Talk:Hebron/Archive 8

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Hebron is not the biggest city in the West Bank

Hebron is not the most populous city in the West Bank; the West Bank part of Jerusalem (East Jerusalem) has way more inhabitants than Hebron, according to Israeli sources (and Palestinian sources as well). Yet, User:Tombah continues reverting the page to the false affirmation that Hebron is the most populous city in the West Bank. IF we consider Jerusalem as one single, unified city, then Jerusalem is the largest city in the West Bank (even if considering only its part which is literally inside the West Bank). If we follow the international community's standard, East Jerusalem is the largest city in the West Bank. Under no one's definition can Hebron be the largest definition. On a second note, Biblical stories obviously don't qualify for the lead of a Palestinian city. Dan Palraz (talk) 17:34, 12 June 2022 (UTC)

. As far as I'm aware, the international community standard sees East Jerusalem and West Jerusalem as sectors of the same city, not as two different cities. If East Jerusalem is indeed its separate city, and is regarded the largest city in the West Bank, there must be sources for that, right? In the meanwhile, I've seen the Guardian here, the New York Times here and Business Insider here all saying Hebron is the largest city in the West Bank.

And for your second note - please clarify. Bethlehem, for example, explores its biblical history at lead. I have never heard of a Palestinian city having problems with Bible stories. Also, Islamic stories about Hebron are of course influenced by those in the Torah(Tawrat). Traditions such as these are an integral part of Hebron's history, whether they took place or not. I'll be waiting for an explanation, and no, WP:IDONTLIKEIT is not a valid argument. Tombah (talk) 18:19, 12 June 2022 (UTC)

After East Jerusalem, Hebron is the second largest city in the West Bank, with a population of 215,000 inhabitants. nableezy - 19:39, 12 June 2022 (UTC)

Dan is correct. East Jerusalem in international law, is an integral part of the West Bank (as that article duly notes:'The West Bank's borders also include the lands that comprise East Jerusalem.')

This is an egregious case of Systemic bias because numerous mainstream sources mechanically reflect a distinction Israel makes, but which is not made in international law. It is therefore improper, as Tombah argues (invariably representing the official Israeli POV here), to maintain the known fiction that Hebron is the largest West Bank city. It is the largest WB Palestinian city if we exclude East Jerusalem . To maintain otherwise is to push the Jerusalem is one unified city meme, which, as we all know, is an Israeli thesis belied by its administrative practices. Nishidani (talk) 19:45, 12 June 2022 (UTC)

Procedural note I have no preference whatsoever on this issue (and I largely agree with what Dan, Nableezy, and Nishidani write). That being said, much of the argumentation above is based on WP:TRUTH rather than WP:RS. Again, I happily support the change, but it needs to be based on reliable sources, not on Wiki-users explaining why sources are wrong. Jeppiz (talk) 19:57, 12 June 2022 (UTC)

Procedural note 2 Both Dan Palraz and Tombah are guilty of edit warring in an ARBPIA-restricted article. Any further edit warring by either is likely to lead to a block. Jeppiz (talk) 20:01, 12 June 2022 (UTC)

Nableezy, thanks for the source, and Nishidani, thanks for the detailed explanation. But, as I delve deeper into the sources, I'm not sure they agree. Except for the New York Times, the Guardian And Business Insider I mentioned above, Haaretz (here), and the Times of Israel (here), and Ynet (here), along with Al Jazeera (here) the Middle East Eye (here) and Al Arabiya (here) all agree that Hebron is the largest city in the West Bank. So, everybody, how do you recommend moving forward here? Tombah (talk)20:24, 12 June 2022 (UTC)

As I stated, we have a meme, 'Hebron is the largest city in the West Bank'. It is very easy to document that this is asserted in numerous, perhaps the majority of mainstream sources.

On the other hand, stated thus, it is (a) factually wrong in terms of the demographic lay of the land within international law. It is only correct if (b) one assumes, as with the majority of mainstream sources, that East Jerusalem is a tertium quid outside the West Bank, i.e., that one endorses the Israeli official POV which, as so often, is carelessly repeated by agencies like the NYTs and Israeli newspapers. The latter are certainly not known for careful discrimination in this regard, and are interested parties to the conflict.

As Jeppiz notes, the issue is in good part related t the points made at WP:Truth. We know the 'truth' in strictly legal terms, but it is, apart from Nableezy's ref., swamped by the mainstream 'factoid'.

What must editors do? Allow a known meme to Trump the finicky precision of our obligation to be both neutral and objective? That can be done only if we take WP:RS's stipulations in terms of quantitative weight - there are more RS supporting the factoid/meme than there are reflecting the known topological distinctions of legalistic approaches to border demarcations. In my view, to willingly state in wiki's neutral voice a claim that is known to reflect one of two POVs, one known to be incorrect, is deeply problematical. It is a quantitative argument, whereas, RS are valued technically for the quality of the source, and we have one, which happens to state what is the technically correct call. To privilege quantity over quality would be tantamount to using a technicism to endorse a POV, in a field where distortion is deeply rooted (and not limited to Israeli discourse). And Dan, take Jeppiz's advice. This should be ironed out on the talk page. I know it is distressing to have made a correct call, and see it reverted, but patience is a virtue here. Nishidani (talk) 21:12, 12 June 2022 (UTC)

So heres the thing about reliable sources, their reliability depends on what they are talking about. A while back, an editor was able to find a handful of news sources that described Katzrin as the largest city in the Golan Heights. I suspect they did this because they saw their source say "largest Israeli settlement" and thought they should "neutralize" that phrasing, but in so doing they made a blatant factual error. Katzrin has never been the largest city in the Golan Heights, from the day it was founded until today, Majdal Shams has always been larger. It has of course been the largest settlement, but it was factually not the largest city in the Golan, by even Israel's own population statistics. But an editor argued that because the NY Times once called it the largest city that we should then "reflect the reliable source", even when they knew it was factually wrong. Jeppiz is right on the WP:TRUTH bit, but only to a point. We are concerned with verifiability over truth, that is correct. But we should not include what we know to be untrue just because it is verifiable to a nominally reliable source. I generally dont think news sources are more reliable than things like official population statistics or more specialist sources like UN agencies on topics of populations or borders, so I would say that yes those sources are reliable, but they arent examinations of the largest cities of the West Bank and the phrasing "largest city" is incidental to what they are actually reporting on and what they would be reliable for. I think several things are provably true here, and I dont think we should be putting in things that are provably false; a. Hebron is smaller than East Jerusalem, b. East Jerusalem is included in the "West Bank" per most reliable sources. I think we can say one of several things, "excluding East Jerusalem, Hebron is the largest city in the West Bank" and "after East Jerusalem, Hebron is the largest city in the West Bank" being two acceptable options to me, though Im guessing Tombah might prefer the first while I prefer the latter, but I do not think just saying "Hebron is the largest city in the West Bank" is acceptable. At the very least the UN source shows that to be disputed as a fact. nableezy - 22:32, 12 June 2022 (UTC)

Thanks to Nishidani and Nableezy for good and detailed comments. I think there is a way forward: in my main field of interest, languages, it is not at all rare to see even good newspapers repeat well-known but erroneous factoids ("Basque is the oldest language in Europe", "Tamil is the oldest language", "Icelandic has remained unchanged since the Viking age", and so on). We never put these into articles, even when they appear in respectable newspapers, because even good journalists are not linguists. We use better sources instead, academic publications in linguistics. Surely we can do the same here? Census data should be enough, I think. Jeppiz (talk) 23:05, 12 June 2022 (UTC)

But, most academic sources list Hebron as the largest city in the West Bank. So no, unfortunately, census data shouldn't be enough. Tombah (talk) 06:40, 5 July 2022 (UTC)

Are any of those in any way focused on the population statistics in the West Bank? Because if they are not the census is a much more reliable source on that topic. nableezy - 13:30, 5 July 2022 (UTC)

In what world does this discussion end with a user saying as a fact in Wikipedia's voice that Hebron is the largest city in the West Bank? nableezy - 20:05, 4 July 2022 (UTC)

And an additional source: Hebron is the second largest city in the West Bank and the largest in the southern West Bank. nableezy - 20:08, 4 July 2022 (UTC)

And the PCBS statistics: Jerusalem Governorate shows J1 considerably larger than Hebron. nableezy - 20:13, 4 July 2022 (UTC)

Of course, having List of cities administered by the Palestinian Authority with the same error doesn't help. Oh wait, the reason why is because of this edit, fancy that. Selfstudier (talk) 22:32, 4 July 2022 (UTC)

Yes, there are more people living in East Jerusalem than in Hebron. But no, East Jerusalem is not considered a city in its own right. Palestinian claims, the international community, etc, don't matter here, since it is almost always described as a "sector" of Jerusalem, not as an independent city. A quick search on Google Scholar with the term "Largest city in the West Bank", immediately shows that most sources believe it is Hebron. Some of the results mention Nablus, which is the second largest after... Hebron, as well. No matter what your political views are, professional editing should always stick to reliable sources. And this is what the reliable sources say. Tombah (talk) 06:40, 5 July 2022 (UTC)

From the United Nations: "After East Jerusalem, Hebron is the second largest city in the West Bank". We could just state it both ways? Onceinawhile (talk) 07:36, 5 July 2022 (UTC)

I now see this source has been stated above.

Am I right to understand that this argument is between two options for the drafting:

(1) The second largest city in the West Bank after East Jerusalem, [Hebron is...]

(2) The largest city in the West Bank excluding East Jerusalem, [Hebron is...]

The problem with (2) is that it doesn't communicate to the reader that if East Jerusalem was included it would be larger. And the problem with (1) is that the media seems to use two different definitions for what comprises the West Bank (it is either the territory occupied in 1967, or that territory less the subsequently annexed areas), equivalent to how the media uses the term Ukraine in the press at the moment.

Onceinawhile (talk) 07:49, 5 July 2022 (UTC)

The Palestinians are claiming a sector as their capital, clever chaps. Selfstudier (talk) 09:17, 5 July 2022 (UTC)

That is exactly what I did, but got reverted under the claim it is "absolute nonsense". Anyway, after seeing the Google Scholar results, it seems we have countless sources that say it is the largest, while those who say the opposite are too few. If we wish to follow the sources - this article should list the city as largest in the West Bank. We can add a note that says something like "Can be also considered the second largest city if East Jerusalem is counted a city in its own right." But generally, I'm against that. Tombah (talk) 07:40, 5 July 2022 (UTC)

Tombah.Both your edit (s generally) and comment(s) ignore the patient arguments on talk pages, and just drive for the best 'pro-Israeli' text. Read the above objections and reply to them before just jumping into editing your preferred versionn of this or that . Nishidani (talk) 08:14, 5 July 2022 (UTC)

We have ascertained (what was widely known) that (a) the West Bank includes East Jerusalem, as was acknowledged by Israel prior to '67, and in international law. The latter is the one neutral statement we have, the lay of the law. (b) Israel insists that East Jerusalem is part of Jerusalem is part of Israel, ergo Hebron is the largest city they have. Your edit espouses a known POV. That numerous sources repeat the Israeli meme is interesting in terms of the logic of WP:Systemic bias, but not telling in terms of the quality of evidence. If you repeat yourself on the talk page, editors find themselves in the embarrassing position of having to restate things you should have read, and thoughtfully replied to earlier.Nishidani (talk) 10:37, 5 July 2022 (UTC)

I'm sure with a little bit of non partisan imagination, we can find a workaround. Why does "largest" mean most populous anyhow? Largest could mean land area, couldn't it? Selfstudier (talk) 09:37, 5 July 2022 (UTC)

It always means population absent a source specifically saying land area. nableezy - 13:29, 5 July 2022 (UTC)

After East Jerusalem, Hebron is the second largest city in the West Bank, with a population of 215,000 inhabitants (with a note in the ref giving per Jeppiz, the census data for both and clarifying that Israel does not consider EJ as part of the WBNishidani (talk) 10:40, 5 July 2022 (UTC)

https://unhabitat.org/sites/default/files/documents/2019-05/state_of_palestine_cities_report.pdf Table 1 (City/Population) on p.13 gives Gaza City, EJ, Hebron as 1, 2, 3 (in SoP). It is I think obvious that we cannot just ignore a major population center.Selfstudier (talk) 11:14, 5 July 2022 (UTC)

It is not about "Palestinian claims", East Jerusalem is in the West Bank, and yes the PCBS includes EJ as a separate municipality and gives a population for it. Any source that is not specifically on the topic of "largest cities in the West Bank" is being misused here, and it is the height of bad faith to go search for a source you know is wrong to use because it is supposedly "reliable". That you can find sources that mistakenly say Hebron is the largest city doesnt mean you should copy that error here, just like you shouldnt copy sources that say that Ramallah is the largest or the ones that say Nablus is the largest. Those sources are reliable for what they are covering, which is not the population statistics in the West Bank. It is absolute nonsense to include as a statement of fact that Hebron is the largest city in the West Bank. Especially given the unanimous opposition on this talk page to that claim. It is both disruptive in violating consensus and tendentious in purposely inserting factual incorrect material to push a POV. I was generous with "absolute nonsense", and if such edits that fly in the face of an obvious consensus continue to be pushed I will 100% be reporting them. You do not get to decide that you are the arbiter of the content of our articles, there is a clear consensus against your position on this pag and you are obliged to follow it. If you do not well we can see if there are consequences to that. Ive offered you a compromise that should work for all parties, but you ignore the obvious consensus against stating what we have already established is at least a contested POV as a fact to just go ahead and do that anyway. You may not say Hebron is the largest city in the West Bank as a fact, it is a contested statement and there is consensus on this page against it. nableezy - 13:29, 5 July 2022 (UTC)

The attempt to discredit extensive scholarship that agree that Hebron is the largest city in the West Bank can be seen as WP:CHERRYPICKING. I am still not convinced that East Jerusalem is a separate city. The two sources that assert otherwise are nothing more than a drop in the ocean. As far as I am concerned, East Jerusalem is a sector of a city. Jerusalem, according to our own article, is a city that straddles "the Green Line between Israel and the West Bank". A sector of a city cannot be "the largest city in the West Bank", it is what it is - a sector. Despite some's desire to view East Jerusalem as a separate city, I do not agree with this opinion; as far as I am concerned, the two-state solution has not yet been implemented. The professional thing to do here is to stick with the sources; as we have already seen, the majority view Hebron as the largest city in the West Bank, with an (extreme) minority seeing it as the second largest. Since you are the more experienced editor, I'd be glad to learn how we reflect the opinion of the majority of sources, while also making sure that the minority is also heard. Tombah (talk) 09:12, 6 July 2022 (UTC)

Old City (clue is in the name) was Jerusalem for hundreds of years. An illegal annex plus a "New City" (aka West Jerusalem) does not a new Jerusalem make and all acts purporting to do so are of no legal effect. East Jerusalem is the second largest Palestinian population center in Palestine (Hebron being the third) and there is no getting away from that, if it should become necessary we may simply reword in that fashion.Selfstudier (talk) 09:33, 6 July 2022 (UTC)

The attempt to discredit extensive scholarship that agree that Hebron is the largest city in the West Bank can be seen as WP:CHERRYPICKING.

I.e. failure again to address the cogent point, that we are not dealing with 'exstensive scholarship' but extensive newspaper memes. The 'extreme minority' states the facts: your preferred sources toe a POV line by the occupying power, and per NPOV we cannot pass that off as factual. A 'sector of a city' in this confused world, can often be treated distinctly from the city itself according to the geopolitical arrangements, as was the case with East Berlin or Northern Nicosia, the largest city in Turkish Cyprus. You invarei ably push a known POV, as is your right. Those opposing you are not pushing the opposed Palestinian POV, but what international neutral bodies state as the legal reality. The consensus here is clear.Nishidani (talk) 10:46, 6 July 2022 (UTC)

Tendentious nonsense. There is no scholarship on the size of Hebron compared to other West Bank cities. There is plenty of scholarship on other topics that say off-handedly Hebron is the largest city. Like there is scholarship that says Ramallah or Nablus is. The most reliable source for the size of cities in the Palestinian territories, including the West Bank, is the PCBS. They are the actual authority here. The tendentious BS about "majority view" ignores that none of those sources are discussing the relative size of these cities. They are discussing other topics, and none of them are demography or statistics focused or any other relevant field. It is purely about pushing a POV for you here. And if it happens again in the face of a unanimous disagreement against you, well like I said thats up to you to see if there are consequences to editing against consensus. nableezy - 11:10, 6 July 2022 (UTC)

Extended-confirmed-protected edit request on 20 November 2022

current text: "Indo-European (Canaanite)". Canaanite refers to Northwest Semitic language/culture and this is not Indo-European. I would remove (Canaanite). The 2019 paper: Ancient DNA sheds light on the genetic origins of early Iron Age Philistines, Feldman et al looks at the Philistines who at some point occupied Gath (and at some points were quite "admixed"). The entire reference to Gath belongs elsewhere; but Canaanite is not Indo-European.--LarG (talk) 20:45, 20 November 2022 (UTC) LarG (talk) 20:45, 20 November 2022 (UTC)

@LarG:  Done Colonestarrice (talk) 16:20, 27 November 2022 (UTC)