Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Palestine

This is the talk page for discussing WikiProject Palestine and anything related to its purposes and tasks.

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Palestine This page is within the scope of WikiProject Palestine, a team effort dedicated to building and maintaining comprehensive, informative and balanced articles related to the geographic Palestine region, the Palestinian people and the State of Palestine on Wikipedia. Join us by visiting the project page, where you can add your name to the list of members where you can contribute to the discussions.PalestineWikipedia:WikiProject PalestineTemplate:WikiProject PalestinePalestine-related articles Arab world This page is within the scope of WikiProject Arab world, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of the Arab world on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.Arab worldWikipedia:WikiProject Arab worldTemplate:WikiProject Arab worldArab world articles Western Asia This page is within the scope of the WikiProject Western Asia, which collaborates on articles related to Western Asia. To participate, you can edit this article or visit the project page for more details.Western AsiaWikipedia:WikiProject Western AsiaTemplate:WikiProject Western AsiaWestern Asia articles Limited recognition This page is within the scope of WikiProject Limited recognition, a WikiProject dedicated to improving the coverage of entities with limited recognition on Wikipedia by contributing to articles relating to unrecognized states and separatist movements. To participate: Feel free to edit the article attached to this page, join our WikiProject by signing your name at the project page, or contribute to the project discussion.Limited recognitionWikipedia:WikiProject Limited recognitionTemplate:WikiProject Limited recognitionLimited recognition articles

See also Category:WikiProject Palestine, Wikipedia:WikiProject Israel Palestine Collaboration, and WikiProject Military history/Middle Eastern military history task force. The latest requests for help are also found at: Wikipedia:WikiProject Palestine/Tasks Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Israel Palestine Collaboration Wikipedia:Notice board for Palestine-related topics#Notices and announcements

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 You are invited to join the discussion at Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style#"Modern-day Israel" vs. "Palestine" when only for reader geographical reference, which is within the scope of this WikiProject. Kinsio (talk ★ contribs) 15:45, 30 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Should we use the unrelated image of a peasent family in Ramallah, or the flag of palestine, or a watermelon? Thoughts? 48JCL 23:05, 1 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

See ongoing edit request for the template, linking to this discussion. Tule-hog (talk) 21:16, 6 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Watermelon: The family is hard to recognise as Palestinian, and a flag isn’t ideal. A symbol would be good, e.g. as in Template:WikiProject Japan or Template:WikiProject Canada. The watermelon works well, as it is related to the flag, but also brings some creativity. Onceinawhile (talk) 07:38, 2 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Watermelon: Seconding the watermelon. That was my favorite thing to see on Wikipedia:WikiProject Palestine. Kinsio (talk ★ contribs ★ rights) 15:29, 2 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Kinsio and Onceinawhile thank you for your opinions. The WikiProject banner has been changed to resemble the palestinian symbol. 48JCL 19:56, 2 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Flag: I don’t support the watermelon; it makes no sense if you’re not already invested in Palestinian politics and is kind of deliberately obtuse (reminiscent of Vivian James or the iconography of the Boogaloo movement). There is nothing wrong with a flag (Wp:India uses a flag) especially when it’s an instantly recognizable and unambiguous symbol of the country; a cartoon watermelon might as well represent Wp:agriculture or wp:plants Dronebogus (talk) 23:41, 17 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Flag: Why is the flag not ideal @Onceinawhile This looks cheap and amateurish now. nableezy - 21:07, 5 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Flag: per standardization and WP:NPOV - Tule-hog (talk) 20:47, 6 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Also in line with {{User WP Palestine}}, which uses the flag. Tule-hog (talk) 21:10, 6 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Actually not sure WP:NPOV applies to WikiProject content... It is in the main namespace, but I'm not sure that qualifies as 'encyclopedic content'. Regardless, standardization holds. Tule-hog (talk) 02:10, 7 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Perhaps because this is a banner which displays on article talk pages, WP:NPOV does hold for this particular entity? Splitting hairs, but if there is relevant policy to be linked, that'd be appreciated. Tule-hog (talk) 02:13, 7 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Restore the flag, there was no consensus to change it to watermelon. --Supreme Deliciousness (talk) 00:17, 7 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I think its fair to say there was consensus in favor of the symbol at the time 48JCL made the change, in-as-much as there was WP:SILENCE on the part of other opinions. 🙏 - Tule-hog (talk) 01:07, 7 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Please see Wikipedia:Neutral point of view/Noticeboard#RFC - Gaza Health Ministry qualifier. ScottishFinnishRadish (talk) 12:56, 15 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

There are two discussion occurring at Talk:1948 Palestinian expulsion and flight#Haifa and Talk:1948 Palestinian expulsion and flight#Unconditional surrender at Haifa: gross misrepresentation discussing whether the article should be edited to further cover the opinions of Benny Morris. Editors are invited to participate. TarnishedPath^talk 06:59, 17 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Please see Talk:List of genocides#RFC - Inclusion of Gaza genocide. ScottishFinnishRadish (talk) 13:49, 19 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

There is a requested move discussion at Talk:United States complicity in Israeli war crimes in the Israel–Hamas war#Requested move 24 July 2024 that may be of interest to members of this WikiProject. Safari Scribe^{Edits! Talk!} 00:13, 1 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

An editor has requested that Calls for the destruction of Israel be moved to Calls for the dissolution of the State of Israel, which may be of interest to this WikiProject. You are invited to participate in the move discussion. إيان (talk) 05:39, 9 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Created two discussions over recently-created templates: Template talk:Hamas history and Template talk:Palestinian leaders. Please feel free to engage. Makeandtoss (talk) 10:54, 9 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

There is a requested move discussion at Talk:Palestinian territories#Requested move 5 August 2024 that may be of interest to members of this WikiProject. Frost 16:16, 12 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

There is currently a discussion concerning whether or not it is appropriate to display the flag of Israel on this article. Experienced editors are invited to join the discussion. -Ad Orientem (talk) 23:34, 17 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

There is a requested move discussion at Talk:Palestinian suicide terrorism#Requested move 21 August 2024 that may be of interest to members of this WikiProject. TarnishedPath^talk 08:56, 22 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Battle of the Yarmuk has been nominated for a good article reassessment. If you are interested in the discussion, please participate by adding your comments to the reassessment page. If concerns are not addressed during the review period, the good article status may be removed from the article. Z1720 (talk) 14:17, 23 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Template:Whole Gaza Strip

Instead of "Archaeological sites destroyed during the Gaza genocide" it should say something like "during the Israeli invasion of Gaza", "during the Israel-Hamas war", or something similar. 136.152.209.125 (talk) 08:01, 24 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

• Category:Arab villages depopulated during the 1948 Arab–Israeli War => 12 villages called "Bayt xxxx", 0 called "Beit xxxx"
• Category:Villages in the West Bank => 0 villages called "Bayt xxxx", 22 called "Beit xxxx"

@Al Ameer son, Huldra, and Zero0000: is anyone aware of a reason for this discrepancy? If not, shouldn't we make it consistent?

Credit and thanks to @Arminden: for raising the question at Talk:Eleutheropolis.

Onceinawhile (talk) 13:40, 31 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I believe that the historical explanation is that the 1948 depopulated village names were adopted from Khalidi, All that Remains and he uses "Bayt". He doesn't list the WB villages, so their names were adopted from somewhere else. Maybe from some official list such as this one that uses "Beit". Should we unify the spelling? Zero^talk 13:58, 31 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you. I think we should definitely unify.

Bayt is the modern formally correct transliteration in Modern Standard Arabic, but that is not necessarily relevant and there is no formally correct transliteration in Palestinian Arabic. Beirut is a good example; in MSA it is formally Bayrut.

As can be seen from ngrams, Bayt is a reasonably modern phenomenon (one cannot easily compare the two lines of course, because Beit is also Hebrew and the name of people like Alfred Beit). This makes our current situation even more odd – if were to remain “dis-unified”, surely the depopulated villages would logically hold the historical transliteration (Beit, as per the Survey of Palestine and PEF Survey of Palestine) and the living villages would hold more modern orthodox MSA version (Bayt). Yet we have it the other way round.

This chart on Beit-Bayt Jala (being possibly the most well known location with this prefix) is the most compelling for me.

Onceinawhile (talk) 07:22, 1 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Most of the Bayt X articles were created or developed by Tiamut and Huldra. I asked Huldra for her thoughts on this. Whatever we do, we should have a redir for the alternative. Incidentally, there isn't a single appearance of a Bayt spelling in the Palestine Gazette. Zero^talk 09:45, 1 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

It's yet another aspect of wagging dogs by their tail. Languages as well as transliterations develop organically, and then comes some ideologically-motivated person or body, and we end up with Türkiye, Campuchea, Myanmar. Or Bayt. Which anyone sensible is allowed to ignore. That Hebrew has beit is exactly the (ideological) point (btw, beth was a long used English variant, and purists are now trying to impose bet; good luck to them). Bad luck, Semitic languages share more than I/P crusaders care to acknowledge. Academic, as in philological, arguments are usually only covers. Arminden (talk) 10:03, 2 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I've never heard of an ideological aspect of the Bayt/Beit spelling choice. Zero^talk 13:59, 2 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

My understanding is that "Beit" is the "anglicised" version of Bayt, just like "Calcutta" was the "anglicised" version of Kolkata. That the British only used "Beit", while Walid Khalidi use "Bayt", seem to support that, so I support moving them all to "Bayt",Huldra (talk) 21:18, 2 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

PS:Look at the N-gram of Calcutta/Kolcata [1], cheers, Huldra (talk) 21:26, 2 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

As mentioned by Onceinawhile, there are two different ways to pronounce the same word. Bayyt is the pronunciation in MSA. Beit is the more calm pronunciation in Palestinian accent. To give the example of Bethlehem, here is Shireen Abu Akleh pronouncing Bethlehem in MSA for an Al Jazeera report: 00:03 Bayyt(a) Lahm, while here is it pronounced in Palestinian accent for a local report: 00:39 Beit Lahm. Now, Bayt (emphasis on one 'y') is pronounced the same as Beit in English, so it doesn't really matter, and I see no need to maintain consistency, we can just reflect majority use of each case in RS. Makeandtoss (talk) 10:03, 3 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]