certainly does not exercise full control over its territories, most of which are occupied - that does not change the fact that it exists, by virtue of its declaration of independence and the recognition of that declaration by the majority of the world's states. I do think some of the other articles on WP need work (as does this one) so that they better represent this very complicated reality of a state that has been declared but whose independence has yet to be implemented. Palestine is in a transition phase though, so it makes sense that the articles on the subject and those related to it would contain some contradictory or at least confusing information.
- This article will better respect Wiki policies when people spend more time following them by adding reliably sourced information that is relevant and varied in opinion and less time squabbling on the talk page. Tiamuttalk 17:48, 24 January 2010 (UTC)
This response of yours proves how poorly you know the facts. The US DOES NOT recognize a country called Palestine. It recognizes a self-governed territory called "The West Bank and Gaza" or "The Palestinian Territories" per the Oslo Accords.
- You are generally on dangerous ground when you make assumptions about US recognition of other states. There are a number of examples where US recognition was asserted retroactively decades after the fact in order to pursue monetary claims or to seize assets located in the US. The article explains that the United States no longer makes formal announcements regarding recognition of statehood. It cites an announcement which said the United States recognizes the West Bank and Gaza as a Country of origin. The announcement cited "19 C.F.R. PART 134" [56] which says “Country” means the political entity known as a nation.
- The West Bank and Gaza are considered to be a single territory (not "territories") for legal and other purposes by the United States. The USAID West Bank/Gaza has been tasked with "state-building" projects in the areas of democracy, governance, resources, and infrastructure. Part of the USAID mission is to help in the progressive development of a viable and independent Palestinian State in the West Bank and Gaza. The United States has also signed an international agreement that protects and encourages investments. It is the modern equivalent of a treaty of comity and amity between states, the “Agreement on Encouragement of Investment Between the United States of America and the Palestine Liberation Organization for the Benefit of the Palestinian Authority Pursuant to the Agreement on the Gaza Strip and the Jericho Area” of 11 August and 12 September 1994.
- The US State Department Digest explains that those sort of treaties are a hallmark of statehood: "A state in the international sense is generally described as a recognized member of the family of nations, an international person. Authorities differ in respect to the qualifications for such statehood, but there is general agreement on certain basic requirements. Independence is not essential. The requisite personality, in the international sense, is seen when the entity claiming to be a State has in fact its own distinctive association with the members of the international society, as by treaties, which, howsoever concluded in its behalf, mark the existence of definite relationships between itself and other contracting parties" See Marjorie M. Whiteman, Digest of International Law, vol. 1 (Washington, DC: U. S. Government Printing Office, 1963) page 223 harlan (talk) 23:02, 25 January 2010 (UTC)
- The U.S. Department of State has determined that the Palestinian Authority Passport/Travel Document meets the requirements of a passport as defined in Section 101(a)(30) of the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA) and therefore is acceptable for visa issuing purposes and travel to the United States.
- However, according to an official at the U.S. Department of State, the United States does not recognize Palestine as a country, and therefore the Palestinian Authority Passport/Travel Document does not confer citizenship." (a report on the UN Refugee Agency).
- Now, your idea of a state without sovereignty is certainly an innovation. As I said, you can find thousands of articles claiming all kind of bizarre things. Some of them even gained some credit among certain groups, e.g. Creationalism or certain theories of Astrology. That doesn't make them reliable sources, especially when you interpret them so liberally. For example, according to the sources you bring, the Basque Country should be considered an independent state, because it has an autonomous rule and some of its residents struggle for full independence. With a few clicks on my keyboard and some logical fallacies based on weak theses I've created a new state in Europe, and grant it as a gift to Wikipedia. You also suggest that if a country does not know whether it recognizes a passport as an indication of citizenship, then it means it recognizes the issuing authority as a state. Another logical fallacy. A country usually knows well how to treat foreign official documents. If a state official says his country doesn't know what the meaning of a foreign official document is, it entails non-recognition and not the other way around. You either not serious or so politically motivated that you fail to see the facts. I'm sorry, but I thought WP was a source of information, not a playground. DrorK (talk) 07:02, 25 January 2010 (UTC)
(outdent) You cited an inconclusive RIC response to a question about refugees and asylum. If a foreign official says he cannot answer hypothetical questions about refugees, it usually means that decisions are made on a case-by-case basis, and that the approval of other departments is part of the decision making process. In the Vietnamese refugee processing centers, DoD, State, and INS all participated in the process. The bureaucrats that staff US government information centers do not represent foreign governments, exercise boundless regulatory discretion, or make legal determinations that are reserved for the legislative and judicial branches of the government. If you ever come up with some verifiable published information that is relevant to THIS article, feel free to add it.
The Anglo-American Palestine Mandate Convention of 1925 did oblige the United States to recognize Palestinian nationality. The United States was one of the Allied powers that negotiated and ratified the treaty of Lausanne which created the successor states of Palestine and Transjordan. The United States does recognize those as countries of origin for individuals born there, and it considers Palestinian nationality to be a legally protected characteristic under federal civil rights laws. The United States has always provided funding for Palestinian refugee camps, and has recently decided to resettle more than 1300 Palestinian refugees from Iraq in the United States. A state does not cease to exist simply because its territory is occupied. Israel and Jordan did not occupy or annex all of the territory of Palestine. See the section on Gaza and succession of laws there. harlan (talk) 21:01, 25 January 2010 (UTC)
Page protection
I am going to be requesting that this page be protected from IP edits... there are IPs edit warring and breaking WP:3RR which is making it impossible and highly discouraging for other users to make positive contributions to the article. This is not to mention the fact that a quick look at the contributions of these IPs show that they are very clearly sock puppets (I won't get into whose). Breein1007 (talk) 09:19, 3 January 2010 (UTC)
- I hope you (or one of the sockpuppets) isn't planning on making an intervening edit before you file for page protection. And whose sockpuppets you think these are is interesting to me. Please do share. Tiamuttalk 09:22, 3 January 2010 (UTC)
- As you kindly pointed out earlier, I am currently sitting at 3 reverts. It would be foolish of me to revert the vandalism at this point! I'll see what happens to the edit war while I'm out and when I come back I'll make the request. Thanks and have fun :) Breein1007 (talk) 09:39, 3 January 2010 (UTC)
Just something quick for the recent edit warriors to note: the recognition number stands at 110; the two I removed earlier (Bolivia and Singapore) were from the second list, which are not counted in the first place. Night w (talk) 12:25, 3 January 2010 (UTC)
The lead is supposed to summarize the main article covering the main points. How is Jerusalem being the capital of Israel a main point in this article? Where in the main article is this discussed? Does the Israel article make any mention at all of Jerusalem being the capital of Palestine? This is both not relevant and not important enough for it to be in the lead of this article. If you would like to make a footnote similar to the one in the Israel article feel free, but Jerusalem's status as capital of Israel is not relevant to this article. nableezy - 02:23, 10 January 2010 (UTC)
Removed big chunk of background
In this edit. The claim and lengthy counter-claim refutation are better suited to the article on United Nations Partition Plan for Palestine, where I have added them, noting that they came from here. Please do not reinsert either claim or counter-claim here again. Readers interested in the details of the partition plan can read about it there. Tiamuttalk 17:43, 24 January 2010 (UTC)
- I had planned to make that a separate article with a small summary section under a "see also" or "main article" template here. The same thing goes for the long discussions regarding the legal status of the West Bank, Gaza, and Transjordan areas. harlan (talk) 18:20, 24 January 2010 (UTC)
- I think the partition plan info is better placed in that article and there's no need for a separate one. If you want to link to the subsection I placed it in, you can.
- I do agree that an article on Legal Status of the State of Palestine and/or Legal Status of the West Bank, Gaza, and Transjordan may be a good idea. It seems the legal status section here has gotten quite long and the background section has a lot of information on the legal status of the latter. Good work though in putting so much well-sourced information into a readable form for others. Thanks for your efforts. Tiamuttalk 20:14, 24 January 2010 (UTC)
- There probably needs to be a separate article in order to sort out the actual legal and historical facts. Wikipedia already has some pretty far-fetched content in articles like Occupation of the West Bank and East Jerusalem by Jordan.
- The UN Partition plan was only one factor in the post mandate era/armistice settlements. For example, Wikipedia has never adequately explained the modus vivendi agreements between the Jewish Agency, Abdullah, the Nashashibis, the UK, US, et al. The Jericho Conference which resulted in the union of the Arab portions of the mandate and the Jordanian administrative disengagement of the West Bank of 31 July 1988 were not part of the partition plan or any formal UN initiative. The secret agreements are part of the standard curriculum in most university courses on the history, political science, and sociology of the Middle East, but you'd never know it from reading Wikipedia.
- Most readers are not aware of the fact that Transjordan was still considered part of the mandate after 1946. In November of 1947, the UN Ad Hoc Committee on Palestine actually entertained proposals to include portions of the "Transjordan area", including the port of Aqaba, in the Jewish state. The Jewish Agency and the Government of Israel have always made schizophrenic statements regarding Transjordan that tend to obscure its legal status. For example they have claimed (i) that Transjordan was an indivisible part of the Mandate in which the Jewish people have a secured interest; (ii) that Transjordan was a "neighboring state" that crossed an international frontier in order to attack "Israel"; and (iii) that "Jordan is Palestine". harlan (talk) 22:14, 24 January 2010 (UTC)
- You have a lot of knowledge, but you don't use it. This is amazing. Why are you trying to present a distorted picture of reality, when you have so much information that you can contribute? Did you write an article about the Jericho Conference? Did you improve the article about the British Mandate? BTW, the First Order in Council issued for the British Mandate explicitly said that the areas east of the Jordan River and Wadi Arabah are not subject to the Balfour Declaration. The territory designated as Palestine was in fact subject to the implementation of the Balfour Declaration, at least until the mid-1930ies and probably even afterwards (despite imposing limitations on Jewish immigration and building of new Jewish communities). The claim "Jordan is Palestine" was never an Israeli official position. Also, Israel never claimed any territories in the Hashemite Kingdom (except arguing with its government about the exact pattern of the border in the Aravah Valley). You seem to confuse personal opinions with established positions. For example you value a statement by Yitzhak Gilhar, a controversial statement which you didn't fully understand (Gilhar never meant to say that an Arab state called Palestine emerged with the British Mandate, he merely stated the fact that two new self-governed territories were established by Britain). Gilhar is only one person, and you base a whole thesis upon his view, and what's more - you present this thesis as facts on the ground. I think you could do a much better service here if you stick to the facts rather than resort to outline opinions. DrorK (talk) 13:19, 25 January 2010 (UTC)
(outdent) I indicated that I was talking about the statements made by the representatives of the Jewish Agency and Provisional Government of Israel. In many cases those are a matter of public record because they were addressed to the UNSCOP Commission, the Security Council, the UN Mediator, and the Palestine Conciliation Commission. When Yitzhak Shamir was Foreign Minister and Prime Minister, the MFA certainly did publish and distribute materials which advanced similar views, i.e. that "Jordan is Palestine"; that "there was no need for a second Palestinian state to the west of the River"; that "there are many Arab states, but only one Jewish state"; and etc.
The Montevideo Convention doesn't list recognition of passports, travel documents, or effective control among the criteria for statehood. Whatever "the facts on the ground" might be, the article notes that the District Court of Jerusalem concluded that the PA satisfied the necessary criteria to be recognized as a "sovereign state". President Abbas subsequently said the state of Palestine already exists, and that the current problem is getting its borders recognized. PM Netanyahu said he was prepared to recognize the State of Palestine, so long as it did not control its own airspace, its own frequency spectrum, would agree not to enter into foreign relations with Israel's enemies, and etc. If Israel has the prerogative to recognize such a state, then there is no basis for Wikipedia editors to question the prerogative of other states that have already decided to extend recognition to Palestine. Palestinian government officials have publicly stated a willingness to grant Israeli settlers Palestinian citizenship. I haven't seen any published reports which challenge the PA's competence or capacity to do that.
Volume I of Miriam Whiteman's, US State Department, "Digest on International Law" is cited in the article. It contains a long section which thoroughly explains the legal status of the mandates; the principle of state succession in the WWI peace treaties; and the various court decisions, starting in 1925, which confirmed the statehood of the League of Nations 'A' Mandates, including Palestine and Transjordan. Volume II contains a long section on "Acquisition of Sovereignty over Territory" that explains the significance of the resolutions regarding sovereignty that were adopted by the Jericho Conference; the parliamentary elections; the provisions of the Act of Union; the assurances that King Abdullah provided to the Arab League (i.e. that the union was without prejudice to the final settlement of the Palestine question); and the recognition of the new relationship between the two peoples by the governments of other states. The article cites both of those sources, and the Foreign Relations of the United States regarding the advisory opinion of Ernest Gross. The FRUS also records US recognition of the union, including Jordan's acquisition of sovereignty over the territory. None of that is my "thesis". The fact that Abdullah was declared King of Arab Palestine is confirmed up the Palestine Post and Sandra Berliant Kadosh. The fact that the union was provisional and followed the principls of state succession is confirmed by Allan Gerson and Raja Shehadeh. The fact that the union was recognized by other governments is confirmed by Thomas Kuttner, Joseph Weiler, Joseph Massad, Clea Lutz Bunch, and Sandra Berliant Kadosh. It goes without saying that John Quigley and Francis Boyle have written extensively about the question of Palestinian statehood.
I managed to explain all of that without even mentioning the fact that Yitzhak Gil-Har said "Palestine and Trans-Jordan emerged as modern states; this was in consequence of British war commitments to its allies during the First World War." Everything I've added to the article originates in easily verifiable published sources, including the so-called "thesis" you keep blathering about. You simply choose to ignore the citations to published sources that I've provided, and continue to make pathetic accusations that I'm not sticking to the facts. harlan (talk) 18:10, 25 January 2010 (UTC)
- Harlan, this is not a court of law, and you are not lawyering here. You constantly contradict yourself in a way that would be acceptable when presenting a line of defense before a judge, but not when writing an encyclopedic article. According to the Montevideo Convention there is no state by the name Palestine, because it lack two vital components - it has no defined territory and it has no permanent population. A passport is a good indication of citizenship, hence of a permanent population, however the Palestinian passports are merely recognized as travel documents, and the PA is limited in issuing them, as they have to get Israeli approval for issuing a valid passport (some symbolic passports were issued without such approval, but they are not valid). Furthermore, recognition in passports issued by another country is a good indication to recognition in the very existence of that country, but the Palestinian passports receive very limited recognition, and usually not as a country's passports, but as travel documents. You resort to the Montevideo convention when it suits your thesis, and reject it when it doesn't. You keep ignoring the well-established and documented fact that the British Mandate of Palestine was established with the goal of creating a national home to the Jewish People. This is written black and white in all relevant documents, and yet you resort to twisted interpretations instead of going back to the simple original text. Your suggestion that the Mandate was in fact and Arab state is an insult to the intelligence. You might as well say that Jesus Christ was born in London. I'm sure you can source such a claim if you look hard enough, but we would not take such a source seriously, would we?
- A District Court in Israel has no authority to recognize countries. Once again you take an opinion out of its context and present the distorted citation as a fact. The District Court merely suggested that in the specific case brought before him, the PA can be regarded as a state for the sake of handling the case, but that doesn't mean it is an actual state. Similarly, the Israeli courts often interpret the term "man" as referring to a woman, and vice versa, according to the specific circumstances, but that doesn't mean that the Israeli courts do not acknowledge the differences between genders. Mahmud Abbas said many things. He said that what Israel does in Gaza is worse than the Holocaust, even though we both know the number of Palestinian victims in Gaza is much less than several millions. He also said he would declare Palestinian independence in case the negotiations with Israel reach a dead end, and this statement clearly contradicts his previous statement, that there is an independent state called Palestine.
- You keep resorting to the Jericho Conference even though it has no relevance to this article. Abdullah I extended the sovereignty of his kingdom. He did not create a new state. Since the conference and until June 1948 the West Bank was governed from Amman. I had no autonomy whatsoever. Abdullah I might have assumed the title "King of Arab Palestine", but this fact has no meaning regarding the existence of a Palestinian state. Here is a list of the titles of Juan Carlos I : King of Spain, of Castile, of León, of Aragon, of the Two Sicilies (Naples and Sicily), of Jerusalem, of Navarre, of Granada, of Toledo, of Valencia, of Galicia, of Majorca, of Seville, of Sardinia, of Cordoba, of Corsica, of Murcia, of Menorca, of Jaen, of the Algarves, of Algeciras, of Gibraltar, of the Canary Islands, of the Spanish East and West Indies and of the Islands and Mainland of the Ocean Sea. By your logic, Castile is not part of Spain but an independent state, and there is a sovereign country called Jerusalem that is ruled by the King of Spain. Of course, you could find sources to support these last two claims if you look hard enough, but we are not going to trust such sources, are we?
- In fact, the existence of Palestine as a state is more or less equivalent to the existence of Luke Skywalker as a person. Of course, this situation might change in the future, but what you are trying to do is establishing a Palestinian state in Wikipedia, which is an absurd. WP reflects reality, and it doesn't create it. Your idea of verifiability is giving a very broad interpretation to sideline sources, and present it as a verified fact. DrorK (talk) 22:11, 25 January 2010 (UTC)
- Drork, I'm presenting published views from dozens of authors with somewhat different opinions on the same subject, so I'm not contradicting myself. Whiteman's Digest and the FRUS explain that the United States and Great Britain recognized the principles contained in the resolutions of the Jericho Conference. They said that meant Abdullah was not simply occupying Palestine, he actually was the sovereign of Arab Palestine. You ought to try citing sources sometime and stop attempting to edit war, bully, bluff, wikilawyer, and rationalize so much. No one is stopping you from adding sourced material to the article, and you aren't getting much of that accomplished by posting rants here on the talk page. The situation in the Jerusalem District Court case is called Conflict of laws, and that means that a competing entity's laws and courts have to be applied to resolve the dispute. If you don't think that engaging in lawmaking and exercising jurisdiction over real estate transactions are sovereign acts of state, then find a published source that agrees with you, and add it to the article. I'm not interested in seeing anymore of your unpublished opinions on that topic in the lede [57]
- You keep ignoring the PhDs in law, political science, and history who have published works that say the secret agreements or collusions; the Jericho Conference; and the laws of state succession have everything to do with the 1988 Declaration and the topic of this article. I'm really not interested in hearing anymore about your unpublished opinions about that topic either.
- When Wikipedia editors are granted standing to become contracting state parties to the Montevideo Convention/OAS Charter I'll let you know;-) In the meantime signatories including Cuba, Nicaragua, Venezuela, Costa Rica, Ecuador, Guyana, and Suriname have decided to treat Palestine as a State and you don't get a veto. harlan (talk) 05:05, 26 January 2010 (UTC)
- Harlan, the fact that you cite a source over and over again doesn't make it more relevant. The Jericho Conference has no relevance whatsoever to the subject of Palestinian statehood. Abdullah I did not establish a Palestinian state, he simply annexed the West Bank to his kingdom. The fact that he (allegedly) called himself "King of Arab Palestine" does not indicate anything. The King of Spain calls himself King of Castile, but that does not mean there is a state called Castile. It simply means that the Spaniard King thought it would be nice to refer to a region in his kingdom in his title. This is an example to the way you wrote this article - you take one unarguable fact and give it an extremely controversial interpretation, or alternatively cite an extremely controversial interpretation, giving it undue weight. You did the same claiming that the US regard WB&Gaza as a country. This is simply not true. You took the fact that the US allow importers to use this name when they refer to the origin of the imported product, and made it a US recognition in a Palestinian state.
- Nothing that the article says is false. It cites an official announcement in the Federal Register which said the US recognizes the West Bank and Gaza as a Country AND a USAID publication which says that agency has been carrying out projects there that support the implementation of the Quartet Road Map regarding the State of Palestine. The notice in the Federal Register said that the West Bank and Gaza was Free Trade Zone and a "Country" of origin. It cited "Part 134, Customs Regulations (19 CFR Part 134)" which defines the term “Country” as "the political entity known as a nation."[58] "The Occupied Territories of the West Bank and Gaza (Including Areas Subject to the Jurisdiction of the Palestinian Authority)" is also listed as a "Nation" by the Law Library of Congress. [59]
- The announcement in the Federal Register contained information that was NOT limited in scope to imports. For example, it contained a "Clarification" section which said "The Department of State further advised that it considers the West Bank and Gaza Strip to be one area for political, economic, legal and other purposes."[60]
- My problem is not adding information to this article. My problem is the fact that this article includes false information based on misuse of sources. For some reason (political motivations?) you refuse to edit this article or let others edit it in order to remove the false information.
- Your problem is that you are suffering from denial and making a lot of asinine comments that are directed toward other editors, not on content. There is no evidence that the article contains false information, or that you've been prevented from removing it. You've been reverted for making unsourced editorial statements in the lede which do not reflect the well-sourced contents of the article. The policy on removing material says "There is no rule on Wikipedia that someone has to get permission from you before they put cited information in an article. Such a rule would clearly contradict Wikipedia:Be bold. There is guidance from ArbCom that removal of statements that are pertinent, sourced reliably, and written in a neutral style constitutes disruption. [61] Instead of removing cited work, you should be questioning uncited information."
- I also don't like the way you treat this article as your own. You can write a thesis about the issue of Palestinian statehood, but WP is not an academic journal for new political theories and is not meant to be one. People who use WP expect to see here well-established information, and you mislead them. Now, you keep laying the burden of truth on me, but I don't have to prove anything here, because it is you who tries to convince people of an exceptional view.
- You should concentrate your remarks on content and stop making personal attacks on other editors. You keep harping about "my thesis", when I've pointed out repeatedly that none of the material or analysis in this article originated with me or Wikipedia. I've quoted the things that Raja Shehadeh, John Quigley, and Marjorie M. Whiteman wrote about the application of the principle of the law of succession; the significance of the Second Arab-Palestinian Congress at Jericho; the Act of Union; and etc. On the other hand, you seem to be using the talk page to "write a thesis" which says that sovereign states don't have the political discretion to adopt legally binding decisions and treat other nations as States. The article cites Quigley, Green, Lapidoth, and others who say a state can recognize any other entity as a state. The application of the Stimson doctrine to the Baltic States for nearly half a century after they were annexed is a textbook example of the practice. The ICJ, Ernest Gross, and John Quigley cited the provisional recognition of the non-Jewish communities as independent nations by the League of Nations. If you have a published source with an opposing view, feel free to add it to the article.
- If you insist on me listing the problems with you thesis, here's a few issues:
- the Mandate charter given to the UK by the League of Nation that refers to the goal of this Mandate type A as establishing a national home for the Jewish People
- The article cites an advisory opinion written by Ernest Gross, and advisory opinion written by the ICJ, and the separate opinion of Judge Higgins which said article 22 of the Covenant of the LoN and the Mandate recognized the on-Jewish communities of Palestine, including Transjordan, as independent nations that were entitled to determine their own political status and establish a state.
- If you insist on me listing the problems with you thesis, here's a few issues:
- a statement by the US that they don't recognize a country called Palestine despite your claim that it does
- You are citing a second-hand unattributed extemporaneous remark about asylum for refugees. Obviously, Palestinians who reside in Gaza and the West Bank would not loose their refugee status by operation of law, or their right of return, if they were to be issued PA travel documents. I cited an official notice published in the Federal Register which has been incorporated in Code of Federal Regulations. "Country" is a defined term under CFR 134.1, but it is not defined in U.S.C. 8 or CFR 8. In fact TITLE 8, CHAPTER 12, § 1101. Definitions says "(a) As used in this chapter— (14) The term “foreign state” includes outlying possessions of a foreign state, but self-governing dominions or territories under mandate or trusteeship shall be regarded as separate foreign states. [62]
- The fact that Iran revoked its recognition in Israel despite your claim that such recognition is irrevocable. In case you claim that the revolution in Iran "zeroes the clock", then you have to prove that all former-communist countries renewed their recognition in the 1988 declaration after the radical change in government.
- Customary international law and the Montevideo Convention say that the recognition of states is irrevocable, not me. You made a WP:SYNTH claim that conflated the government of the Islamic Republic of Iran with the former Imperial regime. You never supplied a reference which said either had revoked recognition of Israel, or that the Islamic Republic of Iran had recognized Israel in the first place.
- The fact that Palestinian passport are not regarded a proof of Palestinian citizenship, and actually no one knows who are the Palestinian citizens (no permanent population).
- Customary International law and the Montevideo Convention do not mention travel documents among the criteria for statehood. More than 169 other States have already made a determination that the Palestinian people have permanent sovereignty over the Occupied Palestinian Territory. The article cites several legal authorities and the resolutions of the United Nations in that connection.
- The fact that Israel is fully responsible for registering the population of the WB&Gaza and the PA has no say about this (see reports by B'Tzelem)
- Israel does not administer Gaza. Under Oslo II the factions that comprise the PA have civil and criminal jurisdiction over the non-Jewish inhabitants of the Gaza Strip, Areas A, and B, excluding the settlements and military areas. The majority of states recognize the non-Jewish inhabitants as a stable population of the State of Palestine.
- The 1988 declaration does not refer to the fact that a sovereign state already exists in "Palestine" and does not define its borders with this state (hence, no defined territory)
- The 1949 Declaration of the Establishment of the State of Israel did not define its borders. The article cites Dr Green's and Dr Jessup's remarks in that connection, and the remarks of the Jewish representative to the UN regarding the fact that the PA already has jurisdiction over some of the natural resources in the territory.
- The fact that Palestinian leaders keep "threatening" of declaring independence in case the negotiations with Israel reach a dead end, the fact the even countries that recognized the 1988 declaration talk about the need to establish a Palestinian state, hence they don't really believe such a state exists
- The article notes that the PLO has already made declarations of statehood to the UN (1988) and that the PA made another to the ICC (2009) and that Ruth Lapidoth said they do not need to make another. The declaration the Palestinians are preparing is one regarding the 1967 borders Lieberman warns against '67 borders, Jerusalem Post, November 14, 2009 and 'Lack of borders within Israel is our greatest threat'
- The fact that the Palestinians are barred from issuing their own currency per the Paris Agreement with Israel and have to use either Israeli or Jordanian currency (Israel even had to send banknotes to Gaza [63] as a humanitarian gesture, because the Palestinians are not allowed to issue their own currency
- More WP:OR. You could also note there are a half dozen UN member states which use the Euro as their official currency, although they are not members of the EU. What does the topic of currency have to do with this article?
- The fact that from the 112 countries that allegedly recognized the 1988 declaration only a few Arab or Muslim countries made practical steps following this recognition like defining certain visitors as "Palestinian citizens" or signing bilateral agreement with the proclaimed state or handing letters of credentials that refer to a Palestinian leader as head of state. The few foreign representations in Ramallah or Gaza are not embassies and the letter of credentials to the Palestinian leader do not refer to him as head of state.
- More WP:OR. The article cites the fact that the PA turned over bilateral treaty agreements from countries in Asia, Europe, and the Americas to the International Criminal Court.
- UN and other international organizations keep calling for the creation of a Palestinian state, a call that sounds ridiculous if such state already exists. One of the recent calls was in 2009 by the UN SC [64], and it was supported by countries like Turkey and Libya (!!) that allegedly recognize a state called Palestine.
- So you can keep resorting to citing sideline views or give broad and false interpretation to other sources, it doesn't make your thesis more reliable. You know, there are sources that support the existence of UFOs or suggest that Creationalism and Astrology are sciences. DrorK (talk) 09:13, 26 January 2010 (UTC)
(outdent) More WP:OR a country that recognizes the State of Palestine which calls for the establishment of an independent state within the 1967 borders is not saying that the state of Palestine does not exist.
- In case you are still not convinced, here is a citation from the "Arab Peace Initiative" of 2002: "The Council of Arab States at the Summit Level at its 14th Ordinary Session (...) Further calls upon Israel to affirm: (...) The acceptance of the establishment of a sovereign independent Palestinian state on the Palestinian territories occupied since June 4, 1967 in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, with East Jerusalem as its capital." [65]
- Now, the Arab League allegedly recognized a state called Palestine, and yet it calls upon Israel to accept the establishment of such a state (not to recognize an existing state, but to allow an establishment of a state!) DrorK (talk) 09:40, 26 January 2010 (UTC)
- If you are going to ignore these remarks, I will take it as if you agree with them. By the way, I mentioned the Palestine Act of 1948 whose text is very clear and indicate in a very comprehensible language that "His Majesty's Government in the United Kingdom shall cease to be responsible to the government of Palestine" [66]. This statement very simply entails that the UK government was responsible for the governance of Palestine before 15 May 1948 (non-capitalized "government" actually means governance, while capitalized "Government" refers to a specific government as evident from the text itself), and that this responsibility ended on that date. The Act does not specify any body to which the "government of Palestine" should be handed over. This contradicts in the strongest way the claim that the Mandate was a kind of state (as I said, you can find many sources that claim all kinds of things, but it is your duty to check their reliability). This also refutes your claim that there is a kind of Arab state that inherited the British Mandate. DrorK (talk) 09:30, 27 January 2010 (UTC)
- BTW, can you read Arabic? If so, have a look at this official document of the Palestinian Authority from August 2009 [67]. This is an inspiring vision about how the Palestinian state should be (seriously, I recommend anyone interested in the subject to make the effort and read it). The thing is, that it keeps mentioning Palestine as a state-to-be. Not as an actual state. Here is an excerpt from the preface, signed by Salam Fayadh, the premier of the PNA:Arabic: ومن واقع احترامنا وتقديرنا لمواطنينا، وإدراكًا منا لتطّلعهم لتحقيق حياة كريمة وحرة في ظل الاستقلال الوطني، يتحتم علينا أن نسعى بكل طاقاتنا لتحقيق رغبتهم الأكيدة المتمثلة في إقامة الدولة الفلسطينية المستقلة. ومن هذا المنطلق، تعمل الحكومة، وبغض النظر عن كل الإجراءات الاحتلالية المعيقة، بتسخير كل عزمها، وتوظيف كل جهدها والإمكانيات المتاحة لها، واستنهاض جميع طاقات أبناء شعبنا، لاستكمال عملية بناء مؤسسات الدولة المستقلة تمهيدًا لإقامتها الفعلية خلال العامين القادمين. Translation: "Due to our honor and esteem to our citizens, and our understanding of their anticipation to realize life of freedom and dignity in national independence, it is our obligation to strive with all our energies to realize their undoubted will that takes form in the establishment of a the independent Palestinian state. Hence, the government works, regardless of the burdensome measures of occupation, by devoting all its conviction and deploying all it effort and its available capacities, and by revitalizing all of our people's energies, to complete to process of building the institutions of the independent state in preparation to the its actual establishment within the next two years". This documents mentions the 1988 declaration three times, but only as an expression of the Palestinian People wish for independence, not as an act of establishing an actual state. It also specifically mentions that the Palestinian claim is for القدس الشرقية (East Jerusalem) as the capital of the planned state. So, it seems to me that the PNA does not share the view that a state called Palestine already exists, although they plan to see such state until August 2011. DrorK (talk) 10:29, 27 January 2010 (UTC)
- I've just noticed that the document I mentioned above is mentioned in the article offhandedly in relation to Jerome Segal's opinion about Palestinian statehood.
- If you are going to ignore these remarks, I will take it as if you agree with them. By the way, I mentioned the Palestine Act of 1948 whose text is very clear and indicate in a very comprehensible language that "His Majesty's Government in the United Kingdom shall cease to be responsible to the government of Palestine" [66]. This statement very simply entails that the UK government was responsible for the governance of Palestine before 15 May 1948 (non-capitalized "government" actually means governance, while capitalized "Government" refers to a specific government as evident from the text itself), and that this responsibility ended on that date. The Act does not specify any body to which the "government of Palestine" should be handed over. This contradicts in the strongest way the claim that the Mandate was a kind of state (as I said, you can find many sources that claim all kinds of things, but it is your duty to check their reliability). This also refutes your claim that there is a kind of Arab state that inherited the British Mandate. DrorK (talk) 09:30, 27 January 2010 (UTC)
- Now, the Arab League allegedly recognized a state called Palestine, and yet it calls upon Israel to accept the establishment of such a state (not to recognize an existing state, but to allow an establishment of a state!) DrorK (talk) 09:40, 26 January 2010 (UTC)
- In case you are still not convinced, here is a citation from the "Arab Peace Initiative" of 2002: "The Council of Arab States at the Summit Level at its 14th Ordinary Session (...) Further calls upon Israel to affirm: (...) The acceptance of the establishment of a sovereign independent Palestinian state on the Palestinian territories occupied since June 4, 1967 in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, with East Jerusalem as its capital." [65]
- You obviously did not read Seagal's book. In his final analysis, he noted that many other states had already recognized the State of Palestine and that they had decided to treat Palestine as a State.
- This is another evidence of how this article is poorly written. First of all, it is not Fayad's plan, but the Palestinian Authority's plan. At least this is how it is presented on the PA's official website. Secondly, this text doesn't need a pro-Israeli scholar to interpret it.
- Wikipedia policy is to use secondary sources to interpret primary documents. Segal notes that Fayyad's plan is not incompatible with the 1988 Declaration regarding the establishment of the State of Palestine since it cites it several times. I cited a source in an earlier thread which explained that in practice, International Tribunals and other governments use the terms "state" and "government" interchangeably when treating an existing or established regime. The plan only discusses building up the institutions of the existing government regime and establishing its borders. One meaning of the word "Establish" is "To cause to be recognized and accepted". Here is an example: The Jerusalem Post used that terminology when it claimed that Reuters had reported: Solana wants UN to establish 'Palestine'. The Reuters headline actually said nothing about creating a new state: EU's Solana calls for UN to recognise Palestinian state.
- It speaks quite clearly for itself, as I showed above. The fact that this article refers to a Palestinian text through the "eyeglasses" of a pro-Israeli political analyst is very peculiar. And last but not least, here is an article by Jerome Segal from [68] July 2007 in which he refers to a Palestinian state as a state-to-be and not as an existing state (note his words: "Once the State of Palestine is established, the Palestinian Authority is dissolved.", i.e. the PA is not a Palestinian state, and the State of Palestine should be established, but is not established yet. I don't see another way in which these words can be understood). So either you didn't read Segal's articles carefully enough, which is very problematic, or Segal contradicts itself, which makes him a poor source. Either way, we have a serious problem here. DrorK (talk) 11:45, 27 January 2010 (UTC)
- Actually all you've accomplished is to demonstrate your ignorance of the subject. Segal has has consistently noted that many States have already recognized the State of Palestine, and that in practice PA policy statements rely upon the strength of the 1988 Declaration. The article explains the longstanding customary practice in international law that recognition is retroactive in effect, and that it validates all the actions and conduct of a government from the commencement of its existence. For example the United States of America was established by the ratification of the articles of Conferation in 1781, but it is generally agreed that its first act of state was the Declaration of Independence of 1776. I obviously don't agree with you using the talk page to convene an ad hoc court to overturn the sovereign determinations made by more than 114 states. Please stop wasting our time and abusing the talk page as a discussion forum. harlan (talk) 17:39, 27 January 2010 (UTC)
- Who gave Mr. Segal the right to interpret very clear words of Mr. Fayyad on behalf of the Palestinian Authority, and who gave you the right to make Segal the official interpreter of the Palestinian Authority? You are abusing the idea of verifiability by suggesting that twisted interpretation meant for political purposes is better than citing a clear statement of an authorized official. You are arguing me because you want to have your thesis published on Wikipedia, you don't mind about attested facts. Now Segal himself don't believe a state called Palestine exist, as evident from the text he wrote, but you prefer to take one remark by him and make it the headlines - now you act as an interpreter of Segal. So we have you interpreting Segal interpreting Fayyad. What we don't have here is genuine information. You are making WP ridiculous and insist on doing so, no matter what other people say, this is simply inconceivable, and I believe this calls for a complain about your behavior. DrorK (talk) 18:23, 27 January 2010 (UTC)
- Actually all you've accomplished is to demonstrate your ignorance of the subject. Segal has has consistently noted that many States have already recognized the State of Palestine, and that in practice PA policy statements rely upon the strength of the 1988 Declaration. The article explains the longstanding customary practice in international law that recognition is retroactive in effect, and that it validates all the actions and conduct of a government from the commencement of its existence. For example the United States of America was established by the ratification of the articles of Conferation in 1781, but it is generally agreed that its first act of state was the Declaration of Independence of 1776. I obviously don't agree with you using the talk page to convene an ad hoc court to overturn the sovereign determinations made by more than 114 states. Please stop wasting our time and abusing the talk page as a discussion forum. harlan (talk) 17:39, 27 January 2010 (UTC)
Harlan, regarding your last remarks, incorporated within my previous remarks -
- You bring sources, but interpret them according to your own views. You've brought a passage from the US legislation that defines a "foreign state". This legislation says that for certain matters, an autonomous territory or a mandate territory can be regarded as if it were a state. It doesn't mean that the US regards/regarded autonomous/mandate territories as states. I'll give you an example to clarify that: the Israeli immigration policy gives precedence to Jews, and there is a certain non-Jewish people who may enjoys this policy as if they were Jews. The fact that the State of Israel treat these people (according to the Law of Return) as if they were Jews does not make them Jewish in the eyes of the State or in their own view. Similarly, the fact that the US treat the Palestinian Territories as if it were a state for certain purposes, does not make it a sovereign state in the eyes of the US, as evident from the source I gave you (and numerous other statements by US officials).
- You keep contradicting yourself, citing the Montevideo Convention when it suits your thesis, and disregard it when it doesn't. Per Montevideo, there is no state called Palestine, because it has no defined territory nor permanent population. There is neither de-facto nor de-jure borders to the 1988 proclaimed state, and there is no independent registrar of citizens, nor a strict definition regarding eligibility for citizenship. Montevideo sees recognition (the ability to have foreign relations) as a necessary yet insufficient criterion for a state. If we disregard Montevideo, then we should assume all kind of common-sense criteria, and yet you reject them by saying they are not compatible with Montevideo. So you should make up your mind about this issue.
- The State of Israel did not declare its borders upon independence, but it had de-facto borders about one year following its establishment. This is quite normal, especially as neighboring countries refused to recognize it for about 30 years. In the case of proclaimed Palestine no de-facto nor de-jure borders have ever been defined. There is a statement of the PA written by Fayyad that talks about the Green Line as a border, however he talks about a planned future state, not about an existing state.
- You collect statements of scholars regarding certain features of the PA or PLO and join them together in a way that makes a distorted general picture. Surely the PA control some natural resources, it is an authority after all. However, that doesn't make it a state.
- I gave the currency issue as an ex-Montevideo example of statehood (assuming Montevideo is not enough for you). Note that the PA is barred' from issuing currency. There are many countries that prefer to use non-independent currency, but in the case of the PA, it has to use Israeli currency, and may additionally use another currency, but may not issue its own. Please read the sources I gave you. This is very unusual for an independent state.
- There are non-independent territories that have the right to sign bilateral treaties. As far as I know, Greenland, Puerto Rico, Canadian provinces, maybe even certain Spanish autonomous regions. It is crucial to see whether the Palestinian side is defined as a state in the treaty in order to know whether the other side recognizes it as a state. The very fact that a treaty was signed is not enough.
- You contradict yourself regarding the issue of recognition. You cited a source saying a recognition is irrevocable. I told you this source is problematic, because we know of contradictory examples, e.g. Iran revoked its recognition in Israel. You said that this is another story, because the current regime in Iran did not inherit the previous royal regime. If I follow this line of yours, then you cannot say that the Dem. Rep. of Congo recognized the State of Palestine when it was called Zaïre. You should also consider whether the recognition of the communist regimes in Eastern Europe is still valid today. In short, you cannot justify two contradictory claims with the very same source. DrorK (talk) 08:05, 28 January 2010 (UTC)
- You are still abusing the talk page and using it as a general discussion forum. Your hypothetical questions have been asked and answered several times now. Since your personal theories and interpretations are not derived from any relevant published sources of analysis, I'm not going to discuss them. If these are significant points of view, you should not have had any problem finding published sources to incorporate into the article. Nothing you have discussed alters the fact that the majority of other states have exercised their prerogative to recognize and treat Palestine as a state. You cannot set-up an ad hoc court here on a Wikipedia talk page and overturn those decisions, so stop wasting everyone's time. harlan (talk) 13:14, 28 January 2010 (UTC)
- Harlan, you cannot contradict my remarks, so you start blaming me for abusing the talk page. You also try to redirect the problems with your editing at me - a well known tactic when trying to silence legitimate criticism. You also say I have to prove that a state called Palestine doesn't exist, while in fact it is the other way around. You are the one claiming such an entity exists, and therefore it is your task to prove your claim. You failed to do so, and I explained why. You either use non-mainstream sources, or misuse established sources. You are also not consistent in your use of sources. You use a certain source when you think it suits your thesis, and then claim it is unreliable when it doesn't. In some cases you also made a synthesis of sources, in a way that is unacceptable on WP. But since you asked for a source, I've brought you a straightfoward one - a plan on behalf of the Palestinian Authority to create a Palestinian state within two years. In this plan, the 1988 declaration is mentioned, not as an establishment of a state, but rather as a document that expresses the Palestinian wish for independence. Since you cannot read Arabic, I translated a portion of that docuement for you, but I also saw that you found an English synopsis of this document. Since this source refutes your thesis completely, you tried to claim that I did not understand the meaning of "establishment", however the word "establishment" is used as synonym to the word "creation" in the official document, and it cannot be clearer. Now, you tried to claim that we have to read this document through a secondary source, and you chose the politically motivated interpretation of an Israeli political analyst. Only this political analyst himself presents an ambiguous view regarding the existence of a state called Palestine, as I showed you with proper links. What makes me really sad is that the users of WP are damaged because they don't get a genuine picture of the state of affairs in the ME, and the reputation of WP is damaged because of unreliable articles like this. Furthermore, the suggestions for changes in the article are very logical, and yet you refuse to except it, as if it were your own article rather than a collaborative work. DrorK (talk) 14:24, 29 January 2010 (UTC)
- There are a number of editors here who are trying to write an article. We don't have time to contradict or answer your remarks. If the views that you are advancing haven't been published by a reliable source that you can cite and quote in the article, then they are neither significant nor mainstream, and shouldn't be taking up so much time and space here on the article talk page. If they have been published, once again feel free to cite the source(s) and add them to the article.
- The article already mentions that Israel is occupying the Palestinian territories and provides citations to the views of Blum, Rostow, Ball, the ICJ, the Israeli High Court of Justice, and the majority of UN member states in connection to that situation. The article also cites the PA plan to end the occupation in two years and points out Segal's comments in Ha'aretz about the fact that the plan itself repeatedly cites the 1988 Declaration regarding the establishment of the State of Palestine. You say that it contradicts the Declaration; President Abbas statement that the State of Palestine already exists; the recognition of Palestine by other states; and the Declaration the PA provided to the ICC regarding its own statehood. Now, all you need to do is find a published source that represents that viewpoint and add it to the article. Otherwise it would appear to be WP:OR and WP:Synth. harlan (talk) 16:50, 29 January 2010 (UTC)
- Harlan, for the last time - I don't owe you any source. It is enough that I pointed out your sources are not valid. But if you insist on more sources, and since your thesis is, by and large, based on Prof. John Quigley's opinion, you might as well read this eye-opening article by Robert Weston Ash, published by "The Internet Journal of Rutgers School of Law", which systematically refutes Quigley's claims about Palestinian statehood. It also brings a long list of statements by Mahmoud Abbas referring to a Palestinian state as a yet-to-be state, and clarifies the non-recognition of the ICJ in a Palestinian state. You might also want to read this declaration made by the Swedish Foreign Minister on behalf of the EU (November 17, 2009): ""I would hope that we would be in a position to recognize a Palestinian state but there has to be one first. So I think it is somewhat premature." To be on the safe side, I took this citation from a pro-Palestinian site: [69]. And also - please note that the Israeli Supreme Court never recognized the existence of a Palestinian state. Quite the contrary - in May 2008 it strictly rejected a statement by a District Court suggesting that the PA can be regarded as a sovereign state for certain legal procedures. The Supreme Court explicitly said that the authority to recognize countries is held by the Israeli Foreign Ministry ([70] I'm sorry it's in Hebrew, but that's the language used by Israeli courts, and translation into English is not always available). The Palestinian statement to the ICC [71] does not refer to Palestine as a state. It refers to the Government of Palestine and to the territory of Palestine. You are the one who suggested, based on your sources that a government was not necessarily a state and vice versa. The PA never said where the territory of Palestine exactly lies, except implying that it includes the Gaza Strip. The ICC never accepted this declaration, and never issued a statement whether it regarded the PA as a sovereign state. The official ICC's account on the issue states that the ICC asked for the opinion of legal experts and received mixed opinions: "A comprehensive summary of all legal arguments received will be made public in due time. In a preliminary manner, I can summarize the presentations as follows: (a.) Some submissions consider that it is clear that the Palestinian National Authority cannot be regarded as a ‘State’ as required by Article 12(3) of the Rome Statute and take the position that the declaration should be dismissed for lack of jurisdiction. (b.) Some submit that Palestine is recognized as a State by many States and many institutions. (c.) Some argue that Palestinian statehood is irrelevant to this analysis. (...)" [72]. Now, you suggest that legal ambiguity entails that a Palestinian state exists, but this is hardly a serious claim. An ambiguous information cannot imply the existence of an entity. I cannot say Bigfoot exists on the account that there are conflicting reports about its existence. The fact that the ICC has no opinion (yet) regarding Palestinian statehood is also evident from the report on this pro-Palestinian website: [73]. To sum it all up, the thesis that you introduced into this article (quite forcefully I should say) simply doesn't hold water. I said it before and I'll say it once again - you either cite extremely problematic sources, or misuse serious sources and distort them in order to make them compatible with your views. Now, we are interested here in knowledge. WP is not about establishing states, but merely about conveying information about the state of affairs as we know it at the present time. So, kindly end this discussion and let people correct this article without engaging in edit wars. DrorK (talk) 03:23, 30 January 2010 (UTC)
- I think my previous post on this talk page is quite enough to demand a serious fundamental editing of this article, but I can't resist bringing some more links (especially as you kept demanding sources): here's the account about the "State of Palestine" [74] on the "Palestine History" website run by Esam Shashaa. Judging from the content of this site, he does not appear to be an opponent of the Palestinian statehood idea, and yet he writes "The proclaimed "State of Palestine" is not an independent state, as it has never had sovereignty over any territory.". Apparently, Francis Boyle, another source for your thesis, is an extremist political activist arguing that Hawaii's status as a US state is illegal [75], and offering his services to the Iranian government in order to sue Israel an the US at the ICJ [76] (I found these links on the article about him on en-wp, imagine that...). Trusting the opinion of such a person about the Palestinian issue is like trusting the Intelligent design movement's interpretations of issues related to Evolution. You might want to read pp. 6-7 of this account [77] by Yûji Ôishi from the Japanese Edogawa Univesity (published by the Institute for Peace Science of the Hiroshima University). He claims the Oslo Accords signed by the PLO invalidated the 1988 declaration in Algiers, and he also claims Japan, the USSR and eastern European countries never fully recognized a Palestinian state. Is he a reliable source? I don't know, but at least he is not politically biased as the sources you provided. DrorK (talk) 11:53, 30 January 2010 (UTC)
- The article already mentions that Israel is occupying the Palestinian territories and provides citations to the views of Blum, Rostow, Ball, the ICJ, the Israeli High Court of Justice, and the majority of UN member states in connection to that situation. The article also cites the PA plan to end the occupation in two years and points out Segal's comments in Ha'aretz about the fact that the plan itself repeatedly cites the 1988 Declaration regarding the establishment of the State of Palestine. You say that it contradicts the Declaration; President Abbas statement that the State of Palestine already exists; the recognition of Palestine by other states; and the Declaration the PA provided to the ICC regarding its own statehood. Now, all you need to do is find a published source that represents that viewpoint and add it to the article. Otherwise it would appear to be WP:OR and WP:Synth. harlan (talk) 16:50, 29 January 2010 (UTC)
- Drork, you have been told over and over again to feel free to add sourced material that represents your views to the article. Your complaint that I'm edit warring with you or that you have shown my sources to be invalid is utter nonsense.
- I see you are still trying to set-up court here and overturn the decisions of the majority of states that have exercised their prerogative to recognize Palestine as a state, and to argue which version of history is correct. The personal views of Robert Ash, Yûji Ôishi, Esam Shashaa, are just that - their personal views. They don't "completely refute" much of anything. If you want to incorporate them in the article you will need to attribute them to those individuals.
- Regarding the location of the territory, the article cites a Today's Zaman article in which the PA spokesmen, Malki, said "We represent the Palestinian occupied territories."[78] The letter from the ICC prosecutor to the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights says that the government of Palestine accepted jurisdiction of the Court "for crimes committed on the territory of Palestine" and that the ICC was conducting a preliminary analysis of jurisdiction for allegations concerning the IDF operation in Gaza. The Prosecutor's office also cited meetings with John Dugard, Paul de Waart, et al in connection with discussions about the Arab League's report. Among other things, it addressed the ruling in the ICJ Wall case which contained findings regarding breaches of the Geneva Convention in the Occupied Palestinian Territory of the West Bank and East Jerusalem. The Arab League report requested that the individuals suspected of violating the Geneva Conventions be investigated and prosecuted by other states or the ICC. The Arab League Report and the Prosecutor's letter note that many states recognize Palestine and mention the possibility of relevant national proceedings in other states under the principle of universality and complementarity that are enshrined in the Rome Statute.
- The US view is that sovereignty resides in the people who convene constituent assemblies, conduct plebiscites, and elect representatives who engage in lawmaking. The State Department Digest of International Law and the FRUS say that the union of Arab Palestine and Transjordan was the result of the free expression of the will of the people. In 1792, US Secretary of State Thomas Jefferson said, "It accords with our principles to acknowledge any government to be rightful which is formed by the will of the people, substantially declared." The Digest contains the text of the resolutions of the Arab Congress at Jericho and the text of the 1950 Act of Union. It says that US Secretary of State Acheson had noted during a press conference that 70 percent of the population participated in the elections, and that the legislative Act of Union was ratified by the parliament of the new entity, Jordan, in which the residents of the West Bank and East Bank were equally represented. The Digest also contains the text of the letters between the Arab League and King Abdullah in which he assured the League the union was without prejudice to the final settlement of the Palestinian question. That isn't "my private thesis", or John Quigley's. The State of Jordan recited the same historical facts and events in its 227-page written statement to the ICJ in the Wall case. It says that Jordan entered into diplomatic relations and executed bilateral and multilateral treaty agreements with many states that were applicable to all of Jordan, including the West Bank, which contained no reservations regarding recognition.
- The Ash article claims that the ICJ had said that Palestine wasn't a state, but the Court decision doesn't say that. Most members of the UN, including Israel, have insisted that the Charter does not permit the UN or the ICJ to determine whether or not a state exists. For example, the article already cites a Jerusalem Post article which quotes Israeli legal expert Ruth Lapidoth explaining that "it is not the UN's role, much less that of the Security Council, to confer statehood." In 1950 a suggestion was made that UN membership be adopted as a form of legal collective recognition, but the Secretary-General and Legal Affairs section advised that such a measure would require the adoption of an amendment to the UN Charter. See pages 39-48 of Statehood and the law of self-determination, By D. Raič. A very similar situation occurred in 1948 when Syria proposed that an advisory opinion be obtained from the ICJ regarding Israel's statehood. Abba Eban said "The act of determining whether a certain political unit is a State or not is known in international law as an act of recognition; and under the Charter, no Member State has surrendered to the United Nations or to any organ thereof its unlimited sovereignty to regard a political unit as a State. See the minutes of the 340th meeting of the UN Security Council, S/PV.340, 27 July 1948, page 12 [79]
- The article already cites a journal paper by Paul de Waart which analyzes the same passage of the ruling that Ash mentions. The ICJ was asked to advise the General Assembly on the legal consequences of the construction of the portions of the wall in the Occupied Palestinian territory, not the portions that were located in Israel. The Court noted that Israel was the occupying power in Palestine and that the threat came from within that same territory. It also noted that the written statement of Israel had not argued that the threat originated in a foreign state, and that Israel had not explained why the route of the wall departed from the Armistice Line of 1949 (Green Line). The Court said that Article 51 of the UN was inapplicable to situations involving local conflicts. Ash also ignored the General Assembly, the Security Council, the High Contracting Parties to the Geneva Conventions, and the ICJ which have each concluded that the Israeli settlements in the occupied territories were established in breach of international law. He cites the legal arguments of Eugene Rostow and Yehuda Blum in that connection. Those are certainly nothing new, or convincing. They are already cited in the article.
- A number of legal scholars have written articles about the issue of Conflict of laws between the PA and Israel and the fact that the High Court and Knesset have sidestepped the issue of statehood. [80] The article notes an instance in which the Israeli Courts took up the question of Palestinian qualifications for statehood, sovereignty, and the related issue of immunity. In the earlier cases, like Dayan, the High Court said that a certification was required from the legal advisor of the Foreign Ministry in order to make decisions regarding immunity. In the Moreh College case, the lower court held that the certificate wasn't necessary. The High Court reversed that part of the decision. The Knesset also sidestepped the issue of statehood and adopted a measure that makes it possible to grant sovereign immunity to a ‘political entity that is not a state’ as part of the 2008 Foreign States Immunity Law, Art. 20. See [81] None of that changes the situation with respect to the direct enforcement of internal Israeli law and judgments in the PA. Cases, like Kahati v. Al-Afifi have been dismissed on the grounds of "forum non conveniens", and the article correctly states that the Israeli Courts have examined the concept of Palestinian statehood for the purpose of state immunity and have ruled that the political branches can grant state immunity to the PA. harlan (talk) 19:52, 30 January 2010 (UTC)
- Harlan, this dialog between us is turning into a kind of comedy, or actually a farce. You are pulling off the ancient trick of presenting your own personal views (or views of persons who support your views) as facts, while calling other views "personal opinions". I beg you to be more serious. You are definitely very knowledgeable and eloquent, but I suspect your motives here are not pure, and that you try to promote certain political issues through en-wp. Let me make it very clear this time: You CANNOT present a state called Palestine as an existing state. This is false information. The sources you brought to support this claim are biased. There are other sources you've brought which are reliable, but you abused them by misinterpreting their words. The fact that Israeli court treated the PA as a state in certain cases, does not mean it is a state in the eyes of Israel. The Israeli Supreme Court said it in very clear words, which you refuse to read. As I said, for the purpose of immigration, the Israeli law regards non-Jews as if they were Jewish. It doesn't make them Jews, and the law says so explicitly. The very term "political entity which is not a state" indicates so clearly that the PA is not a state in the eyes of the Israeli law. The word "not" is very significant. I read the IJC ruling very carefully. It never says "Palestine" is a sovereign state. This is your opinion, not the IJC's. I think you didn't read Ash at all, considering your reaction to this source. As I said, I don't have to bring you any sources, because "the burden of proof" is yours, and all the sources you've brought are either unreliable or misinterpreted. I did make the effort and brought you refuting sources, but, quite expectedly you refute them, because you try to push your thesis, and your request for sources was just a measure to distract people from the problems in the sources you've brought. Again, this is the oldest trick in the book - I have a source proving bigfoot exists, now prove it isn't. When the counter-proof is provided, then comes the claim: bigfoot exists, and that's the end of the story. Actually you are gaming with WP's system of validating information, and unfortunately you are given free hand in doing so, probably because people are either too tired or too afraid to confront you. You have already tried to intimidate people by engaging in endless edit wars and you also posted an intimidating message on my talk page in order to silence me. DrorK (talk) 07:07, 31 January 2010 (UTC)
- A number of legal scholars have written articles about the issue of Conflict of laws between the PA and Israel and the fact that the High Court and Knesset have sidestepped the issue of statehood. [80] The article notes an instance in which the Israeli Courts took up the question of Palestinian qualifications for statehood, sovereignty, and the related issue of immunity. In the earlier cases, like Dayan, the High Court said that a certification was required from the legal advisor of the Foreign Ministry in order to make decisions regarding immunity. In the Moreh College case, the lower court held that the certificate wasn't necessary. The High Court reversed that part of the decision. The Knesset also sidestepped the issue of statehood and adopted a measure that makes it possible to grant sovereign immunity to a ‘political entity that is not a state’ as part of the 2008 Foreign States Immunity Law, Art. 20. See [81] None of that changes the situation with respect to the direct enforcement of internal Israeli law and judgments in the PA. Cases, like Kahati v. Al-Afifi have been dismissed on the grounds of "forum non conveniens", and the article correctly states that the Israeli Courts have examined the concept of Palestinian statehood for the purpose of state immunity and have ruled that the political branches can grant state immunity to the PA. harlan (talk) 19:52, 30 January 2010 (UTC)
- Drork, unlike Bigfoot, states are subjects or "persons" of law. The majority of existing states have formally accepted the personality of Palestine "with all the rights and duties of statehood as determined by international law". That fact is verifiable, notable, and has been discussed in the mainstream press. One example is John Dugard's NY Times Op-Ed piece which is cited in the article.
- The article does not say that an Israeli Court recognized the State of Palestine. You are employing a straw man argument of your own invention (again). The article deals with a controversial subject and you have applied a POV tag. Under those circumstances, you must follow WP:ATTRIBUTEPOV policy and avoid presenting personal opinions as facts or the truth. The article attributes controversial statements to the responsible individuals, organizations, and governments that made them. The International Criminal Court has published a statement which says that a conclusive determination on Palestine's declaration will have to be made by the judges at an appropriate moment.[82] Ash's editorial says the declaration can be dismissed on the basis of its alleged inconsistency with earlier statements. That is a well-known appeal to a logical fallacy. See for example [83] The PA statements are capable of more than one interpretation or construction and the article cites Segal's Haaretz article to illustrate that fact.
- You keep saying things like "You CANNOT present a state called Palestine as an existing state. This is false information." I'm willing to request clarification from ARBCOM in that connection. I don't believe that Wikipedia editors can set-up ad hoc courts on talk pages and overturn legal decisions that have been made by states and international tribunals.
- Similar claims were made when the Provisional government declared that Israel was state: "it is impossible to disregard a strange theory advanced here by the representative of Syria and supported, if I am not mistaken, by the representative of France. The substance of that theory is that inasmuch as the territory and frontiers of the State of Israel and its right of existence are contested by some of its neighbor States, the State of Israel does not exist as a sovereign State and cannot be recognized as such. That theory is not only strange but also dangerous. It is reminiscent of the "theories" which, as we all know, were once upon a time preached by the fascist aggressors who claimed world mastery. According to those theories, it was enough for Hitlerite Germany to cast doubt on the existence of one of its neighbor States for that State to cease to exist, and for its territory to be seized and absorbed into the territory of Hitlerite Germany. Such claims were made by the fascist aggressors in respect of Austria, Czechoslovakia and a number of other European countries, including France. In that connection, all kinds of expansionist theories were advanced concerning the inferiority of the people of certain countries, and were used as justification for seizing those countries. History has given the lie to all such wild theories and their authors have paid a cruel price for their aggressive plans." -- Mr. Yakov A. Malik, the 386th meeting of the UN Security Council, S/PV.386, 17 December 1948, pages 12-13 [84] harlan (talk) 00:18, 1 February 2010 (UTC)
- The English Wikipedia already has an article "Proposals for a Palestinian state". If all you have is claim and opinions about a Palestinian state attributed to certain people, you can add them to that article. There is no need to have another article, which implies that a state called Palestine actually exists. Apparently this issue was already addressed by Wikipedians, and there is a policy forbidding content forking. In fact, what you've done with this article is "classical" forking - you didn't like the way "Proposals" was written, so you re-initiated this article (after it had been merged per consensus decision), and wrote in in a way that promotes certain political view.
- A state is not merely a legal entity. A state is not a corporation. A corporation is an artificial entity that comes into being by decision of certain authorities, and can be dissolved by a similar decision. A state is something else, as the Montevideo Convention indicates. A state should have certain physical and social traits in order to be regarded as such. Never has been a territory under the rule of an Arab Palestinian government, nor has there ever been a defined population of Arab Palestinian citizens. There were many recommendations and plans to establish such a state in the past, there are currently some effort to establish such a state in the future, but up to this point in time, such a state has never come into being. A declaration of independence accompanied by partial recognition is enough to make a local corporation, not a state. The sources that you've brought, that suggest otherwise, are highly biased - we cannot trust the opinion of a legal advisor to the PA in a subject directly related to his job.
- Had you asked me in 1948 or 1949 if Israel was a state, I might have hesitated. It takes time to build a state, and it is often unclear whether a new state "was born" immediately after it had been established. In late 1949 Israel already had a defined territory, a defined population, a permanent legal system, full control and monopoly over the exercise of power within its territory and recognition from most sovereign counties which existed at that time. The "State of Palestine" proclaimed in 1988 still doesn't have a defined territory (it has neither official nor de-facto borders), no defined population (there are certain people who are subject to the PA, but this status of theirs is determined by Israel, not by the PA itself, see paragraph 2 of this report [85]), and it cannot be said to control any territory (the PA control over the territories defined for it is very limited, and it is arguable whether the PA and the 1988 proclaimed state are the same).
- We are not talking here about a country that doubts the existence of another country for political reasons. We are talking about a proclaimed state that lacks most of the features that makes a geopolitical entity a state. In fact, the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus and Somaliland can be better described as states despite the lack of recognition in them, and despite the fact most countries in the world do not support their very existence. Even though most countries in the world support the creation of a Palestinian state (and a great deal of political parties and organizations in Israel), there is no geopolitical entity that can be called "State of Palestine". You may deplore this fact, but it is true, and the Swedish foreign minister expressed it quite eloquently by saying that the EU is willing to consider recognition in a Palestinian state, but first such a state should be created. Do you think the Swedish FM should have looked better, maybe search the upper shelves or below the carpet, in order to find a Palestinian state which he could recognize? DrorK (talk) 12:58, 1 February 2010 (UTC)
- Similar claims were made when the Provisional government declared that Israel was state: "it is impossible to disregard a strange theory advanced here by the representative of Syria and supported, if I am not mistaken, by the representative of France. The substance of that theory is that inasmuch as the territory and frontiers of the State of Israel and its right of existence are contested by some of its neighbor States, the State of Israel does not exist as a sovereign State and cannot be recognized as such. That theory is not only strange but also dangerous. It is reminiscent of the "theories" which, as we all know, were once upon a time preached by the fascist aggressors who claimed world mastery. According to those theories, it was enough for Hitlerite Germany to cast doubt on the existence of one of its neighbor States for that State to cease to exist, and for its territory to be seized and absorbed into the territory of Hitlerite Germany. Such claims were made by the fascist aggressors in respect of Austria, Czechoslovakia and a number of other European countries, including France. In that connection, all kinds of expansionist theories were advanced concerning the inferiority of the people of certain countries, and were used as justification for seizing those countries. History has given the lie to all such wild theories and their authors have paid a cruel price for their aggressive plans." -- Mr. Yakov A. Malik, the 386th meeting of the UN Security Council, S/PV.386, 17 December 1948, pages 12-13 [84] harlan (talk) 00:18, 1 February 2010 (UTC)
Lead (again)
Drork, besides your three earlier reverts of harlan's introduction of sourced material to the body of the article:
- 13:28, 24 January 2010 (edit summary: "I'm sorry, but I have to insist. I contest harlan's edits, and he will have to do better in order to explain them, or ask for arbitration")
- 16:52, 24 January 2010 (edit summary: "I have to insist on that. This is not Harlan's private page.")
- 17:17, 24 January 2010 (edit summary: "I have to insist on that. This is not Harlan's private page.")
We now have your two reverts to reintroduce 07:09, 25 January 2010 this change to the lead:
- 12:40, 25 January 2010 (edit summary: "This lead bring the facts in a more comprehensible way. Perhaps there is false data in the body of the article")
- 13:05, 25 January 2010 (edit summary: "")
As I said to you in the edit summaries reverting your changes, there is no source to support this formulation and given that it is not mentioned in the body of the article, it has little place in the lead. I did try to revert you again, but then realized that I was know at three reverts (one of your earlier deletions of harlan's material, and two of your changes to the lead). So, I self-reverted. I've asked you to self-revert but you seem to have disappeared having gotten your way through edit-warring. Is a 3RR report here necessary? Or are you willing to remove the material until you can find reliable sources to support it which would allow for its addition to the body of the article, and then possibly the lead? `Tiamuttalk 14:24, 25 January 2010 (UTC)
- Perhaps a 3RR report is necessary for you and Nableezy's tag teaming. I believe both of you have been warned about edit warring previously. No More Mr Nice Guy (talk) 16:05, 25 January 2010 (UTC)
- I self-reverted my third revert. Nableezy is an independent editor who can make up his own mind about what edits he wants to make, and he made two reverts. If you think that's evidence of tag-teaming, please do file a report. Its more likely that its evidence that Drork is editing against consensus, including things in the lead that are not in the body of the article, and are not even sourced. Tiamuttalk 17:46, 25 January 2010 (UTC)
- Whenever you cannot deal with arguments you resort to bureaucracy. Amazing. DrorK (talk) 21:23, 25 January 2010 (UTC)
- That's very funny Drork. I've asked you repeatedly to provide sources for the information you are seeking to add to the article. While you may believe that you are the sole bearer of the WP:TRUTH, at Wikipedia, we require you to use reliable sources that are verifiable. When you choose to do some research and honour that request, we can begin adding your changes to the article. Until then, it is useless to continue this discussion, which has gone around in circles for days now. Tiamuttalk
- And by the way, WP:3RR is a policy around here. I hope you read and understood it. Because the next time you violate it, I will be reporting you without reminding you of it again. Considering how hostile you have been following the free pass you were given, you don't deserve another. Tiamuttalk 22:04, 25 January 2010 (UTC)
- Whenever you cannot deal with arguments you resort to bureaucracy. Amazing. DrorK (talk) 21:23, 25 January 2010 (UTC)
- I self-reverted my third revert. Nableezy is an independent editor who can make up his own mind about what edits he wants to make, and he made two reverts. If you think that's evidence of tag-teaming, please do file a report. Its more likely that its evidence that Drork is editing against consensus, including things in the lead that are not in the body of the article, and are not even sourced. Tiamuttalk 17:46, 25 January 2010 (UTC)
FYI
I submitted my account of the problems with this article here: Wikipedia:Editor assistance/Requests#The article: State of Palestine. DrorK (talk) 19:08, 27 January 2010 (UTC)
Problematic sources
There are some problems with the refs used in this article
These are not WP:RS
- [86] (ref 118) says it is a personal and self-funded website, and not representing any Official Palestinian Authority/Party. ie a blog.
- [87] (ref 121) is a B2B site where anyone can get themselves listed.
- [88] (ref 131) is also some guy's personal page. He says he's the Ambassador. He's certainly not a web designer.
A few don't load
These two don't give the same address/phone for what is supposedly the same embassy in Sarajevo
Ref 111 says it's the South African Representative Office to the Palestinian National Authority. It doesn't use the term "State of Palestine" anywhere.
Ref 112 is cited to "Eur, 2004, p. 933". Not sure what book that is, it doesn't seem to be any book in the bibliography.
There are a few sites that claim to be official embassy sites, none of which are on the .ps TLD. One looks pretty unprofessional (although I did learn some history from it here). I'm not sure what the policy here is. Are we supposed to take at face value that these are indeed embassy sites and from that assume that the country involved recognized the State of Palestine?
Thoughts? No More Mr Nice Guy (talk) 01:24, 2 February 2010 (UTC)
- To be honest, the whole list of countries recognizing the "State of Palestine" is problematic. I was quite surprised to find out that the Soviet Union never recognized such state, only said that the 1988 declaration was a positive step (whatever that means). I couldn't find a letter of recognition on behalf of the Russian Federation. Many European nations have diplomatic representations in Ramallah, the PA administrative center, but without recognizing it as a state. Actually, the only conclusive way to know whether a country extended its recognition is to look at the way it phrased its letter of credence, if it has a diplomatic representation, or the letter of recognition if it issued such letter. There are other ways to infer recognition, of course, but they are irrelevant to SoP since it does not exist de-facto. DrorK (talk) 10:02, 2 February 2010 (UTC)
- The article cites Stephen Talmon and explains that many countries have a formal policy of recognizing states, not their governments. In practice, they usually make no formal declarations regarding recognition. For example, Section 203 of the Foreign Relations Law of the United States says
'Since 1970 the United States has moved away from its older recognition practice. "In recent years, U.S. practice has been to deemphasize and avoid the use of recognition in cases of changes of governments and to concern ourselves with the question of whether we wish to have diplomatic relations with the new governments." [1977] Digest of U.S. Practice in International Law 19-21. Repeatedly, the State Department has responded to inquiries with the statement: "The question of recognition does not arise: we are conducting our relations with the new government." [1974] Digest of U.S. Practice in International Law at 13; [1975] Digest of U.S. Practice in International Law at 34.'
- The article cites Stephen Talmon and explains that many countries have a formal policy of recognizing states, not their governments. In practice, they usually make no formal declarations regarding recognition. For example, Section 203 of the Foreign Relations Law of the United States says
- The reference to Francis Boyle's article in the European Journal of International Law has been removed from the article on several occasions now. He has two earned PhDs, one in law and the other in political science. He was the legal advisor to the P.L.O., and helped them draft the 1988 Declaration of the establishment of the State of Palestine. He reported that the State of Palestine had been recognized by 114 other states. Diplomatic recognition is not the same thing as recognition of statehood, and the language used to "treat another state as a state" is completely irrelevant. Here are two illustrations:
- On 25 January 1964 the Republic of Ireland disclosed that it had granted de jure recognition to Israel "some time ago". However, it was not until a decade later, on 12 December 1974, that the Irish Republic and Israel announced that they had agreed to establish diplomatic relations. See Stefan Talmon, Recognition of Governments in International Law: With Particular Reference to Governments in Exile (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1998) page 72
- Acting Secretary of State Lovett wrote a memo on US practice regarding recognition that appeared in one of the "Hackworth editions" of the Department's Digest of International Law. The memo said that "in the recent case of Pakistan recognition de jure was granted on the same day as the new government and state of Pakistan came into existence". Hackworth noted that the message of recognition which President Truman sent to the Governor-General of the Dominion of Pakistan on the day Pakistan became independent, did not speak of recognition, to say nothing of de jure recognition, but simply extended on behalf of the American people the best wishes "on this auspicious day which marks the emergence among the family of nations of the new Dominion of Pakistan". See Stefan Talmon, Recognition of Governments in International Law: With Particular Reference to Governments in Exile (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1998) Page 90
- Section 204(2) of the Foreign Relations Law of the United States says "Express or implied recognition. The President may exercise his power of recognition either expressly or by implication. Recognition of a state has been effected by express official declaration, by the conclusion of a bilateral agreement with the state, by the presentation of credentials by a United States representative to the authorities of the new state, and by receiving the credentials of a diplomatic representative of that state. The fact that the United States is a member, of an international organization of which a state it does not recognize is also a member does not imply recognition of that state by the United States, but a vote by the United States to admit an entity to membership in an organization open only to states may imply recognition of that entity's statehood. harlan (talk) 16:17, 2 February 2010 (UTC)
- I don't think we can only use letters of credence, but we do need to comply with WP:RS and WP:V. Some of the sources I pointed above do not meet one or both of these policies.
- Also, if Francis Boyle was claiming 114 countries recognized the State of Palestine in 2004 while at the same time the Palestinians themselves were claiming 94 countries recognized it, then we have a problem with this source. I notice quite a bit of information comes from this one source (which again, does not appear in the bibliography). No More Mr Nice Guy (talk) 16:45, 2 February 2010 (UTC)
- Francis Boyle writes in his CV that he used to be an advisor to the "Provisional Government of the State of Palestine" (he doesn't explain what that exactly means). Naturally he cannot be regarded as a reliable source for matters directly related to his field of advisory. It is actually unclear how many countries extended recognition to the 1988 Declaration. As I said earlier, I was sure the Soviet Union extended such recognition, but I was quite wrong [94]. Apparently there is a lot of propaganda involved here. Many countries that have special relations with the PLO or the PA are presented as if recognizing the "State of Palestine". It is unclear whether eastern European countries actually recognized the 1988 Declaration, and if so, whether they renewed their recognition after the radical change in government in these countries during the 1990ies. Since the EU's official statement consider the "State of Palestine" to be non-existent (even though it supports its creation as soon as possible), and considering many eastern European countries joined the EU, it is unclear how it affected their recognition, if there was one. DrorK (talk) 17:08, 2 February 2010 (UTC)
- Apparently Boyle made his statement about 114 countries in 1990, while we have the official PNA web site from 2006 saying 94 countries. We should use the later (not to mention more likely to be accurate) source. No More Mr Nice Guy (talk) 18:23, 2 February 2010 (UTC)
- Francis Boyle writes in his CV that he used to be an advisor to the "Provisional Government of the State of Palestine" (he doesn't explain what that exactly means). Naturally he cannot be regarded as a reliable source for matters directly related to his field of advisory. It is actually unclear how many countries extended recognition to the 1988 Declaration. As I said earlier, I was sure the Soviet Union extended such recognition, but I was quite wrong [94]. Apparently there is a lot of propaganda involved here. Many countries that have special relations with the PLO or the PA are presented as if recognizing the "State of Palestine". It is unclear whether eastern European countries actually recognized the 1988 Declaration, and if so, whether they renewed their recognition after the radical change in government in these countries during the 1990ies. Since the EU's official statement consider the "State of Palestine" to be non-existent (even though it supports its creation as soon as possible), and considering many eastern European countries joined the EU, it is unclear how it affected their recognition, if there was one. DrorK (talk) 17:08, 2 February 2010 (UTC)
- Section 204(2) of the Foreign Relations Law of the United States says "Express or implied recognition. The President may exercise his power of recognition either expressly or by implication. Recognition of a state has been effected by express official declaration, by the conclusion of a bilateral agreement with the state, by the presentation of credentials by a United States representative to the authorities of the new state, and by receiving the credentials of a diplomatic representative of that state. The fact that the United States is a member, of an international organization of which a state it does not recognize is also a member does not imply recognition of that state by the United States, but a vote by the United States to admit an entity to membership in an organization open only to states may imply recognition of that entity's statehood. harlan (talk) 16:17, 2 February 2010 (UTC)
(outdent) Many states, including Costa Rica [95] were not included in the 2006 webpage figures. Those were the states that publicly recognized the 1988 Declaration.
Drork, you are welcome to discuss the reliability of the Oxford Journals at the appropriate noticeboard. Your suggestion that a lawyer can't be regarded as reliable for matters related to their advisory role is very far-fetched. Under the bar's "cab-rank" principle, the very best lawyers quite frequently act for very unfashionable clients. For example, the late Ian Browlie defended Serbia against the charge of Genocide at the ICJ.[96] James Crawford served as the Chairman/Rapporteur of the United Nations International Law Commission and wrote the modern textbook on "The Creation of States in International Law". He also served as a legal advisor to Palestine when it co-sponsored a draft resolution requesting an advisory opinion from the ICJ and presented oral arguments on its behalf to the International Court of Justice during the subsequent "Wall" case. e.g. [97] harlan (talk) 18:49, 2 February 2010 (UTC)
- That's an interesting article. Did you notice it says "When the Palestine Liberation Organization proclaimed a Palestinian state in 1988, some 90 countries established diplomatic relations with it, although the exact formulation has varied. Few countries outside the Arab League have recognized a “state,” as Costa Rica has done"?
- I think we need something like that in the lead, but that's not the issue right now. Right now, the issue is the problematic sources I posted above. No More Mr Nice Guy (talk) 19:13, 2 February 2010 (UTC)
- I personally don't see what purpose the itemized list serves, but there are other articles devoted to that sort of thing, e.g. Foreign relations of Israel. It indicates that all except 22 or so countries recognize Israel. But there are no reliable sources provided to support each of those claims. There are only about 80 countries which maintain embassies and consulates in Israel.[98] The US argued that 40 countries was a substantial enough number to warrant treating an unrecognized entity as a state in the Kosovo case. harlan (talk) 19:40, 2 February 2010 (UTC)
- I'm not sure what the foreign relations of Israel article has to do with this one?
- Also not sure what the US's opinion on Kosovo has to do with this article either. Does the US recognize a State of Palestine? I must have missed that. No More Mr Nice Guy (talk) 19:58, 2 February 2010 (UTC)
- I personally don't see what purpose the itemized list serves, but there are other articles devoted to that sort of thing, e.g. Foreign relations of Israel. It indicates that all except 22 or so countries recognize Israel. But there are no reliable sources provided to support each of those claims. There are only about 80 countries which maintain embassies and consulates in Israel.[98] The US argued that 40 countries was a substantial enough number to warrant treating an unrecognized entity as a state in the Kosovo case. harlan (talk) 19:40, 2 February 2010 (UTC)
Harlan, take this example for poor sourcing:
- From the article: "By mid-December, 75 states had recognized Palestine, rising to 89 states by February 1989". This claim is validated by this source: [99]. The tone of this source clearly indicates that it is not a neutral report, but an attempt to push a political agenda. It gives the numbers offhand without any explanation about how they were gathered. Furthermore, the writer tries to convince us that the French an Belgian non-recognition is a sort of recognition. I would hardly call it a reliable source. It is more of a political propaganda, and you bring it as a factual source.
- This source [100] is brought to confirm the recognition of many countries in SoP, and yet it has no information regarding the subject. It merely talks about a call by Organization of Islamic Countries to recognize the Hamas regime in Gaza, a call without any compelling effect. Russia is not part of this organization, so I fail to see how this source is relevant to it, but it doesn't even indicate the recognition of OIC member states. This source link [101] is dead, but I assume it meant to lead to the list of OIS members countries. However, the fact that "Palestine" is a member state does not indicate recognition by all other member states. Syria, Lybia and Israel are all members of the UN. Does it indicate that Syria and Lybia recognize Israel?
This pseudo-sourcing is goes all along this article. This is not a Wikipedian article. DrorK (talk) 07:19, 3 February 2010 (UTC)
And here you have another article by Professor James Crawford that refutes most of the claims made in this article, and specifically Boyle's article. He also indicates Boyle's lack of objectiveness. DrorK (talk) 08:03, 3 February 2010 (UTC)
- Drork, States do not have to make formal public announcements or establish diplomatic relations in order to legally recognize the State of Palestine. This article isn't based upon the journal papers written by Boyle and Crawford back in 1990, although they are certainly of historical interest. The United States was still using its Foreign Assistance Act to sanction states and organizations that supported the PLO back then, and it still has Title 22 sanctions against countries that recognize the Hamas authorities in Gaza. Crawford's article was written prior to the Oslo Accords. In 1999 Crawford wrote "Israel (1948-1949) and Palestine (1998-1999): Two Studies in the Creation of States". His conclusions in that article foreshadowed the arguments he delivered in the ICJ Wall case. Since that article was written, the Security Council adopted the Quartet Roadmap; Crawford became a legal advisor representing Palestine; Israel no longer administers Gaza; and the Palestinian Authority has made a public declaration that it is a legal state entitled to accept jurisdiction under article 12(3) of the Rome Statute of the ICC.
- NMMNG The article cites Geoffrey Watson The Oslo Accords: International Law and the Israeli-Palestinian Peace Agreements (Oxford University Press, 2000). Watson provides an analysis which demonstrates that the parties intend those to be legally binding "international agreements" In particular he discusses the implications of the “Agreement on Encouragement of Investment Between the United States of America and the Palestine Liberation Organisation for the Benefit of the Palestinian Authority Persuant to the Agreement on the Gaza Strip and the Jericho Area” (11 Aug and 12 Sept 1994; State Dep. No. 94-233, KAV 4032). In US foreign policy practice, bilateral treaty agreements constitute an implicit recognition of statehood. The US State Department Digest explains: "A state in the international sense is generally described as a recognized member of the family of nations, an international person. Authorities differ in respect to the qualifications for such statehood, but there is general agreement on certain basic requirements. Independence is not essential. The requisite personality, in the international sense, is seen when the entity claiming to be a State has in fact its own distinctive association with the members of the international society, as by treaties, which, howsoever concluded in its behalf, mark the existence of definite relationships between itself and other contracting parties" See Marjorie M. Whiteman, Digest of International Law, vol. 1 (Washington, DC: U. S. Government Printing Office, 1963) page 223.
- The JCPA[102] and EI [103] both have editorials on the relevance of Kosovo to the Palestinians. The most interesting argument IMHO came when the United States said that Security Council resolutions (like 242) were binding on member states, but not binding on non-state actors like Kosovo. harlan (talk) 13:05, 3 February 2010 (UTC)
- Did you read that JCPA article? It contradicts several of the points you've brought up here. Including your claim that over 100 countries recognized Palestine as a state. No More Mr Nice Guy (talk) 13:18, 3 February 2010 (UTC)
- Harlan, I find it very hard to follow you. You claim that a Palestinian state came into being in November 1988 the latest (and even go as far as suggesting that the British Mandate was a kind of Arab Palestinian state). I bring you a source that refutes the claim that the 1988 declaration actually created a state. Then you tell me that the Oslo Accords changed the picture. So you are basically claiming now that the SoP came into being in September 1993? And what do you do with the fact that the PA never exercised full control over the territory assigned to it, nor was it ever defined as a state in the Oslo Agreement or any later statement on behalf of any side? And what's the relevancy of Kosovo? In the case of Kosovo the declaration of independence came AFTER the Republic of Serbia had to abandon its control over the territory completely and hand it over to an international administration. A thing of this kind never happened in the Palestinian territories. You resorted to the fact that many countries recognized the 1988 declaration in order to prove that there is a state called Palestine despite lacking other features of a sovereign state, but now you say: "states do not have to make formal public announcements or establish diplomatic relations in order to legally recognize the State of Palestine". So what are we left with? A declaration with unclear recognition that led to no, or at best very limited, control over territory and population. What exactly is your point here? DrorK (talk) 14:11, 3 February 2010 (UTC)
- Did you read that JCPA article? It contradicts several of the points you've brought up here. Including your claim that over 100 countries recognized Palestine as a state. No More Mr Nice Guy (talk) 13:18, 3 February 2010 (UTC)
- The JCPA[102] and EI [103] both have editorials on the relevance of Kosovo to the Palestinians. The most interesting argument IMHO came when the United States said that Security Council resolutions (like 242) were binding on member states, but not binding on non-state actors like Kosovo. harlan (talk) 13:05, 3 February 2010 (UTC)
Boyle
Harlan, can we get a quote from the new Boyle source you're using? 130 sounds a bit far fetched. Are you sure this is how many countries recognize Palestine as a state rather than have some sort of diplomatic relations with the Palestinians? No More Mr Nice Guy (talk) 13:06, 3 February 2010 (UTC)
I saw you added the quote to the article. Can we assume that he doesn't source his claim about 130 countries? How about what he means by "de jure recognition"? Wouldn't that require an outright deceleration (as opposed to de facto recognition which could be deduced from actions)? I liked his self congratulatory tone, by the way. No More Mr Nice Guy (talk) 14:39, 3 February 2010 (UTC)
- NMMNG, I added the quotes from page 19 and the Back Cover in the endnote reference. The book is a collection of articles and research papers, which also includes the 1990 article, that said "more than 114". It illustrates the practice of states to come forward and announce their recognition of the 1988 Declaration years after the fact. Recognition is retroactive in effect, so the number of states that "recognized Palestine in 1988" actually does increase from time to time. The Jerusalem Quarterly reports "In 1988, more than 130 states recognized State of Palestine proclaimed by the PLO. (By comparison, some 160 states recognize the State of Israel, according to the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs website.)" [104]
- Harlan, please, you are wasting our time here. Anyone can come up with numbers, and these numbers will be bigger and bigger as much as the write has interest in defending a certain Palestinian interest (in this case making it eligible to have membership in intl. organizations or a locus standi before international courts). It is commonly accepted today (even in Israel) that a Palestinian state should be established in the WB&Gaza. The questions that remain are when, how, what would be the exact borders, what kind of relation this state would have with Jerusalem, and what kind of army it would have [105]. Many countries (probably most countries) and international organizations, save Muslim and Arab organizations, hold a position that Palestinian statehood is desirable yet non-existent at the moment. You say there are 169 countries that hold this position? My bet is that ALL countries hold this position (probably even Israel). This fact does not make "Palestine" a state. Quite the contrary - had there been a Palestinian state, there wouldn't have been so many statements acknowledging the right of Palestinian to establish a state. Have you ever heard about a statement saying that Mexicans have a right to exercise sovereignty over the Mexican territory? Have you ever heard of a call to establish a Polish state in the Polish territories? (Well, actually you must have, but not from the past 60 years or so). You have no reliable sources to support the claim that 130 countries recognize a state called Palestine, and you have no reliable sources to support the strange claim that recognition is enough to make a state. You are toying with us, making claim and then counter-claim, bringing one source, then a contradictory source. When people indicate that your sources are feeble, you bring another feeble source or resorting to another debating tactic. Now, for the last time, what exactly is it that you want? DrorK (talk) 15:51, 3 February 2010 (UTC)
- When in 2006 the official PNA site said 94 countries recognize Palestine as a state, and we have so far found only a handful that have recognized it since, 130 is indeed far fetched. No More Mr Nice Guy (talk) 16:11, 3 February 2010 (UTC)
- Are NMMNG and DrorK questioning the reliability of Francis Boyle? If so, take it to the reliable sources noticeboard. I know of no reason to doubt his figure. Indeed, we have sources attesting to at least 110 states having recognied Palestine as a state and tens of others holding diplomatic relations. The PNA is not the representative of the State of Palestine and its figures for 2006 are outdated as it is and have not been updated since. Tiamuttalk 16:32, 3 February 2010 (UTC)
- Further information about recognition:
- Russia does not recognize SoP. The website of its Foreign Ministry uses the term "Palestinian Territories" and give information about "Mission of the Russian Federation to Palestinian National Authority" [106]
- Lebanon extended recognition to the 1988-declared SoP only on November 27, 2008, even though SoP became member of the Arab League long before [107]. The assumption that the very membership in the Arab League indicates recognition is false.
- Singapore mentioned as a country recognizing SoP, but "Palestine" does not appear in the list of the Singaporean Foreign Ministry's website as a country which maintains diplomatic relations with Singapore. In fact, there is no indication whatsoever of Singaporean recognition. [108]
- These are just three examples of the serious problem with the whole claim of "majority of states recognition". I can bring more when I have some more time. DrorK (talk) 16:40, 3 February 2010 (UTC)
- Further information about recognition:
- First of all, problem #3 does not exist. Singapore is not even mentioned in our article.
- Second of all, I'm not sure about the reliability of the source you cite regarding Lebanon's recognition, since this source directly contradicts it. In any case, the point is moot, because even if its correct, Lebanon has since recognized Palestine and so can be listed here without difficulty.
- Finally, your source regarding Russia doesn't say anything about whether or not Russia recognies the State of Palestine. This source does, and it does.
- Please do bring forward any other concerns you may have. The ones you have raised thus far however should not trouble you any longer. Tiamuttalk 17:27, 3 February 2010 (UTC)
- Singapore is on the map of countries recognizing SoP, even though it hardly has any relations even with the PA. For some reason you value the MEDEA list, even though they do not explain how they prepared the list, and even though it contains blunt errors. Russia and Austria do not recognize a state called Palestine. Their Foreign Ministries do not list "Palestine" as a state with which they maintain some kind of relations. The fact that Lebanon extended recognition only in 2008, yet it is listed since 2001 seriously undermines the reliability of this source. DrorK (talk) 17:47, 3 February 2010 (UTC)
- Um, I see that the other way around. Your source is unreliable because it contradicts the MEDEA list. Looking for an ommission of Palestine at the foreign minitry sites of Russia and Austria is WP:OR. The source is clear. These countries have recognized Palestine. Tiamuttalk 17:56, 3 February 2010 (UTC)
- The MEDEA list is obviously a copy of the PNA list (it has the exact same wording, except they added that Austria is a member of the EU). No More Mr Nice Guy (talk) 17:50, 3 February 2010 (UTC)
- You have that backwards. The MEDEA list is dated December 2001. The PNA copied that list on their 2006 copyrighted website page. Tiamuttalk 17:56, 3 February 2010 (UTC)
- You don't know how long that list was on the PNA site. Do you think the PNA also copied MEDEA's PLO and PLC articles? They both link to the exact same texts on their respective sites. No More Mr Nice Guy (talk) 18:05, 3 February 2010 (UTC)
- You have that backwards. The MEDEA list is dated December 2001. The PNA copied that list on their 2006 copyrighted website page. Tiamuttalk 17:56, 3 February 2010 (UTC)
- The MEDEA list is obviously a copy of the PNA list (it has the exact same wording, except they added that Austria is a member of the EU). No More Mr Nice Guy (talk) 17:50, 3 February 2010 (UTC)
- (ec)Well, Boyle does seem to be on the fringe of international law interpretations, but that's not the issue here. The question is how do we reconcile several different numbers for how many countries recognize Palestine as a state, and which number should go in the lead.
- I thought "about 100" would be ok since it a. is sourced (always good), b. is not exact (so it covers several options), c. is more than half of the number of UN members (doesn't kill the majority recognition meme).
- I submit that an official PNA list of countries is a stronger source than Boyle's self-congratulatory unsourced statement.
- Also, we do not have sources attesting to "at least 110" countries recognising the SoP. As I posted above, some of those sources are flawed. I noticed you didn't bother to respond in that section. No More Mr Nice Guy (talk) 17:41, 3 February 2010 (UTC)
- Anat Kurz gies a figure of 117 a couple of years before Boyle's 130. It makes perfect sense. You are being selective in choosing which sources you want to acknolwedge as true. Take it to the reliable sources noticebaord if you believe otherwise, but Boyle is an WP:RS on this topic. Tiamuttalk 17:56, 3 February 2010 (UTC)
- You're the one who's being selective. You prefer unsubstantiated big numbers to a smaller list of countries. No More Mr Nice Guy (talk) 18:05, 3 February 2010 (UTC)
- No, I prefer what reliable sources say to OR speculations. And by the way, DrorK, here's another source [109]. It says Austria recognized Palestine on 14/12/1988. It also lists Lebanon, though without a date of recognition. I can't see what it says about Russia, because that page is not available. I also suspect that given its from 1989, it probably lists it as the Soviet Union. But clearly, the sources are emerging to support the MEDEA source in opposition to your source and OR speculation. Tiamuttalk 18:18, 3 February 2010 (UTC)
- The article from a RS he posted about Lebanon is not OR or speculation. The fact your new source doesn't list a date of recognition for Lebanon just strengthens his argument. No More Mr Nice Guy (talk) 18:33, 3 February 2010 (UTC)
- I was going to review the sources again with you in detail. However, I'm not going to bother. Its clear you will believe whatever you want to, no matter how many sources are presented. Its a moot point anyway. Lebanon has recognized the State of Palestine, no matter which source we believe.
- The OR speculation referred to DrorK's looking at the Foreign Ministry website of Austria and determining from its lack of mention of Palestine there, that the country does not recognize Palestine. Two sources say otherwise explicitly and there is a date of recognition. The rest of this discussion is not worth any more of my time frankly. I'm busy improving the article. You? Tiamuttalk 19:10, 3 February 2010 (UTC)
- What I'm doing is not OR in any way. You simply don't like what I'm saying. On the other hand relying on bad sources doesn't make us more knowledgeable. There is a lot of disinformation about SoP, and this article, unfortunately, promotes it rather than clearing the mists. The Soviet Union never recognized SoP. According to the Washington Post's report from 19 November 1988, the Soviet Foreign Ministry was very careful not to extend formal recognition, and issued a statement saying that the 1988 declaration was "a major contribution to the process of a fair political settlement in the Middle East" [110]. In the "Sixth United Nations International NGO Meeting on the Question of Palestine" held in Vienna in 1989, the Austrian Foreign Ministry said: "Austria had welcomed the proclamation of the independent Palestinian State and subsequent developments and stood ready, as well as many other European countries, to play a useful role in this process" [111]. Note that he was careful enough not to use the verb "recognizes". In that meeting, Yasser Arafat took the liberty to interpret the Austrian statement as implying recognition: "Austria has embodied these positions in its speedy recognition of the independent State of Palestine and by raising its level of diplomatic relations with the PLO", but, in fact, this was his own interpretation, and it was never confirmed by the Austrian government. Raising the diplomatic relations with the PLO is not recognition either. Today, the Austrian Foreign Ministry refers only to the Palestinian Authority and not to SoP. Why am I telling you all this story? Because your whole thesis about the existence of a Palestinian state is based upon lists of countries allegedly recognizing such state, but apparently these lists, usually provided by Palestinian bodies with particular interests, are not very reliable, and often give a very broad interpretation to the notion of "recognition". There is a simple diplomatic formula used to extend recognition. Neither the Soviet Union nor Austria used it in respect to the 1988 declaration, even though they are constantly listed as if doing so. I wonder how many additional errors are included in the list you brought. DrorK (talk) 19:48, 3 February 2010 (UTC)
- I have to make another point regarding the list you've brought from the "Paletine Yearbook". The list is oddly organized. North Korea appears twice, once under "Democratic People's Republic of Korea" with the date: 24/11/1988 and then as "Korea, North" without a date. The list includes "Byelorussian SSR" which was part of the Soviet Union. True, it has its own representative at the UN, but it was never considered an independent state. Furthermore, it is inconceivable that Byelorussia recognized SoP when the Soviet Union didn't. Namibia did not gain independence until 21 March 1990, and yet it is mentioned in the list as if recognized SoP on 19/11/1988. DrorK (talk) 19:59, 3 February 2010 (UTC)
- What I'm doing is not OR in any way. You simply don't like what I'm saying. On the other hand relying on bad sources doesn't make us more knowledgeable. There is a lot of disinformation about SoP, and this article, unfortunately, promotes it rather than clearing the mists. The Soviet Union never recognized SoP. According to the Washington Post's report from 19 November 1988, the Soviet Foreign Ministry was very careful not to extend formal recognition, and issued a statement saying that the 1988 declaration was "a major contribution to the process of a fair political settlement in the Middle East" [110]. In the "Sixth United Nations International NGO Meeting on the Question of Palestine" held in Vienna in 1989, the Austrian Foreign Ministry said: "Austria had welcomed the proclamation of the independent Palestinian State and subsequent developments and stood ready, as well as many other European countries, to play a useful role in this process" [111]. Note that he was careful enough not to use the verb "recognizes". In that meeting, Yasser Arafat took the liberty to interpret the Austrian statement as implying recognition: "Austria has embodied these positions in its speedy recognition of the independent State of Palestine and by raising its level of diplomatic relations with the PLO", but, in fact, this was his own interpretation, and it was never confirmed by the Austrian government. Raising the diplomatic relations with the PLO is not recognition either. Today, the Austrian Foreign Ministry refers only to the Palestinian Authority and not to SoP. Why am I telling you all this story? Because your whole thesis about the existence of a Palestinian state is based upon lists of countries allegedly recognizing such state, but apparently these lists, usually provided by Palestinian bodies with particular interests, are not very reliable, and often give a very broad interpretation to the notion of "recognition". There is a simple diplomatic formula used to extend recognition. Neither the Soviet Union nor Austria used it in respect to the 1988 declaration, even though they are constantly listed as if doing so. I wonder how many additional errors are included in the list you brought. DrorK (talk) 19:48, 3 February 2010 (UTC)
- The article from a RS he posted about Lebanon is not OR or speculation. The fact your new source doesn't list a date of recognition for Lebanon just strengthens his argument. No More Mr Nice Guy (talk) 18:33, 3 February 2010 (UTC)
- No, I prefer what reliable sources say to OR speculations. And by the way, DrorK, here's another source [109]. It says Austria recognized Palestine on 14/12/1988. It also lists Lebanon, though without a date of recognition. I can't see what it says about Russia, because that page is not available. I also suspect that given its from 1989, it probably lists it as the Soviet Union. But clearly, the sources are emerging to support the MEDEA source in opposition to your source and OR speculation. Tiamuttalk 18:18, 3 February 2010 (UTC)
- You're the one who's being selective. You prefer unsubstantiated big numbers to a smaller list of countries. No More Mr Nice Guy (talk) 18:05, 3 February 2010 (UTC)
- Anat Kurz gies a figure of 117 a couple of years before Boyle's 130. It makes perfect sense. You are being selective in choosing which sources you want to acknolwedge as true. Take it to the reliable sources noticebaord if you believe otherwise, but Boyle is an WP:RS on this topic. Tiamuttalk 17:56, 3 February 2010 (UTC)
I was trying to improve the article. I went over the list of sources and found some problematic ones. You didn't bother to respond. In fact, none of the people who added those sources in an attempt to validate the number of countries that recognize SoP bothered to respond. You don't seem to be interested in making the article as accurate as possible, so what exactly do you mean when you say you want to "improve" it? No More Mr Nice Guy (talk) 20:04, 3 February 2010 (UTC)
- Acknowledging the fact that there are published sources which say that 130 countries have recognized the SoP does improve the article. It is doubtful that a complete list will ever be published. Many sources, including the US Code itself, say that the United States has discouraged, and at times, threatened other countries that have recognized the PLO, Hamas, or the SoP. Those laws still exist, and countries that support Hamas can end up being labeled "State Sponsors of Terror". [112] The PLO is still on the list of terrorist groups, but the President signs periodic certifications and waivers.
- Great Britain had always stacked the vote of the LoN with the membership of its Dominions and Colonies. Shortly before the Dumbarton Oaks Conference in 1944 the Soviet Constitution was amended and Article 18(a) was inserted which granted each Union Republic the power to enter into direct relations with foreign states, conclude treaties, and to exchange diplomatic and consular representatives. Byelorussia did conclude treaties with, and recognized other states including Palestine. FYI, the Soviet Union pressed for admission of all 16 of its republics, but a compromise was reached to grant Russia a veto in the Security Council and to only accept the international personality of the Ukraine and Byelorussia. See La succession d'États: la codification à l'épreuve des faits, By Pierre Michel Eisemann, Martti Koskenniemi, Hague Academy of International Law, page 268. Drork's other comments are WP:OR and WP:Synth personal theories: that "The Soviet Union never recognized SoP."; that the representative of Austria did not intend to recognize the SoP; and that "There is a simple diplomatic formula used to extend recognition." In fact, there isn't any proof for those statements in any of the sources he cited. I've previously cited and quoted the works of Talmon, Grant, Hackworth and the Restatement of the Foreign Relations Law of the United States which explain that it isn't necessary to use the word recognition or to make any public statements at all. harlan (talk) 21:39, 4 February 2010 (UTC)
- You think that by loading us with irrelevant information, we will be convinced. It doesn't work, and you are wasting too much of our time and energy. I gave you several proofs that the "130 list" was unreliable. Surely there are people who want us to believe there are 130 countries that extended recognition to the 1988 declaration (are you one of them?) but with some Google search you can see that these lists are more of a wishful thinking than a reliable source. The fact that the US pressured other countries not to recognize the 1988 declaration is irrelevant. For many years, the Arab League had a well-organized policy of boycotting Israel. So what? Does it mean that more countries recognized Israel? The PRC threatens countries not to recognize ROC. Does it mean ROC is more recognized than we assume?
- The Mandate of Palestine was certainly not a dominion, and it wasn't a colony either. It was fully controlled from London. Although the Mandate charter encouraged the UK to establish autonomous authorities (particularly Jewish),it was not an obligation, and the UK preferred to have a centralized policy. All of the legislation was done by "Orders in Council", namely ordinances of the UK government. This information is available to you with a simple Google search, I am tired of teaching you history.
- For the last time, I'm going to direct you to this source [113] proving that the Soviet Union never recognized the 1988 declaration. There is also no proof that Austria extended such recognition, except a statement by Arafat that was never confirmed by the Austrian Republic. Currently Austria does not list "Palestine" among the countries with which it maintains relations. You always prefer far-fetched academic researches or biased sources instead of looking at the plain written facts. As I said, you are wasting our time. DrorK (talk) 23:32, 4 February 2010 (UTC)
I see that you've provided an inconclusive article ("Appears" to fall short) from the Washington Post which merely said that "as of November 19, 1988" the writers there didn't believe that the Soviet Union had recognized the SoP. That doesn't establish the fact that the Soviet Union "never recognized" the SoP, unless you count WP:Synth assumptions as evidence. The article already explains that the Mandate was a state and links to a article about that topic. I don't care to discuss your personal opinions regarding that subject anymore. harlan (talk) 00:13, 5 February 2010 (UTC)
- Harlan, first of all it is very rude to edit other people's words on a talk page, but that's beside the point. By your words you prove that your motives for writing this article were not pure. You asked for sources, you've got them. Now you claim these sources are "personal opinion". And what are your sources? A divine message? When I bring you clear statements on original document, you say it is better to rely on secondary sources. When I bring you secondary sources, you claim it is better to stick to the original text (which you misinterpreter) and not count on secondary interpretation. Add to that the fact that you were engaged in edit wars, add to that your forceful objection to any change in this article that is not approved by you, add to that the fact that you hide behind an alias, and give us no information about you background (this is legitimate and yet not very fair considering the way you act in this discussion). I think you are trying to troll here in a very "educated" way, but I still want to give you the benefit of the doubt. DrorK (talk) 09:53, 5 February 2010 (UTC)
- I find it somewhat amusing that harlan would claim it's impossible to create a list of countries that recognize another existing state. I guess SoP have secret relations with a few dozen countries. That's convenient.
- The fact is that despite several editors trying, they have been unable to substantiate more than around 100 countries recognizing SoP. But they want to put as high a number as possible in the lead. It's not about accuracy, it's about pushing your agenda as much as possible without breaking wikipedia rules too much. No More Mr Nice Guy (talk) 12:38, 5 February 2010 (UTC)
- NMMNG I didn't add anything to this article that isn't supported by reliable published sources. You haven't done much of anything here in the Boyle subsection, but write some magnificent whinges about the numbers supplied by Boyle and the Jerusalem Quarterly.
- I find it amusing that you begged the question of implied recognition in connection with Jerusalem and Sharkansky, but don't accept the fact that states can extend formal recognition privately or confidentially. There is no Wikipedia policy that requires other editors to perform original research for you. The Israeli MFA published a claim that 160 countries recognize Israel as a state, but only about 80 have embassies or consulates there. The 160 number includes members of the Islamic conference that have never publicly acknowledged their recognition of the state of Israel. The situation with Palestine is analogous. Boyle represented the PLO in international negotiations. He has written at some length about the steps taken by the US to prevent other countries and international organizations from publicly recognizing Palestine.
- Drork, the edit to your comment was an accident. Occasionally, my laptop touchpad gets brushed, and selects text without my noticing it. In any event, the League of Nations Permanent Mandates Commission did not share your view. They required the High Commissioner to report on the steps that were being taken to establish self-governing institutions and were highly critical of the mandatory administration's failure to carry out its responsibilities in that regard. The Washington Post article that you cited did not say that Russia "never recognized" SoP. You are presenting WP:Synth arguments and hyperbole that don't actually appear in the source that you cited, and whingeing about other people acting in bad faith when they point it out to you. harlan (talk) 17:36, 5 February 2010 (UTC)
- I did not "beg the question" of implied recognition, I just pointed out to you that your source doesn't quite say what you claim it does, which unfortunately happens quite often.
- Anyway, would you say most sources support "around 100" or "130" countries recognize SoP? Why did you put 130 in the lead 2 seconds after you found it when it's not the majority view and doesn't quite sum up what the article says, but rather is one extreme of several options? No More Mr Nice Guy (talk) 19:02, 5 February 2010 (UTC)
- Drork, the edit to your comment was an accident. Occasionally, my laptop touchpad gets brushed, and selects text without my noticing it. In any event, the League of Nations Permanent Mandates Commission did not share your view. They required the High Commissioner to report on the steps that were being taken to establish self-governing institutions and were highly critical of the mandatory administration's failure to carry out its responsibilities in that regard. The Washington Post article that you cited did not say that Russia "never recognized" SoP. You are presenting WP:Synth arguments and hyperbole that don't actually appear in the source that you cited, and whingeing about other people acting in bad faith when they point it out to you. harlan (talk) 17:36, 5 February 2010 (UTC)
- I had pointed out that Sharkansky had said that many states don't view Jerusalem as a part of Israel. You tried to dismiss that fact by claiming that Sharkansky had said states that presented their credentials in Jerusalem implied their recognition. Sharkansky's remarks in that connection can only be applicable to the 80 or so countries that have diplomatic missions in Israel, but not to the substantially higher number of countries which have no diplomatic missions there.
- Amazon's instant order update says that I purchased Boyle's book on August 8, 2009, and the Jerusalem Quarterly 39 was also published in Autumn of 2009. If you have a published source which says there is a majority viewpoint regarding the number of states that recognize the SoP, then feel free to add that to the article. harlan (talk) 19:43, 5 February 2010 (UTC)
- I don't need a published source to say what the majority view is. That is judged by prevalence in sources. See WP:NPOV.
- We have a couple of sources that present lists, that say around 94 countries recognise SoP. We have Kurz that says 117 and Boyle now saying 130, neither of which sources or substantiates their claim. 130 is one extreme of the views presented in the article and putting it in the lead violates NPOV.
- I should also point out that the view that SoP doesn't exist as a state is not represented in this article. No More Mr Nice Guy (talk) 20:54, 5 February 2010 (UTC)
Recognition and non-recognition of states in SoP
- Greece did not recognize the 1988 declaration of SoP. Here's an official statement about the matter, made by Greece on 22 November 1988 on behalf of all 12 members of the European Economic Community. There is no indication of recognition there, nor any indication about a possible separate Greek policy.
- Malta did not recognize SoP. This is the official Maltese statement about the matter. There is nothing there that indicate a recognition in a state (merely reiteration of the Palestinian right for independence).
- The recognition of Pakistan is not clear. The Pakistani statement from 23 November 1988 is addressed to the "Chairman of the PLO" and does not indicate full recognition in the proclaimed state.
There are clear letters of recognition from Madagascar [114], Kuwait [115], Bahrain [116], Indonesia [117], Tunisia [118], Mongolian People's Republic [119], Oman [120] and Qatar [121]. DrorK (talk) 21:27, 5 February 2010 (UTC)
- The EU letter says nothing about non-recognition of the SoP by Greece. If you think the Malta letter doesn't mention recognition of a Palestinian state you must be illiterate. In any event, the article cites Tessler, Mark A. (1994), A History of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict (2nd, illustrated ed.). Indiana University Press, page 722: "Within two weeks of the PNC meeting, at least fifty-five nations, including states as diverse as the Soviet Union, China, India, Greece, Yugoslavia, Sri Lanka, Malta, and Zambia, had recognized the Palestinian state." harlan (talk) 08:02, 6 February 2010 (UTC)
- Harlan, I won't say you are illiterate, you certainly know how to read and write. The problem is the way you manipulate the information in order to make a thesis. As I said, you could have presented this thesis as a final assignment of an academic course, but this is not a Wikipedian article. Since the proclaimed SoP has no control over territories or people whatsoever, the only recognition it can receive is by official words, or to be more precise one of the words derived from the root "RECOGNIZE" (or "RECOGNISE" if you prefer British English). Indeed, all countries that informed the UN about their recognition used one of the conjugations of this root. Since you were so creative in interpreting the sources you brought, I don't trust your citation from Tessler's book. You know I don't have access to this book and I cannot verify your quote nor check what sources Tessler relied on, so this must be very convenient to you. We have a very strong evidence that the Soviet Union did not extend recognition, we have explicit letters of Greece and Malta not extending recognition. These texts are very clear and available on the net to anyone who wishes to read them. I admire you for one thing - you managed to bring the idea of verifiability ad absurdum, and you managed to prove that any saying can be justified by sources. I can even write on the article about Obama that he is an illegitimate president who fooled the American voters and cite one of your sources for that, namely Boyle's speech about Hawaii. This art of yours is really admirable. DrorK (talk) 08:24, 6 February 2010 (UTC)
- Ban Ki Moon on 1/12/2009: "Today, the State of Israel exists, but the State of Palestine does not." [122]
- I guess he doesn't know what he's talking about. No More Mr Nice Guy (talk) 22:25, 5 February 2010 (UTC)
The British Mandate as a state
This is an excerpt from a document presented at the UN web-archive about the Palestinian question. It is the reply of the Colonial Office (then headed by Winston Churchill) to the "Palestine Arab Delegation" (headed by Mousa Kazim al-Husseini). The "Palestine Arab Delegation" complained about many issues regarding the establishing of the Mandate regime. Among other things, they complain about the full control reserved by the UK government over Mandatory Palestine, which is, in their view, contradictory to its status as Mandate A. The reply, dated 1 March 1922, states the following: "With regard to Article 22 of the Covenant of the League of Nations, I am to observe that this Article, in so far as it applies to territories severed from the Ottoman Empire, has been interpreted by the Principal Allied Powers in Articles 94 to 97 of the Treaty of Sevres, Syria and Iraq are explicitly referred to in Article 94 of that Treaty as having been provisionally recognised as Independent States, in accordance with the fourth paragraph of Article 22 of the Covenant of the League of Nations. Article 95, on the other hand, makes no such reference to Palestine. The reason for this is that, as stated in that Article, the Mandatory is to be responsible for putting into effect the Declaration originally made on the 2nd November, 1917, by the British Government, and adopted by the other Allied Powers, in favour of the establishment in Palestine of a National Home for the Jewish people, it being clearly understood that nothing should be done which might prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine, and the rights and political status enjoyed by Jews in any other country. There is no question of treating the people of Palestine as less advanced than their neighbours in Iraq and Syria; the position is that His Majesty's Government are bound by a pledge which is antecedent to the Covenant of the League of Nations, and they cannot allow a constitutional position to develop in a country for which they have accepted responsibility to the Principal Allied Powers, which may make it impracticable to carry into effect a solemn undertaking given by themselves and their Allies." ([123] No.2, p.4). I think this text refutes quite strongly Harlan's claim about the British Mandate being a kind of sovereign state, let alone it being a predecessor of an Arab Palestinian state. DrorK (talk) 20:48, 5 February 2010 (UTC)
- There is a big problem with your muddled thinking. Great Britain made that same argument in the Mavrommatis Palestine Concessions case and it was rejected by the Court. That case, and the courts ruling, are cited in the article.
- The Treaty of Sevres (1920) that Churchill was discussing, was never ratified. His controversial interpretation of its provisions supported, among other things, a decision to grant concessions to Pinhas Rutenberg that contradicted the terms of existing concessions that had been granted by the Ottomans. Churchill's decision was overturned by the 1925 ruling of the PCIJ in the Mavrommatis Palestine Concessions case. The Court held that the provisions of the treaty of Lausanne concerning the laws of state succession were applicable to Palestine. The article also cites a 1925 decision by the Arbital Court that was established by the Council of the League of Nations pursuant to the terms of article 47 of the Treaty of Lausanne. A dispute arose over the determinations of the Council of the Ottoman Public Debt regarding the annuities owed by each State. The arbiter decided that Palestine and Transjordan were separate States. Article 47 of the Treaty of Lausanne stipulated that "The decisions of the arbitrator shall be final." So, Churchill's interpretation of Sevres back in June of 1922 is interesting, but moot. harlan (talk) 22:05, 5 February 2010 (UTC)
- And you claim that all of the above is NOT an original research nor synthesis? Are you suggesting that on 1925 A state called Palestine was created by a court decision? Did the UK government established autonomous administrative bodies of locals following that court decision? Does it declare the Balfour declaration null and voil following that court ruling? DrorK (talk) 22:19, 5 February 2010 (UTC)
- Another remark - you sources talk about the maintainance of Ottoman agreements and settlements in the British Mandate of Palestine. It says nothing about the status of the Mandate as a state, let alone an Arab state. Note that the Palestinian Arab delegation referred to the full centralized controll of the UK government over the Mandate in a way that does not resemble a state-to-be. This issue was never addressed by any court and not affected by any court ruling. Maybe the problem with you is that you base your theses about statehood only on legal term and court rulings, while we are talking about a much bigger subject, whose legal aspect is not that important. You attribute an enormous significance to a court ruling about property disputes, and dismiss statements of politicians and state officials, as well as their actions on the ground, as if court rulings were the only prism through which you can look at the subject. DrorK (talk) 22:42, 5 February 2010 (UTC)
- The Treaty of Sevres (1920) that Churchill was discussing, was never ratified. His controversial interpretation of its provisions supported, among other things, a decision to grant concessions to Pinhas Rutenberg that contradicted the terms of existing concessions that had been granted by the Ottomans. Churchill's decision was overturned by the 1925 ruling of the PCIJ in the Mavrommatis Palestine Concessions case. The Court held that the provisions of the treaty of Lausanne concerning the laws of state succession were applicable to Palestine. The article also cites a 1925 decision by the Arbital Court that was established by the Council of the League of Nations pursuant to the terms of article 47 of the Treaty of Lausanne. A dispute arose over the determinations of the Council of the Ottoman Public Debt regarding the annuities owed by each State. The arbiter decided that Palestine and Transjordan were separate States. Article 47 of the Treaty of Lausanne stipulated that "The decisions of the arbitrator shall be final." So, Churchill's interpretation of Sevres back in June of 1922 is interesting, but moot. harlan (talk) 22:05, 5 February 2010 (UTC)
Of course it isn't original research. The State Department published a 100 page long analysis of the Legal status of the "A" mandates back in 1963 which said they were States. The fact that you still keep commenting about sources you have obviously never read is very clear evidence of bad faith. Here are some excerpts:
Article 46 of the Treaty of Lausanne provided that the Ottoman Public Debt "shall be distributed . . . between Turkey" and, among others, "the States newly created in territories in Asia which are detached from the Ottoman Empire under the present Treaty." (28 LNTS 11, 37.) The Ottoman Debt Arbitration is also reported in the Annual Digest, with the following "Note":
"The arbitrator, after having adopted the principle that the costs have to be equally divided between the States parties to the arbitration, said: 'The difficulty arises here how one is to regard the Asiatic countries under the British and French mandates. Iraq is a Kingdom in regard to which Great Britain has undertaken responsibilities equivalent to those of a Mandatory Power. Under the British mandate, Palestine and Transjordan have each an entirely separate organisation. We are, therefore, in the presence of three States sufficiently separate to be considered as distinct Parties.
"' France has received a single mandate from the Council of the League of Nations, but in the countries subject to that mandate, one can distinguish two distinct States: Syria and the Lebanon, each State possessing its own constitution and a nationality clearly different from the other.'"
"In its Judgment No. 5, The Mavrommatis Palestine Concessions, the Permanent Court of International Justice decided that certain concessions granted to a Greek national by Ottoman authorities for public works in Jerusalem were valid under Protocol XII of the Treaty of Lausanne, a "Protocol relating to certain concessions granted in the Ottoman Empire", and were entitled to readaptation in conformity with new economic conditions. Article 9 of this Protocol provided in part: "In the territories detached from Turkey under the Treaty of Peace signed this day, the State which acquires the territory is fully subrogated as regards the rights and obligations of Turkey towards the nationals of the other Contracting Powers . . . who are beneficiaries under concessionary contracts entered into before the 29th October, 1914, with the Ottoman Government or any local Ottoman authority. . . ." ( 28 LNTS 203, 211.) Great Britain, the Mandatory for Palestine, was a party to Protocol XII as well as to the Treaty of Lausanne. In its Judgment No. 5, however, the Permanent Court of International Justice specifically stated that the Palestine Administration, not Great Britain as Mandatory, was subrogated to the obligations of Turkey with respect to these concessions. Thus, the Court observed: ". . . It is therefore in the exercise of this full power that the Palestine Administration must, under Article 11 [of the Mandate], respect the international obligations accepted by the Mandatory in regard to which that article makes an express reservation. In the opinion of the Court these international obligations there referred to are constituted solely by the Protocol of Lausanne. For no other instrument creating international obligations contracted by the Mandatory has been brought to the Court's knowledge, and it does not appear that any such exist. . . ." --Marjorie M. Whiteman, Digest of International Law, vol. 1 (Washington, DC: U. S. Government Printing Office, 1963) page 651-652
The Digest says "The terms of the Treaty of Lausanne (28 LNTS 11) provided for the application of principles of state succession to the "A" Mandates. Thus, Norman Bentwich, in commenting on the case of Heirs of the Prince Mohamed Selim v. The Government of Palestine (reported in [ 1935- 1937] Ann. Dig. 123 (No. 39)), states: ". . . The Article [60] of the Treaty [of Lausanne] transferred to the Government of Palestine only those properties which were passed from the Civil List to the Ottoman State by the Irades. But there was nothing in the discussions on the Treaty of Lausanne which could upset the natural interpretation of the words of the Article, that the imperial decrees had transferred properties of Sultan Abdul Hamid to the Ottoman State and that these properties were ceded to the allied successor states." Bentwich, "State Succession and Act of State in the Palestine Courts", XXIII Brit. Yb. Int'l L. ( 1946) 330, 333.
The Digest also discusses the Israeli High Court decisions in Abmed Shauki el Kharbutli v. Minister of Defence, Leon v. Gubernik, Rosenbaum v.Rosenbaum, and Katz-Cohen v. Attorney-General, C.A. 3/48. All of those cases were effected by the laws of state succession. BTW, the Israeli High Court noted that, under the Law and Administration Ordinance, all the laws remained in force, and that it followed that whether any of these laws was valid is not an academic question but one of great practical importance. harlan (talk) 04:15, 6 February 2010 (UTC)
- But then again it is an original research because you give a far-fetched interpretation to the sources you bring, which is not necessarily derived from the sources, and certainly contradicts other reliable sources. You bring sources that deal with the way debts should be paid. There is nothing in it that demand your interpretation, despite the use of the word "state". You bring no evidences that this court ruling about the payments of government debts had any further ramification. For example, there was no demand from the UK government to change their policy in British Mandate Palestine and establish autonomous administrative institutions, similar to the ones found in Iraq and Transjordan, and the 1917 Balfour Declaration remained the basis of the Mandate (and I remind you, these were the major complaints of the Palestinian Arab delegation in 1922, which the Colonial Office totally rejected). You simply take some court rulings and give them an extreme interpretation, based on a single word: "state". Furthermore, you bring sources alleging that the Mandate was a successor to the Ottoman rulers, but this has nothing to do with the strange claim that the Mandate was a predecessor of an Arab Palestinian state. You have so many sources clearly indicating that this was not the case: McMahon's letter to Sharif Hussein bin Ali saying that the territory west of Aleppo, Homs and Damascus was not entirely Arab, the Mandate's charter which bases the Mandate upon the Balfour Declaration, Churchill's letter to the Palestinian Arab delegation, the Palestine Act of 1948 that states no successor to the British Mandate, a written testimony of the last secretary of the Mandate administration saying that the British handed over the Mandate's public property to the UN (not to a certain successor of the Mandate), you dismiss all of them based on two or three court rulings demanding that the Mandatory government pay the debts of the previous Ottoman rulers and respect some of their obligations and the fact the the King of Jordan allegedly assumed the title "King of Palestine" after the Mandate was dissolved. This is not serious, and you present it as a fact in an encyclopedic article. DrorK (talk) 06:16, 6 February 2010 (UTC)
- Oh yes, and a remark about the Israeli court ruling - this is especially amusing, because Israel is defined as a Jewish state, so if Israel is the successor of the British Mandate, then your arguments are of no value at all. However, this is not exactly the case, because Israel's acceptance of the British Mandate's legal system was totally voluntary, and as the court said, it had to do with practical considerations, not ideology. DrorK (talk) 06:21, 6 February 2010 (UTC)
- Lots of luck with that Balfour argument. I should warn you though, that it didn't work for the Jewish settlers of Gush Katif, Homesh, Sa-Nur, Kadim and Ganim. The High Court of Justice said they were living beyond the Green Line by sufferance, and not by right. See Gershom Gorenberg, The Accidental Empire: Israel and the Birth of the Settlements, 1967-1977, Macmillan, 2007, page 363 harlan (talk) 07:56, 6 February 2010 (UTC)
- So you are motivated by political reasons. Your motive here is to argue against Israeli settlers. I should inform you that the State of Israel, per its own laws, never recognized the WB&Gaza as part of its territory. This has nothing to do with the British Mandate or the 1988 declaration. The Israeli Supreme Court (this is how it is referred to in English) rules according to Israeli laws. Its recognition of British Mandate laws derives from an Israeli ordinance that order to regard these laws as Israeli laws unless otherwise decided by the Israeli parliament. But the most important part of your last post is your confession that you have political motivations about this article. DrorK (talk) 08:30, 6 February 2010 (UTC)
- You just realized this? The tendentious editing wasn't enough of a hint? No More Mr Nice Guy (talk) 12:29, 6 February 2010 (UTC)
- So you are motivated by political reasons. Your motive here is to argue against Israeli settlers. I should inform you that the State of Israel, per its own laws, never recognized the WB&Gaza as part of its territory. This has nothing to do with the British Mandate or the 1988 declaration. The Israeli Supreme Court (this is how it is referred to in English) rules according to Israeli laws. Its recognition of British Mandate laws derives from an Israeli ordinance that order to regard these laws as Israeli laws unless otherwise decided by the Israeli parliament. But the most important part of your last post is your confession that you have political motivations about this article. DrorK (talk) 08:30, 6 February 2010 (UTC)
- Lots of luck with that Balfour argument. I should warn you though, that it didn't work for the Jewish settlers of Gush Katif, Homesh, Sa-Nur, Kadim and Ganim. The High Court of Justice said they were living beyond the Green Line by sufferance, and not by right. See Gershom Gorenberg, The Accidental Empire: Israel and the Birth of the Settlements, 1967-1977, Macmillan, 2007, page 363 harlan (talk) 07:56, 6 February 2010 (UTC)
It has nothing to do with politics. In 2002 Attorney General Elyakim Rubinstein warned the Knesset Constitution Committee that Israelis could be indicted by the new International Criminal Court (ICC), when the court was formally inaugurated. See Ha'aretz, June 12, 2002, "A-G: New Hague Court May Indict Settlers For War Crimes" and Ha'aretz, 20 August 2004, "Mazuz: Hague ruling on fence could lead to sanctions on Israel". In 2004, the ICJ found that Israel had organized and encouraged transfers of parts of its own population into the occupied territory in violation of Article 49, paragraph 6 of the Fourth Geneva Convention. That's not a political question, it's a war crime pursuant to Article 85(4)(a) and 85(5) of Additional Protocol I to the Geneva Conventions of 12 August 1949 [124] and Article 8(2)(b)(viii) of the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court [125]. The Arab League turned over a report from an international fact finding mission to the ICC Prosecutor.[126] It cited the ICJ Wall case, and requested that the ICC investigate and prosecute those individuals suspected of violating the Geneva Conventions. harlan (talk) 10:43, 6 February 2010 (UTC)
- What on earth does it have to do with the (non-)existence of a Palestinian state? DrorK (talk) 14:31, 6 February 2010 (UTC)
- The article already mentions the fact that the world court said that the Palestinian people are entitled to their own territory and their own state. The court not only disposed of arguments from the colonial age, including McMahon, Balfour, Churchill, and etc., they cited Israel's actions in encouraging and facilitating the transfer of its own population into the occupied territory as a breach of international law. I was pointing out that the Court's finding gives rise to criminal liability for the responsible Israeli officials according to Israeli Attorneys General Elyakim Rubinstein and Menahem Mazuz. I assume they had no ulterior political motivations for making those statements. The advisory opinion reflected the existing views of the General Assembly, Security Council, and High Contracting Parties to the Geneva Convention in that connection. If you insist on including material on the national home, then the Court's decision is a relevant published viewpoint on that topic:
The Court has also held that the right of self-determination as an established and recognized right under international law applies to the territory and to the Palestinian people. Accordingly, the exercise of such right entitles the Palestinian people to a State of their own as originally envisaged in resolution 181 (II) and subsequently confirmed. The Court has found that the construction of the wall in the Palestinian territory will prevent the realization of such a right and is therefore a violation of it.
- The article already mentions the fact that the world court said that the Palestinian people are entitled to their own territory and their own state. The court not only disposed of arguments from the colonial age, including McMahon, Balfour, Churchill, and etc., they cited Israel's actions in encouraging and facilitating the transfer of its own population into the occupied territory as a breach of international law. I was pointing out that the Court's finding gives rise to criminal liability for the responsible Israeli officials according to Israeli Attorneys General Elyakim Rubinstein and Menahem Mazuz. I assume they had no ulterior political motivations for making those statements. The advisory opinion reflected the existing views of the General Assembly, Security Council, and High Contracting Parties to the Geneva Convention in that connection. If you insist on including material on the national home, then the Court's decision is a relevant published viewpoint on that topic:
- See the opinions of Judges Higgins, Koroma, and Elaraby in that connection. harlan (talk) 14:23, 8 February 2010 (UTC)
- The fact that international bodies, as well as many countries, think the Palestinians deserve a state does not mean they have one. In 1922 the League of Nations officially recognized the right of Jews for a state of their own, but it wasn't until May 1948 that it was established. No one suggests that the State of Israel was established in 1922. Many people and countries thought the Baltic peoples were unjustly deprived of their independence by the Soviet Union, and yet no one suggests that Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia existed as sovereign independent state during most of the 20th century. This article is not about the West Bank Barrier, not should it be a legal analysis. Do you need an international court to tell you that the French Republic exists? Do you need such a court to tell you that Narnia doesn't exist? As for the status of the WB&Gaza - they are considered a region under occupatio bellica (at least in those part not controlled by the PA or Hamas). This is the status according to the Israeli law, as opposed to eastern Jerusalem and the Golan Heights that were placed under the Israeli jurisdiction by an ordinance or a statute. This does not mean that Israel recognizes a state called Palestine. Recognizing a territory as occupied doesn't entail recognizing it as a state. DrorK (talk) 16:56, 8 February 2010 (UTC)
- See the opinions of Judges Higgins, Koroma, and Elaraby in that connection. harlan (talk) 14:23, 8 February 2010 (UTC)
Unsourced Editorial Statements removed for discussion
The source cited in this POV editorial statement actually says that a primary organ of the United Nations acknowledged the declaration of the State of Palestine, and it doesn't mention the topic of diplomatic recognition at all. This is WP:Synth nonsense:
The United Nations did not [[Diplomatic recognition|recognize]] the proclaimed State of Palestine, but decided to change the name of the General Assembly permanent observer on behalf of the PLO to "Palestine" following the 1988 declaration<ref>United Nations General Assembly (15 December 1988). "Palestine question/Proclamation of State/Designation "Palestine" - GA resolution". Retrieved 6 February 2010.</ref>
The fact that the United Nations does not play a role in the recognition of states, much less extend diplomatic recognition, has already been thoroughly discussed on the talk page. Israeli legal expert Ruth Lapidoth explained that "it is not the UN's role, much less that of the Security Council, to confer statehood." See Lieberman warns against '67 borders, By Tovah Lazaroff, Jerusalem Post, November 14, 2009. In 1950 a suggestion was made that UN membership be adopted as a form of legal collective recognition, but the Secretary-General and Legal Affairs section advised that such a measure would require the adoption of an amendment to the UN Charter. See pages 39-48 of Statehood and the law of self-determination, By David Raič, Kluwer Law International, 2002, ISBN: 904111890X. In 1948, when Syria proposed that an advisory opinion be obtained from the ICJ regarding Israel's statehood. Abba Eban said the UN had no such authority: "The act of determining whether a certain political unit is a State or not is known in international law as an act of recognition; and under the Charter, no Member State has surrendered to the United Nations or to any organ thereof its unlimited sovereignty to regard a political unit as a State. See the minutes of the 340th meeting of the UN Security Council, S/PV.340, 27 July 1948, page 12[127] harlan (talk) 23:48, 6 February 2010 (UTC)
- This is not a legal debate and there is no jury here. It is a relevant piece of information, and most users expect it to be in the lead (I hope you don't expect me to bring a legal source to that). That's the end of this discussion. DrorK (talk) 07:56, 7 February 2010 (UTC)
- It certainly is not the end of the discussion. You write that The United Nations did not recognize the proclaimed State of Palestine, but decided to change the name of the General Assembly permanent observer on behalf of the PLO to "Palestine" following the 1988 declaration, citing this GA Resolution. The problem is that nowhere does the resolution say that the UN does not recognize the state, even if the UN did such things. You make an unsupported leap in the text that the resolution does not make. You then follow that up with . In the list of "non-member states and entities" Palestine is categorized under "Other entities having received a standing invitation to participate as observers in the sessions and the work of the General Assembly and are maintaining permanent offices at Headquarters". That is true, my question is so what? I am removing the part on "did not recognize" in the first sentence but will leave the rest, though it does not belong in the lead. The lead is meant to summarize the article. nableezy - 08:04, 7 February 2010 (UTC)
- I added a source showing that the UN officially refers to Palestine as an "entity" rather than a "state". The UN opinion appears in the lead of other non-recognized states: Northern Cyprus, Republic of China. The PLO has been heavily relying on the UN for support, so this information is very relevant. DrorK (talk) 10:45, 7 February 2010 (UTC)
- Thats nice, but you still have not given a source that says the UN does not recognize Palestine as a state. You have given a source that they are recognized as an entity. nableezy - 22:10, 8 February 2010 (UTC)
- I tried to remove the unsourced material and made some other copy edits to the intro dealing with poorly sourced or unsourced assertions introduced by DrorK without regard to WP:LEAD. Unforuntately, he has twice reverted those changes (making this his third revert in 24 hours of the same material). I've reverted once. If anyone is interested in NPOV and RS, I encourage them to restore the version I was working on. If DrorK reverts again, someone should report him this time. Tiamuttalk 22:51, 8 February 2010 (UTC)
- Thats nice, but you still have not given a source that says the UN does not recognize Palestine as a state. You have given a source that they are recognized as an entity. nableezy - 22:10, 8 February 2010 (UTC)
- I added a source showing that the UN officially refers to Palestine as an "entity" rather than a "state". The UN opinion appears in the lead of other non-recognized states: Northern Cyprus, Republic of China. The PLO has been heavily relying on the UN for support, so this information is very relevant. DrorK (talk) 10:45, 7 February 2010 (UTC)
- It certainly is not the end of the discussion. You write that The United Nations did not recognize the proclaimed State of Palestine, but decided to change the name of the General Assembly permanent observer on behalf of the PLO to "Palestine" following the 1988 declaration, citing this GA Resolution. The problem is that nowhere does the resolution say that the UN does not recognize the state, even if the UN did such things. You make an unsupported leap in the text that the resolution does not make. You then follow that up with . In the list of "non-member states and entities" Palestine is categorized under "Other entities having received a standing invitation to participate as observers in the sessions and the work of the General Assembly and are maintaining permanent offices at Headquarters". That is true, my question is so what? I am removing the part on "did not recognize" in the first sentence but will leave the rest, though it does not belong in the lead. The lead is meant to summarize the article. nableezy - 08:04, 7 February 2010 (UTC)
Those two things are not not mutually exclusive. The article already explains that "recognition of statehood is a matter of discretion, it is open to any existing state to accept as a state any entity it wishes. Why do you insist on trying to insert your editorials without siting a reliable source of analysis?
Another POV Editorial
Before the Mandate went into effect, the Churchill White Paper drew attention to the fact that the terms of the Balfour Declaration "do not contemplate that Palestine as a whole should be converted into a Jewish National Home" and said that statements to the contrary were "Unauthorized". The UN webpage in the cite says that the national home was "a" objective, not "the" objective. This article isn't about Israel in any case: The Mandate's goal was designated as facilitating the establishment of a "Jewish national home"<ref>Division for Palestinian Rights, United Nations (2008). "History of the Palestine Question". Retrieved 6 February 2010. {{cite web}}
: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |1=
(help)</ref> harlan (talk) 08:48, 7 February 2010 (UTC)
- This information is irrelevant here. Stop this! You are wasting people's time and making WP looks ridiculous. DrorK (talk) 10:39, 7 February 2010 (UTC)
- No you are being ridiculous. The 1988 Declaration specifically addresses the use of myth to deny Palestinian existence. The mandate was not conferred on Israel. The article already explains that the Mandate contained a provision that said nothing, including the Jewish national home, was to prejudice the existing rights of the non-Jewish population. After analyzing the Mandate, the world court ruled that Israel breached international law by interfering with the exercise of the Palestinians right to self-determination and by transferring portions of its own population into the occupied territory in order to alter its demographics and status.
- A number of historical and contemporary sources do say that Palestine was part of the Arab homeland or Arabistan during the Ottoman era. J.M.N Jefrries and other authors, including Stanford J. Shaw, Caesar E. Farah, Butrus Bustani, have noted that Ottoman Turkey was a military empire, and that Palestine was part of Arabistan, the territory assigned to the 'Arabistan Ordusu', or the provincial Ottoman Army for Arabia. Jeffries observations about the entire region, including Palestine, was that 'the Turks call it "Arabistan"' See Palestine: The Reality, Joseph Mary Nagle Jeffries, Published by Longmans, Green and co., 1939, page 4
- In October, 1929, The journal of the Communist International discussed the uprising in Palestine and the events in Arabistan as a whole, while attributing the unrest and Arab disunity to the fragmentation of Arabistan into smaller countries and Zionist colonization. The journal specifically noted that the western powers had broken Arabistan into a number of colonies. See The Communist International 1919-1943, by Jane Degras, page 79 [128] harlan (talk) 18:10, 8 February 2010 (UTC)
- Harlan, this debate is over. You know your claims are political rather than factual, and you just want to drag me into a political debate. Read the Mandate charter again, this time carefully, and see that you are talking nonsense. You drop names of authors and books that neither I nor other editors can check. Previously you brought highly biased sources, or gave false interpretations to reliable sources. I cannot trust you. Furthermore, you make irrelevant claims. No one denied that there were Arabs in the region known as Palestine and around it, and yet the British said explicitly they want to see a Jewish national home in Palestine. Why? Maybe they were crazy, but this is what they wanted back then. Now you try to claim that their Mandate was actually an Arab state, based on sources showing that the Ottomans regarded it as an Arab region. Who are you trying to fool? And by the way, the Balfour Declaration which is incorporated in the Mandate charter says: "nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine". Please cite your sources correctly. DrorK (talk) 19:35, 8 February 2010 (UTC)
- In October, 1929, The journal of the Communist International discussed the uprising in Palestine and the events in Arabistan as a whole, while attributing the unrest and Arab disunity to the fragmentation of Arabistan into smaller countries and Zionist colonization. The journal specifically noted that the western powers had broken Arabistan into a number of colonies. See The Communist International 1919-1943, by Jane Degras, page 79 [128] harlan (talk) 18:10, 8 February 2010 (UTC)
Explanation about some of the recent changes I introduced
- No need to say the "modern State of Israel". The name of the country is "State of Israel", and we all know it is modern. We do not say "the modern French Republic" or "the modern Federal Republic of Germany".
- The Gaza Strip is not part of the Sinai Peninsula per geographic and geopolitical standards (I'm not going to source that, we all have atlases).
- Sorry, but there is no consensus about Mandate Palestine and Transjordan being "states". The question is not merely legal, but involved many aspects. We can call them "geopolitical entities" or "geopolitical units" and no one will get hurt.
- "Palestine is a country that does not appear on contemporary political maps, but which is very much alive for its people" this is an emotional, somewhat poetic statement, that is not appropriate to an encyclopedic article. It is taken from a journal about theater that has little relevance to the subject at hand. Similarly "country-without-country" is not an appropriate term. We'd better use the well-established "Question of Palestine".
- The PNC's acceptance of the 242 resolution was not included in the "Declaration of Independence". Considering that the declaration mentions GA resolution 181 and another official PNC statement from the same date mentions SC resolution 242, and considering the fact that the two resolutions indicate/imply to different borders, nothing can be said about borders, except that we have a recognition in Israel's legitimacy. This was also confirmed by documents published by the Palestinian leadership later on.
- The population of the 1988 proclaimed SoP is not defined. The declaration is quite clear about it, and the so-called Palestinian provisional government took no measures to list Palestinian citizens whether in the WB&Gaza or around the world.
- It is extremely important to mention that the Mandate of Palestine was designated to establish a Jewish national home. If the idea is to explain the Palestinian Question from its very beginning (I'm not sure this article supposed to do that, but if so), this fact is crucial.
- The UN was the international scene chosen by the PLO to promote the Palestinian interests. Yasser Arafat went to deliver a speech at the UN right after the 1988 declaration. The UN was one of the first organizations notified about the declaration by the PNC. The UN has a special department dealing with the "Question of Palestine". Hence, the fact that the UN eventually decided not to recognize SoP is very important. In addition the UN non-recognition is mentioned in the lead of other articles dealing with limitedly-recognized states.
- Issues of recognition - right now, according to reliable sources, we know of only 67 contemporary sovereign state that extended diplomatic recognition to SoP. We know that because the Palestinian Authority's Minister of Foreign Affairs said so, according to AFP report: "The Rome Statute that created the ICC determines that only a state could accept the court's jurisdiction for such an investigation to be launched. Malki said documents were provided that show Palestine was recognised as a state by 67 countries and had bilateral agreements with states in Latin America, Asia, Africa and Europe". [129]. 67 countries do not make a majority of countries.
- Why are other lists not good enough? First, because the words of Mr. Al-MAlki are very decisive and the report comes from a very reliable unbiased source. Secondly, because too many flaws had been found in the other lists: information that contradicts with other reliable sources, countries that allegedly recognized SoP before they themselves gained independence, countries that recognized SoP at the time but ceased to exist, countries that changed their regimes and the position of the new regime is unclear, countries that "acknowledged" or "welcomed" the 1988 declaration rather than recognized SoP and so forth. I don't know if the number 67 already includes Costa Rica and Venezuela. I wouldn't mind writing "some 70 countries" just to be on the safe side.
That's it for now, I still think this article should be merged, but more importantly it should be informative, unbiased and reliable. And by the way, we do not need more legal information and sources. There is enough already. Not every opinion by every lawyer in the world about the Palestinian issue should be represented in this article. DrorK (talk) 15:11, 7 February 2010 (UTC)
WP:Synth Editorials on UN Recognition, and etc.
Bengt Broms has served as a Judge with the Hague Permanent Court of Arbitration, and the ICC Court of Arbitration in Paris. He says that the record shows that, although statehood is a condition of membership in the United Nations, the fulfillment of that condition has never been a guarantee of admission. A candidate must fulfill the additional criteria set out in Article 4(1) of the UN Charter. He says in view of this it is clear that as the Members of the United Nations are not required to reveal the reasons for their negative votes, such a vote does not indicate that a candidate does not fulfill the requirements of statehood. The negative outcome of a vote may just as well result from the conclusion that, although an applicant is a State, it may not be peace loving or it may not fulfill the other requirements. See International law: achievements and prospects UNESCO Series, Mohammed Bedjaoui editor, Martinus Nijhoff Publishers, 1991, ISBN 9231027166, page 47 [130] Numerous published sources explain that the United States did not think the PLO was a peace loving entity. A dispute came into being between the United Nations and the United States when the Congress of the United States passed the Anti-Terrorism Act, signed on 22 December 1987. The United States Congress attempted to use the "Foreign Relations Authorization Act, Fiscal Years 1988 and 1989" as Title X, the "Anti-Terrorism Act of 1987" to close the PLO mission to the UN, despite the fact that the United States Secretary of State had stated that the closing of the mission would constitute a violation of United States obligation under the Headquarters Agreement. The US failure to submit the situation to timely arbitration resulted in the "Headquarters Agreement" Advisory Opinion of the ICJ. [131]
You say "Hence, the fact that the UN eventually decided not to recognize SoP is very important. In addition the UN non-recognition is mentioned in the lead of other articles dealing with limitedly-recognized states." The "non-recognition" mentioned in the lead of the other article is not "Diplomatic recognition". Every primary organ of the United Nations has invoked the Member States "Duty of non-recognition" in connection with the illegal territorial situations and demographic changes created by Israel in the Occupied Palestinian Territories. There has never been any such decision adopted against Palestine. Your entire narrative lacks any support or analysis from secondary sources. In fact, many scholars have noted that the UN did welcome the Declaration of the State of Palestine, and have compared it to other cases where the organization did not favor the establishment of the new regime. See for example, Prof. Vera Gowlland-Debbas, “Collective Responses to the Unilateral Declarations of Independence of Southern Rhodesia and Palestine. An Application of the Legitimizing Function of the United Nations”, The British Yearbook of International Law, Edited by Ian Brownlie and D. W. Bowett Volume 61, l990, ISBN: 0198257260, pp.l35-l53
In the case of the Palestine Mandate, there is no doubt that Palestine was a state as defined by international law, and that the matter is res judicata. The determinations of the PCIJ, a LoN Arbital Court, and the Appeals Courts of Great Britain and Palestine were in agreement in that connection, and their decisions were final. The sources that I cited DO NOT SAY that Palestine and Transjordan were "geopolitical entities", and you provided no new citations to support your edits. By international agreement, States are "persons of law" and statehood is a legal construct. See the Montevideo Convention article 1. Every one of your arguments has been derived from the legal qualifications that various sources propose for statehood.
You deleted sourced content again without any explanation or discussion. The material included content on the foreign relations of the PA, Ban Ki Moon's statements regarding the non-existence of the State of Palestine, Gershom Gorenberg's comments about the legal arguments used by the Israeli government to remove settlements from the OPT, and Paul De Waart's comment that it is no longer a matter of creating the the State of Palestine, but of recognizing it. Long Wikipedia articles can always be broken down into subarticles.
In the Wall case, Judge Al-Khasawneh noted that the "Green Line was originally an armistice line and that Israeli jurists sought to give it more importance before the 1967 war. Regardless of its present situation it represents the point from which Israeli occupation can he measured. Doubts about its status work both ways." In other words, the arguments about the lack of a well defined border as a result of the partition plan and the armistice agreements apply to both Israel and Palestine. They are obviously not a bar to statehood. The population is defined as a minimum as the Palestinian inhabitants of the West Bank, Gaza, and East Jerusalem. The 1988 Declaration spoke about Palestinians in the homeland and "in the refugee camps outside the homeland". It did not say they were all inhabitants of the State, merely that they all had "the right to pursue in it a complete equality of rights". There is no requirement to establish a population registry prior to statehood. Your entire narrative and analysis, in that connection, lacks quotes and citations from reliable published sources. harlan (talk) 17:22, 8 February 2010 (UTC)
- Please be more concise, and state only relevant points. The idea that British Mandate Palestine was a state is by no means mainstream opinion, and we discussed that in details. You are entitled for your personal opinion, and I am not going to tell you what books to read, but when you edit a WP article you should curb your personal views and stick to the facts. In any case, the British Mandate of Palestine is not a predecessor of an Arab Palestinian state as shown by many unbiased resources that we went over in the discussion, so the relevance of this whole issue is not that big.
- I am telling you for the 1000th time now, WP is not a legal journal. We respect judges' opinions, but we are not bound to them, and we have an obligation to describe the state-of-affairs from all angles. I'll give you an example that you are going to like: according to the Israeli Supreme Court ruling, the villages of Iqrit and Kafr Bir'im in the Upper Galilee are legitimate communities that should be repopulated. Are you going to present them as existing villages per this court ruling? According to another court ruling from Israel, two men can be described as man and woman for certain legal purposes if they are a gay couple. Are you suggesting to write that some men are actually women per a court ruling? And let me give you another challenge: suppose the ICC or ICJ decide eventually that the Palestinians have no locus standi, and maybe even that there is no Palestinian people at all (anything can happen in court rulings), will you feel obligated to such ruling? Won't you demand that other aspects be considered too?
- As for the issue of borders - Israel's borders are well defined. Some of them are recognized international borders, like the border with Egypt and most of the border line with Jordan. The border with Lebanon is not final, but it is well-defined and it was determined by an international body, namely the UN. Israel defined its border with Syria, even though it is not internationally recognized. The border with the West Bank is more elusive, because its pattern is not always clear, but there is still clear distinction between Israel and the WB. SoP never defined its borders, and it could afford doing so, because this proclaimed state never exercised sovereignty on any territory.
- The PA cannot be said to be equivalent to SoP. This claim of yours doesn't hold water. The foreign relations of the PA are not relevant to this article. DrorK (talk) 18:25, 8 February 2010 (UTC)
A group effort to "hijack" this article
There is an a coalition here trying to "hijack" this page and prevent any legitimate edits to it. This group is Harlan, Tiamut, and the new-comer Nableezy. All of these users expressed their pro-Palestinian views on their talk page, and they make a lot of effort to introduce their political views into Palestinian-related articles (see their contribution lists). All the arguments they brought were thoroughly discussed and refuted, but they are not satisfied. As they are well aware of the 3R rule, they revert legitimate edits alternately, and complain about people who re-revert their wrong-doings. Their request to block users have been rejected. It is important that other editors feel free to improve this article, or merge it with another article (a better solution, IMHO), but in any case won't be intimidated by this group. DrorK (talk) 12:48, 9 February 2010 (UTC)
- Thanks for sharing. But you have not refuted a damn thing, only insisted that you are right. nableezy - 15:03, 9 February 2010 (UTC)
- Here is an example of your cooperation with Tiamut taken from your talk page:
- I just asked for the 3RR decision at that page to be reviewed since Drork made his 4th revert in 24 hours. He doesn't seem to have gotten the message and I'm hoping an admonishment or short block will help to make it clear, since nothing else seems to have worked so far. Tiamuttalk 14:28, 9 February 2010 (UTC)
- In the process of filing a new report, though AE may be a better forum. nableezy - 14:29, 9 February 2010 (UTC)
- I just asked for the 3RR decision at that page to be reviewed since Drork made his 4th revert in 24 hours. He doesn't seem to have gotten the message and I'm hoping an admonishment or short block will help to make it clear, since nothing else seems to have worked so far. Tiamuttalk 14:28, 9 February 2010 (UTC)
- Tell me, why does Tiamut need you help in filing a complaint about me? What make you so afraid of changes in this article? I wouldn't like to think you are engaged in public relations for the PLO or other Palestinian organization, or should I? DrorK (talk) 15:55, 9 February 2010 (UTC)
- Here is an example of your cooperation with Tiamut taken from your talk page:
Drork, you should point out on the appropriate board that Tiamut was calling for someone to tag team with her and that Nableezy obliged. You might also want to point out the obvious tag teaming that went on here Jan 24-25 with harlan making 3 reverts then Nableezy the 4th, then again Tiamut making 3 reverts and Nableezy the 4th. Nableezy knows all about arbcom. He's been there several times himself and is quite close to the topic ban he's threatening you with. No More Mr Nice Guy (talk) 16:02, 9 February 2010 (UTC)
- Nice battle attitude NMMNG! No admonition for Drork for calling us PR reps for the PLO, nor for edit-warring. Should I start accusing you and Drork of Hasbara? No. That would be a personal attack. We don't do those at Wikipedia. Or did you not know? Tiamuttalk 16:06, 9 February 2010 (UTC)
- Good luck with that. nableezy - 16:07, 9 February 2010 (UTC)
- You're not really helping yourselves shy away from the tag-team accusation. This battle only further demonstrates to outsiders your collaboration. Furthermore, this doesn't belong on the talk page of this article. If you want to carry on this conversation, do it elsewhere please. Breein1007 (talk) 16:54, 9 February 2010 (UTC)
- (ec)Not sure what personal attack you're accusing me of making. Did I accuse you of being a muqawama apologist? Of course not. That would be a personal attack. We don't do those at Wikipedia. No More Mr Nice Guy (talk) 16:59, 9 February 2010 (UTC)
- Tiamut did not accuse you of making a personal attack. nableezy - 17:04, 9 February 2010 (UTC)
- Glad to see you are still following me around NMMNG. Since you obviously read the WP:AE case I filed against Jaakobou, did you notice the advice Henrik gave him then about how to try to avoid using the term "muqawama"? Quite sure you did, even if you choose not to heed it yourself. Tiamuttalk 17:26, 9 February 2010 (UTC)
- NNMNG did not accuse you of being a muqawama apologist. Breein1007 (talk) 17:28, 9 February 2010 (UTC)
- I never said that he did. Henrik advise Jaakobou against using the word. NMMNG using it here is supposed to be a not so subtle way of pushing my buttons. Tiamuttalk 17:45, 9 February 2010 (UTC)
- Do you know what that word means? nableezy - 17:30, 9 February 2010 (UTC)
- Missed a key word - this discussion could use some humour anyway. Breein1007 (talk) 17:39, 9 February 2010 (UTC)
- Fair enough, though if you would like to call me "the resistance" feel free. nableezy - 17:45, 9 February 2010 (UTC)
- Missed a key word - this discussion could use some humour anyway. Breein1007 (talk) 17:39, 9 February 2010 (UTC)
- Do you know what that word means? nableezy - 17:30, 9 February 2010 (UTC)
- Glad to see you are still following me around NMMNG. Since you obviously read the WP:AE case I filed against Jaakobou, did you notice the advice Henrik gave him then about how to try to avoid using the term "muqawama"? Quite sure you did, even if you choose not to heed it yourself. Tiamuttalk 17:26, 9 February 2010 (UTC)
- Tiamut did not accuse you of making a personal attack. nableezy - 17:04, 9 February 2010 (UTC)
Removed third paragraph of intro
On September 9, 1993 the State of Israel and the PLO exchanged letters of recognition, however these letters did not include Israeli recognition in the 1988-proclaimed State of Palestine. This mutual recognition between Israel and the PLO was succeeded by the signing of the Oslo Accords which established the Palestinian National Authority (PNA or PA) as interim administrative body. The PNA exercises some governmental functions in parts of the West Bank and used to exercise similar functions in the Gaza Strip prior to the Battle of Gaza with Hamas. The current Chairman of the Palestinian Authority, Mahmoud Abbas, also bears the title President of Palestine and serving in his capacity as Chairman of the Palestine Liberation Organization. However, the Palestinian Authority is not officially recognized as the State of Palestine.
I have mutliple problems with this text. First of all, the reference to the letters of mutual of recognition is not necessary and goes against WP:LEAD, since it is discussed nowhere in the article. It also seems to be WP:OR, since there is no source for it, and I haven't seen sources discussing the letters of mutual recognition in relation to the issue of the State of Palestine.
The mention of the Battle of Gaza is not necessary. Again, its not mentioned in our article. Furthermore, the Hamas government in Gaza claims to be acting as the officially elected PNA government there, so the wording is misleading and inaccurate.
Finally, the last sentence about the PA not being recognized as the State of Palestine is unsourced and contradicts sourced information in the body of the article which defines Palestine as a transitional association between the PLO and PNA.
I've restored the wording that was there previously while adding a brief mention of the Oslo Accords. It would probably help to avoid edit warring if any major changes to the introduction were discussed here before introducing them. Tiamuttalk 20:14, 9 February 2010 (UTC)
Removed one-sided tangential information
I've removed this: The Mandate's goal was designated as facilitating the establishment of a "Jewish national home"[1], to which the Palestinian Arab leaders strongly objected. The British devided the original Mandate territory into two geopolitical entities, namely the British Mandate of Palestine and the Emirate of Transjordan.
My reasoning is as folows:
- The Mandate's goal cannot be summed up simply as facilitating the establishment of a Jewish national home. This is a one-sided presentation of the Mandate's goals also falls afoul of WP:NPOV.
- Given that this source is not discussing the State of Palestine, it is WP:SYNTH and I fail to see the relevance here.
- The second sentence is already covered in simpler terms in the article. Tiamuttalk 13:31, 11 February 2010 (UTC)
To respond to your points above,
- Like the Balfour Declaration, the Mandate recognized the "historical connection of the Jewish people with Palestine," called upon the mandatory power to "secure establishment of the Jewish National Home," with "an appropriate Jewish agency to be set up for advice and cooperation to that end." [2] Inasmuch as you find the paragraph one-sided and insufficient, the burden is on you add the other side, not merely to remove it.
- The fact is that it is discussing the state of Palestine, since as we have no borders, and the Mandate was to provide space for Arabs (today's "Palestinians") and Jews (today's Israelis). The (Arab) state in Palestine and the Jewish State of Israel are both a part of the Mandate. The question is of course who gets what part. Which part is home to the Jews and what part is home to Palestinian Arabs has not yet been determined. So the inability to see the relevance of this is indeed your own failure.
- I think the fact that in 1922 the British took off 80% of the Mandate and gave it to Arabs as Jordan, thus removing it of any possibility of being part of the Jewish Homeland, is rather an important fact about the history of the state of Palestine. At that time at least the borders between Trans-jordan and the rest of the Mandate were clearly laid out. The borders of the state of Palestine have been declared (by Hamas) to include the State of Israel, although when the state of Palestine was declared there were no boundaries expressed. How do you have a state that knows no bounds? The idea of Arab pan-nationalism is also very much a part of this story. The fact is that today the vast majority of Palestinian refugees live in Jordan. "According to the records of the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestinian Refugees (UNRWA), Jordan is home to 1.9 million displaced Palestinians. “Jordan hosts about 42 percent of the total refugee population,” says Mattar Sakr, director of public relations for UNRWA in Jordan. [132] That is to say that 42% of displaced Palestinian refugees live in 80% of the original Mandate. All important and relevant background. (Posted by Stellarkid (talk) today at 05:15; wrong ref tag was removed by 212.150.59.209 (talk) 08:00, 26 February 2010 (UTC))
- The idea that the "Jewish national home" had a territorial dimension is somewhat doubtful. We've already discussed the Balfour Declaration in one of the threads above. It contained a safeguarding clause that protected the rights of the non-Jewish communities. Chaim Weizmann wrote that the Zionists wanted the mandate to read "recognizing the historic rights of the Jews to Palestine", but British Foreign Secretary Curzon and the other Allied Powers utterly rejected the notion of Jewish legal claims or rights. Balfour suggested the watered-down wording which said the Allies had recognized a "historical connection". See T.W. Mallison, "The Palestine Problem in International Law and World Order", page 65 or Doreen Ingrams, "Palestine Papers, 1917-1922", George Braziller 1973 Edition, pages 98-103.
- In any event, the text of the resolution of the San Remo conference placed Great Britain in charge of putting the Balfour declaration into effect, not the Jewish Agency or Israel.
- The terms of Article 4 of the Mandate stipulated that the Jewish Agency was "subject always to the control of the Administration". Article 6 permitted Jewish immigration under "suitable conditions", "while ensuring that the rights and position of other sections of the population are not prejudiced".
- The British White Paper of 1939 equated the "Jewish national home" with the Jewish population, not with any defined territory. It said the government would permit further expansion of the Jewish National Home by immigration only if the Arabs are prepared to acquiesce in it. [133] That policy remained in effect until the Mandate was terminated.
- The ICJ determined that it was necessary to perform a legal analysis of the status of the occupied Palestinian territory. After reviewing the terms of the Mandate, the partition plan, the armistice agreement, and the Oslo Accords, the Court said that Israel had facilitated the transfer of part of its own population into the occupied Palestinian territory and had established settlements there in breach of international law. Several of the concurring opinions stated that the Palestinians were entitled to their own territory and their own State. The State of Israel did not mention the LoN Mandate or the Balfour Declaration in its 246 page written statement. [134]
- The main Palestine Mandate article has:
- A subsection on Drafting of the mandate which cites the records from the British National Archives that say the references to a Jewish "claim" to Palestine were removed from the draft Mandate.
- A subsection on Article 25 of the Mandate which explains that the territory of Transjordan was formally added to the mandate in the years following the San Remo Conference of 1920. It was never occupied by the British during the war, so they didn't actually turn anything over to the inhabitants. Transjordan was East of the districts of Damascus, Homs, Hama, and Alleppo. So, it was included in the territory McMahon had pledged to Hussein.
- A subsection on The Jewish national home which explains that:
- The Anglo-American Committee of Inquiry noted that the demand for a Jewish State went beyond the obligations of either the Balfour Declaration or the Mandate and had been expressly disowned by the Chairman of the Jewish Agency as recently as 1932.
- The United Nations Special Committee on Palestine said the term Jewish National Home had no known legal connotation and there were no precedents in international law for its interpretation. Although it was used in the Balfour Declaration and in the Mandate, UNSCOP noted neither document had defined its meaning. harlan (talk) 12:12, 26 February 2010 (UTC)
- The main Palestine Mandate article has:
Recent edits
No More Mister Nice Guy took out the sourced term "uncertain" and replaced it with "disputed" using this edit summary "it doesn't need to use the word "disputed" for me to use it here. some people say it exists. others say it doesn't. that's a dispute."
I wonder if this is not selective application of your reasonong? Some people say Jerusalem is not the capital of Israel, so that would be a "dispute", yet you took a totally different tact on that discussion. I hope you are editing neutrally, shall we examine this further then? RomaC (talk) 14:58, 14 February 2010 (UTC)
- Please do. I don't think we should use terms like "disputed" when they are not used by the source cited to support the sentence. I'd prefer we restore "uncertain", as it is what is used by the source to describe Palestine' status. I'd also prefer that not be a standalone sentence, but rather be appended to the end of the first sentence, as in this edit [135], but also adding the quote from the source, as in this edit [136].
- Please note that despite the author's personal opinion that "it's difficult to see how Palestine could constitute a state," he acknowledges that the state of Palestine has been recognized by more than 100 states. Given that is the case, we cannot say that Palestine is not a state, or that's its existence is disputed, as it is states who determine whether or not other entities are treated as states. I think the formulation I suggested in the first diff above is a fair balance of the differing views on the issue.
- I'd also like to reiterate my request that any major changes to the lead (such as the addition of this sentence) be discussed here prior to making them. Or, at the very least, at the first sign of opposition to an edit, that the editor trying to insert the material open a discussion section themself to gain consensus. I think that would reduce the likelihood toward edit-warring. If this edit does not hae consensus on how to formulate it, I suggest we return to the version that preceded this latest spate of edit-warring (in which I sadly participated), until such time as consensus can be reached. Tiamuttalk 16:18, 14 February 2010 (UTC)
- That's funny RomaC since I was using your argument. You repeated it so much, I thought I'd see how it works for me. Tiamut didn't seem to mind when you were using it in the other article so I thought I'd give it a try here. Funny how these things work.
- Anyway, the status of Palestine as a state is disputed both among countries, since 1. not all countries recognize them and 2. Few countries outside the Arab League have recognized a “state,”, and among academics as per the source I provided with my edit. None of this is evident in the article. No More Mr Nice Guy (talk) 16:34, 14 February 2010 (UTC)
- If its not represented in our article, then it certainly should not be in the WP:LEAD which summarizes the contents of the article. Once again, you are adding information to the intro of an article based on a source that only tangentially supports your phrasing, without regard for what the LEAD is supposed to be. I am restoring the ersion of the lead prior to your addition. Please add reliably sourced information to the body of the article that expands upon the point you are trying to make here. Then, we can decide how to phrase what should be said about it in the lead. Tiamuttalk 16:45, 14 February 2010 (UTC)
- And by the way NMMNG, the source you are quoting from was written in 1990. Its a little outdated. However, we can still add information from it to the body of the article. One of Crawford's main arguments against Palestine constituting a state is that notwithstanding recognition of the state of Palestine by other states, its whole territory remains occupied by Israel.[137]. We should also mention how the Swiss government, acting in its capacity as holder of the Genea Conventions depository, when asked to accept a communique from the PLO in 1989, refused it, stating that there is, "uncertainty within the international community as to the existence of non-existence of a State of Palestine."
- Noting these facts in the introduction, when they are not discussed in the body of the article, and without placing them in the proper temporal context (a tonne of things have changed since 1990) is misleading, undue, and not in line with our MoS policies. As such, I've restored the old intro. Please do some work on the body of the article, and please discuss the changes you would like to make to the intro here BEFORE making them to avoid edit wars in the future. Thanks. Tiamuttalk 17:05, 14 February 2010 (UTC)
- Ha ha NMMNG, touché and true -- in the discussion you refer to I believe I did say that if there was a dispute on the Talk page then a disputed tag belonged in the article. It's funny, some editors dispute that there is a dispute, and are prepared to argue a la infinity mirror. Of course it could be said that disputing there is a dispute affirms that there is, really, a dispute. But I think article content is different from our Talk page discussions, especially vis-à-vis the status of states. For example although Japan, France, Estonia and South Korea do not recognize North Korea, that state's status is not listed as "disputed" here in Wikipedia. Of course, there are only four countries that do not recognize North Korea. Where would you place the threshold, to warrant a "disputed" status? Maybe at, say, 20 non-recognizing countries? Sheesh that would qualify Israel[138]. But I would never support that, and neither would you. So what's your objective here? RomaC (talk) 17:32, 14 February 2010 (UTC)
- I'm not sure a majority of states recognize Palestine as a state. Anyway, who says the threshold should be based on the amount of countries that recognize it? There is a dispute among scholars, based on international law and various conventions. A "real world dispute" like you like to call them. There are various criteria usually used to determine whether a certain entity is a state (such as control over territory, internal and external sovereignty, etc) and SoP apparently fails some of them according to some people. The "uncertainty" Tiamut speaks of above is a result of what? That everyone agrees they're not sure? No More Mr Nice Guy (talk) 18:37, 14 February 2010 (UTC)
- "I'm not sure a majority of states recognize Palestine as a state" - I can reassure you that it is not yet a state (and I doubt we shall see one established in the next few years, but that's just my personal opinion). It is currently the Palestinian National Authority, which does not include the rough Hamas government in Gaza. John Hyams (talk) 22:38, 14 February 2010 (UTC)
- I'm not sure a majority of states recognize Palestine as a state. Anyway, who says the threshold should be based on the amount of countries that recognize it? There is a dispute among scholars, based on international law and various conventions. A "real world dispute" like you like to call them. There are various criteria usually used to determine whether a certain entity is a state (such as control over territory, internal and external sovereignty, etc) and SoP apparently fails some of them according to some people. The "uncertainty" Tiamut speaks of above is a result of what? That everyone agrees they're not sure? No More Mr Nice Guy (talk) 18:37, 14 February 2010 (UTC)
- Ha ha NMMNG, touché and true -- in the discussion you refer to I believe I did say that if there was a dispute on the Talk page then a disputed tag belonged in the article. It's funny, some editors dispute that there is a dispute, and are prepared to argue a la infinity mirror. Of course it could be said that disputing there is a dispute affirms that there is, really, a dispute. But I think article content is different from our Talk page discussions, especially vis-à-vis the status of states. For example although Japan, France, Estonia and South Korea do not recognize North Korea, that state's status is not listed as "disputed" here in Wikipedia. Of course, there are only four countries that do not recognize North Korea. Where would you place the threshold, to warrant a "disputed" status? Maybe at, say, 20 non-recognizing countries? Sheesh that would qualify Israel[138]. But I would never support that, and neither would you. So what's your objective here? RomaC (talk) 17:32, 14 February 2010 (UTC)
- If its not represented in our article, then it certainly should not be in the WP:LEAD which summarizes the contents of the article. Once again, you are adding information to the intro of an article based on a source that only tangentially supports your phrasing, without regard for what the LEAD is supposed to be. I am restoring the ersion of the lead prior to your addition. Please add reliably sourced information to the body of the article that expands upon the point you are trying to make here. Then, we can decide how to phrase what should be said about it in the lead. Tiamuttalk 16:45, 14 February 2010 (UTC)
Tempus fugit, it isn't 1988 anymore, it's 2010
In an earlier post I mentioned that James Crawford had changed his views by the time he wrote his 1998 article and that they foreshadowed his arguments on Palestine's behalf in the 2004 ICJ Wall Case. In that case both sides said that it was a dispute between two states.
In 1998 he cited John Quigley and pointed out that another unilateral declaration wasn't really necessary for recognition of Palestinian statehood. He said then that recognition was still premature, since both sides had agreed to negotiate a final settlement. But he warned that the international community would be justified in extending belligerent recognition to Palestine regardless of any facts on the ground if Israel tried to delay Palestinian self-determination in order to benefit from its own wrongdoing.
In the 2004 Wall case, the interested state parties raised a jurisdictional objection regarding the OPT. They claimed that the case was really a dispute between two states. They tried to make a case for inadmissibility on the ground that Israel had not consented to have the dispute settled by the Court. Crawford said that, although the premise had been cited against the Court answering the request, properly understood it supported the court doing so. See item "(5) This is a dispute between two States: the principle of consent" under the heading "B. Specific arguments related to the OPT: the case for admissibility" on pages 37-38 of Crawford's oral argument.[139]. harlan (talk) 20:08, 15 February 2010 (UTC)
- And the question remains - so what? It is as if legal scholars debated whether a gray donkey with two white stripes could be defined as zebra and placed in the zebra section of the safari. That would be an interesting debate, but until there is a radical change in the common knowledge, a zebra is a black-and-white striped donkey-like animal, so two white stripes on gray fur is not enough. The court might decide that this poor donkey have to pay taxes like a zebra per arguments in the legal debate, but that still doesn't make it a zebra. Is my metaphor clear enough? I can explain it once more if necessary. DrorK (talk) 21:36, 15 February 2010 (UTC)
- If you mention animals, dogs and cats may legally receive financial benefits like inheritance or pension funds: http://bankling.com/2009/pet-millionaires-seven-cats-and-dogs-who-are-actually-richer-than-you/ As for James Crawford, he changed his views? Really? Wow, a person changing his views, that's so mind-boggling. I'm going now to CNN to catch the latest headlines on James Crawford, I wonder if he's planning a State of the Union address. John Hyams (talk) 23:51, 15 February 2010 (UTC)
- While Crawford considers the West Bank Barrier issue a conflict between two states, he says at the same time: "The people of Palestine have an unfulfilled right to self-determination." Having a state is definitely a fulfillment of the right to self determination (see this definition by Betty Miller Unterberger [140]: "At the close of the twentieth century, it could mean the right of people to choose their form of government within existing borders or by achieving independence from a colonial power. It could mean the right of an ethnic, linguistic, or religious group to redefine existing national borders to achieve a separate national sovereignty or simply to achieve a greater degree of autonomy and linguistic or religious identity within a sovereign state. It could even mean the right of a political unit within a federal system such as Canada, Czechoslovakia, the former Soviet Union, or the former Yugoslavia to secede from the federation and become an independent sovereign state)." So, basically, even Crawford himself doesn't really believe there is an existing Palestinian state. DrorK (talk) 06:57, 16 February 2010 (UTC)
(outdent) Drork, you hardly needed to tell me that. I thought you realized that the ICJ had ruled that Israel was violating international law by interfering with the Palestinian people's right of self-determination and that Crawford was a member of the Palestinian legal team that argued the case.
You seem to be forgetting that Crawford said the international community would be justified in extending belligerent recognition as a legal state to Palestine, regardless of any facts on the ground, in order to prevent Israel from benefiting from its own wrongdoing. At the time he told the Jerusalem Post that Ariel Sharon and other leaders should be held accountable for their actions and that he was a strong proponent of the International Criminal Court.[141]
There is no shortage of material on the subject of belligerent recognition (aka premature recognition) and Palestine. For example, Truman refused to terminate the Anglo-American Mandate Convention when plans for Transjordan's independence were announced. The US said Transjordan's status would have to be decided by the UN as part of the Palestine Question. Nonetheless, he extended de facto recognition to Israel, in the midst of a civil war, minutes after the state was announced. There were no institutions of government in the Negev, and it comprised 60 per cent of the territory of the new state. In his 1998 essay Crawford noted that neither side in the controversy took the position that the creation of Israel was a question of fact and that complex legal arguments had to be presented.
At the same time, Truman continued to withhold recognition from the Arab governments in Palestine and Transjordan. That is considered a classic example of belligerent recognition.[142] Here is a cable where Transjordan complained that the government of the United States had not recognized the government of Transjordan, despite the fact that it had been in a position to meet all of the criteria for two years, yet the United States had immediately recognized Israel although the factors for its recognition were lacking. [143] harlan (talk) 09:29, 16 February 2010 (UTC)
- Your legal arguments are hardly relevant to the subject in question, but still -
- Israel was declared 8 hours before the official dissolution of the previous regime. The declaration states that it would come into effect at midnight, when the British Mandate officially expires. Hence the State of Israel was created in a territory without any official control or sovereign. This is not the case for the proclaimed SoP.
- The Provisional Government of the State of Israel had effective control on a certain territory and a certain population from the moment of its creation. This territory expanded eventually (as the de facto borders were determined in 1949), but there was no point in time in which this Government had no control over territory and population. Furthermore, this control was exclusive as the previous regime dissolved.
- So, your idea that the US extended de facto recognition to Israel when it did not meet the criteria for statehood is false. The fact that it was a de facto recognition rather than de jura resulted, according to Truman, from the fact that the nature of the new state was not clear enough at the moment. Once Israel held general democratic elections, adopted a normal legal system etc. (within half a year or so) the recognition became de jura.
- To sum it up - our issue here is not purely legal, but even the legal arguments are not too strong here. DrorK (talk) 11:19, 16 February 2010 (UTC)
Drork, I'll go ahead and add material which reflects what the published sources say, and ignore your attempts to filibuster and practice law from here on out. harlan (talk) 00:09, 17 February 2010 (UTC)
- I have noticed that you usually use the word "filibuster" when you agree with me, but are not comfortable saying that. I will therefore make the necessary edits to the articles as soon as I can. DrorK (talk) 07:17, 17 February 2010 (UTC)
- Oh yippee! It is so nice that we all get along so well and are able to reach consensus on these tough issues. Good work boys! Breein1007 (talk) 07:26, 17 February 2010 (UTC)
- Harlan, please do not make edits that are not in concensus and agreement. Doing so may be regarded as disruptive editing. Also, trying to hold on some obscure claim is no basis for inserting your POV material into the article. John Hyams (talk) 15:27, 17 February 2010 (UTC)
EU initiative: Recognition of Palestinian state by next year
Interesting article http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1151219.html --Supreme Deliciousness (talk) 18:39, 21 February 2010 (UTC)
- There is nothing new about this issue, it has been discussed in the press before. Nut it proves that at this point there is no European recognition in a state called Palestine. DrorK (talk) 19:13, 21 February 2010 (UTC)
My revert
I have reverted changes made by Drork to the article here. The reasons for this is as follows:
- He deleted two reliable sources from the article, claiming they are unrealiable. A discussion above failed to garner consensus for that position. Drork should take his concerns to the reliable sources noticeboard to see if these sources are indeed unreliable. There is no reason to assume they are.
- He again added primary sources material with hhis own interpretation to the introduction. I've asked previously that he not do this and I've also asked repeatedly that major change to the introduction be discussed on the talk page prior to making them to avoid edit wars from erupting. Please do that Drork. Thanks. Tiamuttalk 17:23, 25 February 2010 (UTC)
- After looking at the article history more closely, I saw that User:Noon restored a bunch of primary source material and OR to the introduction as well. I've reverted back to an earlier version of the intro here. Please discuss changes to the intro before making them. Tiamuttalk 17:32, 25 February 2010 (UTC)
And I re-reverted for the following reasons -
- I do not accept the idea that the Tiamut&Harlan corporation would decide what is reliable source and what is not. Interestingly enough, those sources which support their political views are considered reliable while others are not. I avoid bringing pro-Israeli sources fearing they might "round some corners", and the same goes for pro-Palestinian sources.
- We often encounter a usually-reliable source that makes mistakes. These things happen. We cannot, however, bring the erroneous part of the source as a reference. The "Corrigendum 1" here [144] clearly states that Austria did not recognize SoP. The list of recognizing states heavily relies on the "MEDEA list". I don't know whether it is a reliable source or not, but the list is clearly erroneous, as it contradicts other more reliable sources (for example that Corrigendum). Hence, this list CANNOT be trusted. Do NOT use it.
- The Palestinian Authority and SoP ARE NOT THE SAME THING. Don't mix up information about the PA with information about SoP. That includes the infobox. Nothing in the laws or statements on behalf of the PA indicate that it is the 1988 proclaimed SoP. If you think it is - the burden of proof is on you. Don't make baseless statement and expect other people to refute them.
- I have found no reliable source suggesting that "Palestine" is the official name of SoP. The 1988 "Declaration of Independence" says "State of Palestine". Can you get more official than that?
- The definition of the purpose of the 1988 declaration is taken almost word-by-word from Salam Fayyad official document published on behalf of the Palestinian Authority. He mentions the declaration, explains its purpose, and also makes a careful distinction between SoP and the PA (read the document, it is very educational). I consider Salam Fayyad a reliable source about Palestinian political issues, especially as he talk on behalf of the current Palestinian leadership. DrorK (talk) 20:59, 25 February 2010 (UTC)
One by one then:
- Irrelevant. Stop casting aspersions on your fellow editors just because they do not agree ith you.
- Take it to RSN. Your opinion that the source is wrong is not enough to disqualify us from using it.
- The information in the infobox is easily citable to Baroud in Page hich give these stats for "Palestine"(the book info for that as missing, I added it now). You are confusing a territory ("Palestine" or the West Bank and Gaza) with a temporary adminsitrative body.
- There are two reliable sources cited for Palestine's official name (please look at them). Using a primary source document (translated out of its native language into English) to make an OR conclusion is an not acceptable substitute for a secondary source.
- Salam Fayyad is the PM of the PA. He is not the president of Palestine, and does not represent Palestine per se. You can add his opinion to the body of the article but unduly highlighting it in the introduction and using it to make OR conclusions of your on is unacceptable. Tiamuttalk 21:41, 25 February 2010 (UTC)
- Tiamut, I have consensus. Most editors either agree or accept the edits I suggest. This is not because I am a genius, this is because I do my best to suggest edits that serve the idea of conveying knowledge. Your coalition with Harlan and Nableezy is not an alternative to a consensus I'm afraid.
- When it suits you, the PA is not the SoP. When it doesn't it is. Make up your mind and be persistent. Salam Fayyad is a well-recognized distinguished Palestinian leader. His statement, being written as an official PA document, is backed by Mahmoud Abbas who assumed the title "President of the State of Palestine". You are suggesting we rely on foreign interpretation rather than take the word of a Palestinian leader. That's an absurd.
- There is nothing against citing primary sources. The Arabic source say دولة فلسطين (don't tell me you cannot read Arabic), and the English translation is State of Palestine. Plain and simple. Unless the secondary source brings reference to a later decision to rename this proclaimed entity, it cannot be regarded as reliable.
- You use the principle of Verifiability to justify any absurd edit you can come up with. Bringing sources is not something to do offhand. Exerting discernment when using sources and crosschecking sources to verify their claims is something taught in high schools, let alone universities. Don't say "I have a source", explain to me why this source is better than other and what makes it reliable, especially when it makes controversial claims.
- This article is about the 1988 proclaimed entity. As to this point in time, this entity has no territory and no defined population. Hence, it has no economy, no currency, it is even hard to say whether it has a timezone. The territory you refer to is covered by the article Palestinian territories. The PA is covered by the article Palestinian National Authority. You are trying to mix up these entities in order to promote your political views, but this is WP, not a political forum. DrorK (talk) 23:35, 25 February 2010 (UTC)
- Who has agreed with your edits? How on earth can you claim you have consensus for your edits? And, as a matter of policy, secondary sources are preferred to primary sources. And you would be wise to take your own advice on 'promoting political views' here. nableezy - 00:25, 26 February 2010 (UTC)
- Everyone except you, Tiamut and Harlan. I hope you are not suggesting the the entire editors' community is the three of you... DrorK (talk) 09:05, 26 February 2010 (UTC)
- Really? You are beginning to make me concerned for your health. Have you suffered any blows to the head recently? Please, step away from the computer and seek medical attention. nableezy - 14:25, 26 February 2010 (UTC)
- Everyone except you, Tiamut and Harlan. I hope you are not suggesting the the entire editors' community is the three of you... DrorK (talk) 09:05, 26 February 2010 (UTC)
- Who has agreed with your edits? How on earth can you claim you have consensus for your edits? And, as a matter of policy, secondary sources are preferred to primary sources. And you would be wise to take your own advice on 'promoting political views' here. nableezy - 00:25, 26 February 2010 (UTC)