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This edit

Palestinian people . . .are an Arab or Arabic-speaking people descended from peoples indigenous to Palestine.

is patently silly because it entails the idea that Palestinians are 'Arab-speaking', i.e., that Palestinians speak the ethnic group to which most of them belong. I know the editor wished to distinguish ethnic and linguistic aspects of Palestinian identity, but most readers will laugh at the result. The second part of the sentence has a good source, but also has to be emended. The Circassian, Gypsy, Kurdish, Armenian, Jewish, Turkish etc. elements in the Palestinian population are not necessarily descended from the people 'indigenous to Palestine' anymore than Israelis or Jews are. A sensible 'predominantly', if inserted, would avoid a huge hairsplitting non-problem resolving argument over my second point. Nishidani (talk) 07:32, 17 December 2011 (UTC)

I have read this man's book. He understands the conflict. I will amend phrase. Jamussy (talk) 20:27, 17 December 2011 (UTC)

I reverted your edit. The mergence of Palestinian identity is already iscussed further down in the intro. We don't need to highlight it in the first sentence. Please, veryone, the first sentence is a little sensitive. Can we discuss changes to it here before making them? Thanks. Tiamut^talk 21:01, 17 December 2011 (UTC)

Hey guys, I believe we should add a "modernly" before the phrase "Arabic speaking" in this section, because Palestinians have spoken many different languages as their first tongue throughout history, it was not until the Islamic conquest where the majority of Palestinians began speaking predominately Arabic. Lazyfoxx (talk) 02:55, 6 January 2012 (UTC)

Struggle for self-determination

This article continues to have problems... one example being the beginning of this paragraph. The lead-in to the quote by Avi Shlaim seems to support his contention later on in the paragraph and may be factually inaccurate. It states 'Palestinians have never exercised full sovereignty over the land in which they have lived' and the follow-on quote by Shlaim states 'that the Palestinians' lack of sovereignty over the land has been used by Israelis to deny Palestinians their rights'. Apart from the discrepancy between 'full sovereignty' and 'sovereignty', the former is an unprovable statement, as we do not know the extent of early Palestinian states and we also do not have a complete history of the area. What we do know is that a large number of Palestinian/Canaanite states existed in the area and it is possible that collectively they may have exercised 'full sovereignty' over the 'land' for much of its early history.

It is clear that the author of this sentence meant a single, unified, and fairly recent state on the lines of a 'nation-state' - but this is not what the sentence refers to.

(ps This article has become semi-protected recently. However, this subject is very topical at the moment - it would be a shame to freeze unregistered contributions at this time...)

182.177.60.47 (talk) 17:15, 21 December 2011 (UTC)

No one has disputed my comment so I will assume universal agreement and amend the paragraph for a second time ;). I have checked up some sources and it does seem that virtually all of Palestine was briefly united under Daher El-Omar, who ran an independent state from the capital, Acre, in the 1770s. There is already a Wikipedia article on Daher El-Omar, so it is a bit strange that the statement on Palestinians ‘never’ exercising full sovereignty was allowed to pass. I will also add the references to Hourani’s study and the more recent one by Safi.182.177.77.27 (talk) 14:33, 24 January 2012 (UTC)

Can someone please add this reference to the end of the first line in this section... cheers, 182.177.55.169 (talk) 15:50, 24 January 2012 (UTC)

I added the source. Please check it. Sean.hoyland - talk 16:43, 24 January 2012 (UTC)

It's fine now... thanks Sean.Astari5 (talk) 17:22, 24 January 2012 (UTC)

That is a great source. Unfortunately, rule by a dynasty or little kingdom is not a people expressing "self-determination." Only if the Palestinian people are helping determine rules are they practicing self-determination. Maybe this source is better used elsewhere. For now, it must go.Jamussy (talk) 04:04, 26 January 2012 (UTC)

http://wiki.riteme.site/wiki/Modern_history Please cross-check with other Wiki articles before making changes... ‘Modern era’ is a debatable term but can be defined from the mid-16th century onwards. Daher’s state was in the late 18th century.Astari5 (talk) 09:25, 26 January 2012 (UTC)

Daher el-Omar

My edit summary got cut off, what I was going to say is that according to the sources in the Daher el-Omar article, he controlled only parts of the Galilee, so we're going to need more sources that say he controlled the whole area if we're going to make a statement like the one I removed. No More Mr Nice Guy (talk) 09:39, 26 January 2012 (UTC)

Nope :). Read the source more carefully. It (and the summary you removed) says the opposite of what you just claimed. Quote:'Nevertheless, between 1770 and 1775, Zaher, with the help of Ali bey al-Kabir, extended his control over the entire Palestinian territory'. The sources in the article back up Safi's claim. If you want further sources I suggest you cross-check with Wikipedia article on al-Kabir who also declared Egypt independent at the same time. http://wiki.riteme.site/wiki/Ali_Bey_Al-Kabir. 'However, a few days after a major victory by the allied forces of Dhaher al-Omar and Ali Bey on 6 June 1771, Abu al-Dhahab, the commander of his troops in Syria, refused to continue the fight after an Ottoman agent stirred up mistrust between him and Ali Bey, and hastily returned to Egypt.' The source follows this sentence.Astari5 (talk) 10:39, 26 January 2012 (UTC)

ps I guess this means I am going to have to change the introductory paragraph to the Daher el-Omar article as the rest of that article says pretty much what the Safi source and the al-Kabir Wiki article says. I will do it when I get time, thanks for bringing it up.Astari5 (talk) 11:23, 26 January 2012 (UTC)

You misunderstand my point. Safi (btw, who is he? I couldn't find any details in google about him) says that el-Omar "extended his control over the entire Palestinian territory". Other sources say he only controlled part of the Galilee. No More Mr Nice Guy (talk) 19:26, 26 January 2012 (UTC)

No, I don’t believe I misunderstood. I am sure you have read the Daher el-Omar article but it is easy to miss the significance of the later section as it does not highlight or clarify the extent of Daher’s military victories. Also, Volney and others describe Daher’s state as being Galilee based because for twenty-five years or so he was restricted to Galilee by the Ottomans. It is correct therefore to describe his state as controlling only Galilee if referring to the early years. The expansion was late in his reign so Safi is also correct in saying that his regime expanded to cover the entire Palestinian territory. This resolves the apparently conflicting statements in different sources. There is in reality no conflict between them – the term restriction or the phrase ‘only controlling parts of Galilee’ are not being used to describe the totality of Daher’s reign but a specific period when the Ottomans did indeed restrict Daher’s forces to northern Palestine.Astari5 (talk) 13:36, 27 January 2012 (UTC)

I agree with No More Mr Nice Guy. This seems like a WP:REDFLAG issue. — Malik Shabazz ^Talk/_Stalk 19:29, 26 January 2012 (UTC)

It may seem like a WP:REDFLAG issue but it isn’t. I agree though that for many people it may seem to fit the category of ‘surprising or apparently important claims not covered by multiple mainstream sources’. However 4 mainstream references were given (Khaled Safi (work published by a mainstream orientalist institute (IFPO)), Albert Hourani (an acknowledged expert on Palestinian history who was consulted in the UN sessions in 1947), Volney (1783) and Manna.Astari5 (talk) 13:55, 27 January 2012 (UTC)

I should add that Volney has already been referred to by other articles in describing the expansion of Daher’s regime, with the help of Ali Bey, to Damascus. Furthermore, at least three Wiki articles on this (biographies of Daher, Ali Bey and Dhahab) exist and are based upon the same information. If you don’t accept that Daher’s state expanded in 1765-1775 then all other references to that expansion should be deleted from other related articles. That would of course be unacceptable as the facts about Daher and Ali Bey’s expansion are mainstream history.

So in summary it is def not WP:REDFLAG because some of the sources and the descriptions of the expansion have been used before in other Wiki articles and are essential to an understanding of the late 18th Century map of the Middle East.Astari5 (talk) 14:25, 27 January 2012 (UTC)

Who is Safi -> He's a professor of history at Al-Aqsa University, Gaza. Search for safi here or see at the bottom here. Sean.hoyland - talk 19:48, 26 January 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for the links. I saw the second one but missed the bit at the end.

I'm pretty sure I've read in several sources that the Palestinians didn't have sovereignty over the territory of Palestine in modern times, as the article now states. I'll try to remember where I saw that. No More Mr Nice Guy (talk) 21:01, 26 January 2012 (UTC)

That would be useful - but until then the reference will have to be put back as there are four supporting references in total to none against.

Btw I think the result of reverts and counter-reverts has improved the original sentence somewhat without changing the basic structure of the paragraph, but it has still left a claim unsupported and introduced another lesser factual inaccuracy (namely that no full sovereignty was exercised during the modern era). This statement would not be an issue except the use of ‘modern’ contradicts the definition of ‘modern’ in other Wiki articles where it is defined as being from the 16th Century onwards (to clarify this point – the use of ‘modern’ here places both the founding of Great Britain and the development of steam engines in the medieval period... I think we can all agree that is not an acceptable use of the word ‘modern’ in historical terms).

I am prepared to accept certain compromise statements. But the word ‘modern’ should be replaced with something more suitable that doesn’t contradict other Wiki articles. If we can find such a compromise word or phrase I think we could have consensus on this.Astari5 (talk) 15:34, 27 January 2012 (UTC)

Safi is the only source that says he controlled the "entire Palestinian territory". Unless I'm missing something? I'm not following you regarding the "modern era" issue.

It would be helpful if you didn't keep edit warring the text into the article. See WP:BRD. No More Mr Nice Guy (talk) 19:50, 27 January 2012 (UTC)

Please see http://wiki.riteme.site/wiki/Wikipedia:PSTS. Safi is a secondary source. He has used other primary and secondary sources such as Volney, and Ottoman and Nablus administrative records to come to his conclusions. Hourani and Manna are also secondary sources.

Please do not make any further reverts until someone has shown a secondary source of equal quality (published in a specialist journal like IFPO) that clearly states that Daher’s state did not cover the whole of Palestine at any point. If you can find one, we will discuss it at that point and try to find a compromise. You’ve removed the reference twice without providing an alternative secondary source to replace it with (I’m still waiting for the ‘promised’ references ;) ).

Re: ‘modern era’ - the problem with this term is that it covers more ground than most people realise. Saying ‘for at least two centuries’ allows one to continue making the claim that no Palestinian state, with full sovereignty, has existed since then; use of ‘modern era’ does not, as this term is defined from the 16th Century onwards. (http://wiki.riteme.site/wiki/Modern_history)Astari5 (talk) 09:09, 31 January 2012 (UTC)

Please see WP:REDFLAG, WP:CONSENSUS and WP:BRD. Several editors have objected to your addition, while no other editor supported it. Stop trying to force it into the article and let the discussion take its course. Repeatedly edit warring material into the article against consensus might get you blocked from editing. No More Mr Nice Guy (talk) 09:38, 31 January 2012 (UTC)

Please don’t make ‘arguments from authority’. 'No other editor supported it' - actually one editor did choose to insert the reference and quoted from the source. Please don't make misleading remarks or repeatedly accuse other users of 'edit warring' for changing one of your edits.

My revert of your changes was entirely appropriate as you had shown you had clearly ‘misunderstood’ the Daher article. Another user - 'Zero' - while he/she is inclined to agree with you on 'interpreting' the source has disagreed with your assertion that the sources say that Daher's state was limited 'to parts of Galilee'. Are you willing to recognise that Daher’s state wasn’t limited to Galilee and you may have misinterpreted the sources?Astari5 (talk) 11:28, 31 January 2012 (UTC)

I'm not happy about "entire Palestinian territory" due to its lack of precise meaning. "Sovereignty" is also problematic in a historical setting as it doesn't distinguish between official and actual control. As for Daher, there was a short period during which he controlled more than the Galilee. In 1772 he took Ramle, Jaffa and Gaza, and held them for a while. However this was a temporary military achievement; describing it as a time of great historical significance seems to be stretching the point a bit far. Zero^talk 10:34, 30 January 2012 (UTC)

We are not here to judge the historical significance of Daher’s military conquests in the late 18th Century... but to decide whether the facts allow us to introduce the contemporary Palestinian ‘struggle for self-determination’ with a remark about the ‘lack’ of Palestinian ‘sovereignty’ over the last 400 years (‘modern era’)... Daher’s state challenges attempts to define Palestinians as passive players in their own history and that of the region.

Daher’s conquests took him to Damascus and his control over the territory was complete (Volney (1783) describes how the Ottomans offered him (Daher) the governorship of the entire region of Syria and Lebanon in addition to Palestine, in return for his accepting overarching Ottoman suzerainty; and he goes on to criticise Daher for apparently refusing to relinquish his sovereignty in Palestine: a decision that was to cost him his life after a third Ottoman invasion in 1775).

Whether we consider that brief period of expansion and sovereignty (1765-1775) ‘significant’ is irrelevant. The concern here is that the first sentence needs to be verified if it makes sweeping generalisations about Palestinian sovereignty.Astari5 (talk) 09:26, 31 January 2012 (UTC)

Propaganda article

This article reads like propaganda and contains many untruths. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Ashmadi.r (talk • contribs) 18:05, 28 January 2012 (UTC)

St. Georgius as a person of the Palestinian people

In the picture on the right at the top of the article St. Georgius is presented as a person of the Palestinian people. The Palestinian people hadn't existed back then. In addition, back then most of the region's inhabitants weren't muslims nor arabs, so why is he presented as a Palestinian? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 77.127.95.63 (talk) 20:52, 16 January 2012 (UTC)

Eventually they're going to start claiming that King David and Golda Meir were Palestinians. The articles involving Palestinians are by far the most historical inaccurate ones on wikipedia. Denying pre-Zionism massacres upon indigenous Jewish populations and inventing Palestinian history. DionysosElysees (talk) 19:01, 15 February 2012 (UTC)DionysosElysees

"In the picture on the right at the top of the article St. Georgius is presented as a person of the Palestinian people." Palestine was a province of the Roman Empire during the time in which St. George lived. Concerning his Ancestry, he was Palestinian on his Mother's side, and also Cappadocian on his Father's side. http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/9/93/Roman_Empire_with_provinces_in_210_AD.png/800px-Roman_Empire_with_provinces_in_210_AD.png

"The Palestinian people hadn't existed back then." Yes they did, and they were composed of Christian Hellenized Romans, Gentiles, and Jews.

"In addition, back then most of the region's inhabitants weren't muslims nor arabs, so why is he presented as a Palestinian?" Palestinians started to convert to Islam after the Islamic Conquest which took in Palestine as a part of the Islamic Empire following the 636 CE Battle of Yarmouk. Considering that St. George lived during the years 256 CE and 306 CE It's common sense that the inhabitants of Palestine were not Muslims. It sounds like you are suggesting that all Palestinians descend from the Muslims and Arabs of the Islamic Conquest, which is not true and is discussed in this article.Lazyfoxx (talk) 05:03, 23 February 2012 (UTC)

" Concerning his Ancestry, he was Palestinian on his Mother's side, and also Cappadocian on his Father's side." Now you mix between to different meanings of the word "Palestinian". The first is the one which is usually usued nowaday, i.e. someone who belongs to the Palestinian Arab people. The second one, which is used in your sentence, means someone who was born in the geographical region known as Palestine, AKA the holy land, the land of Israel etc, to two parents whose anscestors also had lived for generations in the region. By that definition, which was used in the sentence, there are many Jewish Israelis who can be considered as Palestinians, while simultaneously be Jewish nationals. Therefore, I recommend you not to mix the 2 definitions.

" http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/9/93/Roman_Empire_with_provinces_in_210_AD.png/800px-Roman_Empire_with_provinces_in_210_AD.png " I am well aware of the past existence of this Province and the origin of its name...

"Yes they did, and they were composed of Christian Hellenized Romans, Gentiles, and Jews." Ofcourse there were people in the province of Syria-Palestina in the 2nd and 3rd centuries, however they didn't form a people. How could it be claimed? The people of the regions' cultures were different (Jewish, Hellenistic, Nabataean, Latin/Roman...), languages were different (Greek was spoken by almost everybody, but many Jews also used Biblical Hebrew, and I think also Aramaic, for liturgical uses. Some also spoke Latin) and the religions were different (Judaism, Hellenistic Paganism, Christianity...). In conclusion, I don't see a reason to see the inhabitants of the region of the time as a people.

"Palestinians started to convert to Islam after the Islamic Conquest which took in Palestine as a part of the Islamic Empire following the 636 CE Battle of Yarmouk. Considering that St. George lived during the years 256 CE and 306 CE It's common sense that the inhabitants of Palestine were not Muslims." Yes, I know that historical story. Again, you use the term "Palestinian" to describe the inhabitants of the reagion, and I have already explained you why you shouldn't do so. It's misleading.

"It sounds like you are suggesting that all Palestinians descend from the Muslims and Arabs of the Islamic Conquest, which is not true and is discussed in this article." I know it's not true; I agree with you. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 77.127.146.218 (talk) 01:36, 8 March 2012 (UTC)

Palestinian's ancestors inhabited the land of Palestine, Palestinians who were born in Palestine in history are the modern day Palestinians ancestors. Do not try to create a gap between historical Palestinians and modern Palestinians based on a definition that was created post the creation of Israel. That is the same as saying for any ethnicity that the historical members are not a part of people today, which is completely false. Lazyfoxx (talk) 03:21, 8 March 2012 (UTC)

Actually, Jews' ancestors inhabited the land of "Palestine." "Palestinian's" ancestors inhabited the land of Yemen, Saudi Arabia, and Jordan. -- M.suresh — Preceding unsigned comment added by MamoudSurash (talk • contribs) 03:38, 8 March 2012 (UTC)

I suggest your read through the sources cited in this article M.suresh, you couldn't be more wrong. Lazyfoxx (talk) 03:48, 8 March 2012 (UTC)

Saint George was half Palestinian by ancestry and half Cappadocian and that fact cannot be disputed, his inclusion in the infobox will give valuable insight to Palestinians throughout history. Lazyfoxx (talk) 04:06, 8 March 2012 (UTC)

At that time, the leftist media you use for your sources had not invented Palestinians yet. Therefore, he cannot have been a "Palestinian." -- M.suresh — Preceding unsigned comment added by MamoudSurash (talk • contribs) 04:18, 8 March 2012 (UTC)

He was by definition a Palestinian Jew who became a Palestinian Christian. Lazyfoxx (talk) 04:26, 8 March 2012 (UTC)

---

All the same considerations that apply to the case of Jesus (discussed extensively below) also apply to St. George (except that St. George lived after 135 A.D., while Jesus didn't). So I don't see any real point to reopening the discussion in this section right now, since any conclusions about Jesus will also apply to St. George. MamoudSurash -- your last remarks were inflammatory and somewhat inaccurate... AnonMoos (talk) 04:27, 8 March 2012 (UTC)

I honestly see no reason why there is such a double standard on historical Palestinians. Palestinians deserve their right as a page to include historical figures from their ethnicity that have contributed their past and history, just as every other ethnicity page on Wikipedia does. If we do not include Palestinian figures from their past, a visitor to this page that has visited other ethnicity pages and seen historical figures can only assume there were no notable figures in the Palestinians past, is that fair to the Palestinian people? Lazyfoxx (talk) 04:38, 8 March 2012 (UTC)

Because historical "Palestinians" are ethnically Jewish, an entirely different ethnicity than the modern immigrants who call themselves Palestinians. Furthermore, it is offensive to call Jews Palestinians because that name means Philistines, an enemy of the Israelites. For another example of a modern ethnic group that falsely claims to be descended from an unrelated people, see Macedonians (ethnic group). Notice how there is no picture of Alexander the Great.--MamoudSurash (talk) 04:55, 8 March 2012 (UTC)

Modern Palestinians had Jewish as well as Gentile ancestors in their past who converted to Christianity, and many eventually to Islam and other religions. Modern Palestinians today have absorbed some ethnicities that have made Palestine their home over the last 2,000 years, but they still retain a majority of their ancestry from the indigenous ancestors of the land. Lazyfoxx (talk) 05:00, 8 March 2012 (UTC)

The same can be said of modern Turkish people, so why don't you add a picture of Constantine the Great to that article and see what happens. And if you consider ancient Jews to be Palestinians because some modern-day Palestinians might have some ancient Jewish ancestors, then why don't you add some pictures of the direct descendants of ancient Jews such as Adam Sandler and Albert Einstein to this article? Unless you are one of those people who believe modern Jews are Khazars and not real Jews. -- MamoudSurash (talk) 06:08, 8 March 2012 (UTC)

Lazyfoxx, you don't need to respond to people who simply make assertions or are here to troll the page. The talk page is for discussing proposed changes to content based on reliable sources. People who don't cite sources and policy don't matter. Sean.hoyland - talk 06:38, 8 March 2012 (UTC)

Debate on "Jews and Muslims lived peacefully together before Zionism"

A list of quotes by Palestinian leaders/intellectuals should be provided claiming this with links to various massacres carried out upon the Old Yishuv prior to Zionism since this is a huge component of Palestinian history, their narrative, and identity. DionysosElysees (talk) 18:42, 15 February 2012 (UTC)DionysosElysees

Your addition was original research. It included an uncited quotation ("Jews and Muslims living peacefully for centuries"), it asserts (without any sources) this meme is a myth, and it claims (again without any sources) the local population "exterminated" the Jewish population (a claim not even supported by Safed Plunder). I see you're a new editor. Please review WP:No original research, one of our key policies. Thank you. — Malik Shabazz ^Talk/_Stalk 20:43, 15 February 2012 (UTC)

I've removed this again. Its still OR and WP:SYNTH. You just copy pasted the sources at Safed Plunder, which as you know are being challenged there as unreliable. Furthermore, they don't mention this event in relation to the development of Palestinian identity which is where you are adding is info. You are making a connection not made by reliable sources. Please stop this. Go to Talk:Safed Plunder and address the concerns raised over sourcing and the facts of what happened before going around to multiple articles to add the same contested sources and text, in some places where even if it were true, it does belong, because reliable sources don't discussit in this context. Tiamut^talk 19:13, 16 February 2012 (UTC)

Safed Plunder sources issues have been resolved. DionysosElysees (talk) 10:06, 20 February 2012 (UTC)DionysosElysees

Jesus Christ in the info box list of Palestinians

Since numerous sources correctly remark that he was a Palestinian Jew, he should figure there, along with St George.Nishidani (talk) 14:38, 16 February 2012 (UTC)

See also discussion at Talk:List of Palestinians. To my mind it would be consistent other nationality articles. The concept of nationalism is only three centuries old, but that doesn't stop retrospective attributions here English people or Italians or Spanish people etc etc etc. Oncenawhile (talk) 13:45, 18 February 2012 (UTC)

I agree Nishidani, the addition of Jesus Christ into the infobox would be a great addition and would follow suit as Oncenawhile has stated with other ethnicity articles. Lazyfoxx (talk) 05:32, 23 February 2012 (UTC)

I suggested some time back that he should, as all RS assert, be also classified as a Palestinian Jew, and figure in the article on Jews a year or so ago, but this irks many apparently, since they confuse him with Christianity-qua-antisemitism, to the detriment of objective historical facts. But I don't think silence there, should translate into omitting the fact he was Palestinian here. In any case, this is a technical matter, of how to jigger a mugshot of JC into the template with major Palestinians. I can't do it. I think one or two of the people listed there could be removed without injury to their identity. The most prominent only should figure.Nishidani (talk) 11:14, 23 February 2012 (UTC)

I can work on and modify the infobox and add Jesus into there when I have some time Nishidani. Lazyfoxx (talk) 00:41, 1 March 2012 (UTC)

Great work Lazyfoxx. What do you think of adding this little guy in? http://wiki.riteme.site/wiki/File:Handala.gif . He is one of the most recognisable Palestinians. Oncenawhile (talk) 01:27, 1 March 2012 (UTC)

Compliments from the hedgehog Nishidani to that far from otiose fox! (allusion Isaiah Berlin)Nishidani (talk) 08:22, 1 March 2012 (UTC)

As far as I undertand, this article is about Palestinian Arabs. Jesus is quite out of scope for that. FunkMonk (talk) 08:39, 1 March 2012 (UTC)

Tell that to Ignatius of Loyola, Martino Martini and Alfred the Great. Neither of them spoke Spanish, Italian or English - "national languages" simply didn't exist back then. They may well have spoken languages that are historically related - just as are Aramaic and Arabic. Oncenawhile (talk) 09:53, 1 March 2012 (UTC)

No one has objected that St George was in the photo list as a Palestinian. Our text uncontroversially reads: 'Genetic analysis suggests the Muslims of Palestine are largely descendants of Christians[19] and Jews of the southern Levant and descendents of a core population that lived there in prehistoric times.' The 'Muslims' (not Arabs) are descendents from Christians and Jews, just as the Jews are, as often as not, descendents of Jews and other semitic peoples. Ancestors figure on the relevant pages (Maimonides on the Jews page). This is quite uncontroversial, as numerous academic RS speak of Jesus as a Palestinian Jew. All nationalities are territorially (where they lived, what culture they were formed in), not genetically defined. Pushkin was part Ethiopian, part German, part Scandinavian. But he is 'Russian'. Isaac Bashevis Singer was an American, though born in Poland, etc.etc.etc.Nishidani (talk) 10:45, 1 March 2012 (UTC)

I of course oppose this nonsense. He is not generally known as a "Palestinian" by scholarly sources, just like Jews who practiced Judaism throughout history in Land of Israel are not considered "Palestinian" and of course were not added to the infobox. --brewcrewer (yada, yada) 14:55, 1 March 2012 (UTC)

Well I've won a third of the bet I laid with myself this morning, and am awaiting the next predictable two editors to say the same thing so I can cash up and celebrate my commonsense intuition with a decent bottle of wine. By the way, we refer to standard RS for the land historically, not to partisan usage (Land of Israel).Nishidani (talk) 16:23, 1 March 2012 (UTC)

As am I a winner. I bet that most of your reply comment would not be substantively relevant.--brewcrewer (yada, yada) 16:34, 1 March 2012 (UTC)

Actually, you made a comment that did not address anything said above, and contained one misuse of policy-endorsed language, and one error regarding RS (where are you googling? Hundreds of RS speak of Palestinians Jews for that period). If you take that as 'winning', but all means breast the tape as you clap with one hand. But I'll wait till the rest of my bet falls into place.Nishidani (talk) 16:40, 1 March 2012 (UTC)

The inclusion of Jesus as a "Palestinian" is yet another blatant attempt by the Arabs to usurp Jewish identity and history. Jesus was a JUDEAN JEW, not a "Palestinian" Arab. Arabs still lived in Arabia at the time Jesus lived. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 217.64.30.8 (talk) 08:40, 2 March 2012 (UTC)

Uh, if you actually read one or two pages of any Gospel, you will discover what everyone with a first grade education knows, that Jesus, (if he existed) was a Galilean Jew, and not a Jew from Judea.Nishidani (talk) 15:15, 2 March 2012 (UTC)

this is really easy; give it refs according to WP:RS (say, 2–3). I put the tag on it. Choyoołʼįįhí:Seb az86556 ^{> haneʼ} 12:12, 2 March 2012 (UTC)

It's so easy, that I don't think it needs a ref tag, since all Jews at that time were 'Palestinian'. But

• (1) 'We can say that Jesus was a Palestinian Jew who lived during the reign of Emperor Tiberius.' Christopher Gilbert,A Complete Introduction to the Bible, Paulist Press 2009 p.187

• (2) 'Jesus was a Palestinian Jew; Paul was a Jew of the diaspora.' William Baird,History of New Testament Research, Fortress Press, 2002 p.260

• (3a)‘Jesus was a first-century Palestinian Jew. .His faith in God was nurtured within the context of a Jewish home and family, within the context of first-centurty Palestinian Judaism.’ p.30
• (3b)'Catholic sacraments have their foundation in the preaching and teaching ministry of Jesus of Nazareth was a first-century Palestinian Jew.' Gregory L. Klein, Robert A. Wolfe,Pastoral foundations of the Sacraments: a Catholic perspective, 1998 p.32

• (4) 'Born in Bethlehem, Jesus was a Palestinian Jew,' George Kaniarakath,Jesus Christ: a Meditative Introduction, Society of St Paul, Bombay 2008

• (5) 'Jesus, like many Palestinian Jews,..' Chuck Colson, Norm Geisler, Ted Cabal, The Apologetics Study Bible, 2007 p.1481 on Mark 7:35

• (6) 'The title Kurios applied to Jesus by the Palestinian disciples', David B. Capes, Old Testament Yahweh texts in Paul's christology, Mohr Siebeck, Tuebingen 1992 p.13

• (7) 'The reader also will notice the new beatitude generated by Palestinian Jesus culture—'Blessed is whoever is not scandalized by me' (Matt. 11.4/Luke 7.22).' Vernon Kay Robbins, The tapestry of early Christian discourse, 1996 p.140

• (8) 'How did Jesus relate to Palestinian Judaism and how was he different from other Palestinian Jews?' Mark Allan Powell, Jesus as a figure in history, Westerminster John Knox Press, 1998 p.170

• (9) 'Christianity was at first essentially a sect of Palestinian Jews who believed Jesus was the Messiah.' Kathryn Muller Lopez, Glenn Jonas, Donald N. Penny, (eds.)Christianity: A Biblical, Historical, and Theological Guide, Mercer University Press, 2010 p.115.

If Jewish editors dislike identifying him as Jewish, that's no reason for them to deny that he was, in terms of territorial identity, Palestinian. I can't find sources identifying him as a member of Fatah or the PLO, but he was certainly a 'terrorist' in Roman eyes, as most Jews were, who challenged the foreign imperium trying to grab of their native home. Nishidani (talk) 15:12, 2 March 2012 (UTC)

You're correct - in terms of territorial identity he was a Palestinian, a Middle Eastern, a Levantine and a Galilean. This article is about the Palestinian People, and not about the people who were born in the region of Palestine. For that reason Palestinians who were born outside of Palestine should be included in that article and people who are/were not affiliated with the Palestinian people, such as Jesus shouldn't. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 77.124.114.188 (talk) 22:42, 10 March 2012 (UTC)

---

Applying the adjective "Palestinian" to Jesus and his surroundings is certainly done by at least some scholars, but it's technically somewhat anachronistic, since the Roman province of Judaea was renamed to Palaestina (by the emperor Hadrian, in order to spite the Jews in the aftermath of the Second Jewish revolt) only around 135 A.D., about a century after Jesus' death. During Jesus' own lifetime, the word Παλαιστινη / Palaestina predominantly referred to the southern coastal plain (from approximately Joppa south to Gaza) -- i.e. "Philistia" -- so that Jesus would not have been called or considered "Palestinian" at that time... AnonMoos (talk) 15:29, 2 March 2012 (UTC)

Could you please read up the history of the word Palestine. I'm sure I edited in the fact, several years ago, on one of these pages, that Herodotus used the word 'Palestine' (Syro-Palestine) in his histories to designate the area, and it was current from that time, and certainly is not Roman usage. The 'to spite the Jews' is, check scholarly sources, again a commonplace rumour without substantial documentary grounding or consensus by contemporary scholarship. The standard myth that 'Palestine' was introduced as a term after the suppression of the Bar Kochba revolt is just that, either ignorance or hasbara. This is the umpteeth time in 15 years of using the net that I run across this template. Can someone in Tel Aviv please update it? Nishidani (talk) 16:15, 2 March 2012 (UTC)

Herodotus actually didn't know or care very much about areas inland from the coast in that part of the world, and so applied the term rather loosely, but someone like Pausanias who had more local knowledge and was more interested in an accurate geographical description, referred to Judea as being "above" Philistia (i.e. in the hills inland from the coast), and not "in" Philistia. You can see the exact Greek words huper tês Palaistinês υπερ της Παλαιστινης "above Palaistine" for yourself at http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0159%3Abook%3D10%3Achapter%3D12%3Asection%3D9 . The term Παλαιστινη / Palaestina was certainly used before ca. 135 AD. HOWEVER, 1) before ca. 135 AD it was not the official name of Roman province; and 2) before ca. 135 AD it mainly referred to the southern coastal plain (especially as used by among those who actually lived in or near the area), and therefore it's quite unlikely that Jesus (who did not come from or frequent the southern coastal plain) would have been called a "Palestinian" during his own lifetime. And our article Judaea (Roman province) is pretty emphatic about what you call "rumour". So unfortunately for you, you're the one who's pushing ignorant anachronistic hasbara here... AnonMoos (talk) 19:11, 2 March 2012 (UTC)

I agree, this is not about "Palestinian Jew"... it's about "a Palestinian". If any native of historical Palestine is a Palestinian, then you need to put Netanyahu into the box. If your argument then is that he doesn't speak Arabic or that he is a Jew -- neither did Jesus, and so was Jesus. So... Bring reliable sources that say Jesus was "(a) Palestinian". Choyoołʼįįhí:Seb az86556 ^{> haneʼ} 15:36, 2 March 2012 (UTC)

Um, Netanyahu was not born in Palestine, but in Tel Aviv, in Israel. I see no one is actually responding to the earlier comments, but just anxious to dissociate Jesus with the word 'Palestinian people' which, actually, does no designate only Palestinians after 1948. Why by the way is St George in there? Not a whisper about his Palestinian presence, until I added, by the same logic, Jesus. Nishidani (talk) 16:15, 2 March 2012 (UTC)

Is being 'born in Palestine' a condition for inclusion in the infobox? If so, we need to get rid of a bunch of current members like Queen Rania of Jordan (Kuwait), Nathalie Handa (Haiti) and even the perhaps best known "Palestinian" of all, Arafat (Cairo). Then we can replace them with "true" Palestinians like Moshe Dayan, Yitzhak Rabin and Ehud Barak. I'm also puzzled as to why Netanyahu, born in Tel Aviv, Israel is disqualified, but Juliano Mer-Khamis, born in Nazareth, Israel, is a valid Palestinian. I await your clarification on this point. Alternatively, we can stop this nonsense, and remove both Jesus and St. George. Jeff Song (talk) 19:24, 2 March 2012 (UTC)

There are and have been a lot of Jews who are not ethnically Jews . . . (Jewish) Israelis who were not born in Israel. What's your point? Identity is political, familial, territorial, cultural, historical. I gather you folks are reading wiki articles for your information, and not reading the relevant literature. This article is defective in defining Palestinian identity purely in terms of contemporary territorial or familial origins. That should be fixed. The articles on this are lamentably thin and superficial. In any case, we go by RS. I'll provide a few dozen more, defining Jesus and his apostles as Palestinians, or all people in the Roman period of rule as 'Palestinians', if needed. Nishidani (talk) 20:21, 2 March 2012 (UTC)

My point is that your disqualification of Netanyahu as a Palestinian, based on the fact that he was born in Israel seems to be at odds with the way the infobox is currently structured. so either the infobox needs some serious rework, or your understanding of what it takes to be included in it needs revision. Golda Meir is famously known to self-identify as a Palestinian, and there are multiple sources saying that[1][2][3]. Should we include her in the infobox, or drop this nonsense? Jeff Song (talk) 20:49, 2 March 2012 (UTC)

I suggest some reading so we can have this debate on an intellectual level:

• Anonmoos, you should read Timeline of the name Palestine, as well as the recent discussion at Talk:Palestine. One of the scholarly refs (Jacobson) used states that most greco-roman classical literature used the word Palestine to refer to the whole land of Israel. Also look at how Josephus and Philo (Jews who lived at the time of Jesus) used the word.
• Seb, you should read Ioudaioi if you want to understand what the word we translate as "Jew" actually meant in the time of Jesus.
• Jeff, you should read up on Nationalism and historiography so you can understand that every nationality in the world does exactly this with history - why should Palestinian history have less rights than English, Chinese or Indian history?

Jesus was from Galilee-Judea just as Confucius was from Lu state and Buddha was from Kosala. Jesus is also defined by scholars as Palestinian, just as Confucius is Chinese and Buddha is Nepali. Does it feel right that the only reason we are having this debate is because of modern politics? Ask yourselves, what would Jesus do? Oncenawhile (talk) 20:22, 2 March 2012 (UTC)

I don't need to read anything. This article defines a group of people. Jesus was not part of that group. There's no need to speculate what Jesus would do; take your Bible and find me the line, spoken by Jesus, "I am a Palestinian." Choyoołʼįįhí:Seb az86556 ^{> haneʼ} 20:51, 2 March 2012 (UTC)

This is ridiculous. Nearly all RS's agree that Jesus was of Jewish lineage. The term "Palestinian" has come to mean those of Arab, and not Jewish, descent. The lede of this article makes this clear. Either provide sources stating that Jesus was Arab and not Jewish, or remove the image immediately. If you can source that, I would be not only surprised, but also very concerned as to which time/space portal I had recently fallen through. If Jesus was a Palestinian, then so are Adam Sandler, Natalie Portman, and Binyamin Netanyahu. Evanh2008, Super Genius Who am I? You can talk to me... 21:04, 2 March 2012 (UTC)

Super Genius, with a name like that I would have expected better. The terms Arab and Jew were applied by the British during the mandate period to differentiate between the natives (who mostly spoke Arabic) and the immigrants (who were mostly Jews). There were also Arab Jews (known today under the umbrella term Mizrahi Jews). To understand the word Arab properly, you should read Arab people to understand that most Palestinians are Arab in only the linguistic sense. Many Palestinians do choose to designate themselves as Arabs. But they are technically only Arabs as much as Americans are English. And as to your point on Jews, you are missing that the sources Nishidani brought mostly use the phrase "Palestinian Jew" to describe Jesus. Oncenawhile (talk) 21:24, 2 March 2012 (UTC)

I am fully aware of the genetic and linguistic nuances here. But this is the issue -- do you have a source that says that Jesus was a Mizrahi Jew, or any other sort of Arab? Regardless of the different historical applications of the term, the modern usage of the term "Palestinian", as well as this article refers to non-Jewish persons of Arab descent which includes a very small minority of Jews. In order to class Jesus among a group of Arab-descended Palestinians, you must establish that he was an Arab-descended Palestinian. This article is about Arab-descended Palestinians, to the explicit exclusion of the vast majority of Jews. Let's push this a little further -- could we add some pictures of Hillel the Elder, or maybe Rabbi Akiva? Hey, maybe even Shimon bar-Kochva or Judah Maccabee. Also, my username isn't Super Genius; that's a title I use (facetiously, I might add), but that's beside the point. Evanh2008, Super Genius Who am I? You can talk to me... 21:49, 2 March 2012 (UTC)

You need to read this article more carefully. It says that modern Palestinians are Arabic-speakers, not "Arab-descended". If we were having this conversation in 1947 this would not even be a debate. At that time, and during the 2,500 years previously, Jews living in the region were technically Palestinian too. Only in the last 60 years did things change, but that is another story. But modern politics should not affect history, which is why scholars still call Jesus Palestinian. Oncenawhile (talk) 23:22, 2 March 2012 (UTC)

Please could someone reply to my question above re Confucius and Buddha? Oncenawhile (talk) 23:23, 2 March 2012 (UTC)

Could you maybe replay to my question about Golda Meir? A self-described Palestinian, acknowledged in reliable sources? Jeff Song (talk) 00:05, 3 March 2012 (UTC)

I have no objection at all to including her. She was an immigrant but became a Palestinian. Then 1948 happened and things get complicated.

So, what are your thoughts about the parallel drawn above with Confucius and Buddha? Oncenawhile (talk) 00:27, 3 March 2012 (UTC)

I think that parallel elides the issue. A better parallel woudl be attempting to describe the 14th Dalai Lama or Thubten Jigme Norbu as Chinese, or Abdul Sattar Edhi as Indian. These people - whether Rabbi Akiva, Jesus or Moshe Dayan are not Palestinian in any meaningful way, as that term is used today. It is a confusing and anachronistic attempt to classify them on a purely technical grounds as belonging to a nationality or ethnicity that they do not belong to. Using your definition, we could copy over the infobox from Israelis over here, couldn't we? Jeff Song (talk) 01:29, 3 March 2012 (UTC)

Some thoughts: If Jesus is considered Palestinian, then so is every Palestine-based Jewish contemporary of his, no? The Rabbi Akiva and Hillel analogies seem particularly apt, as that really opens the door for every Israeli Jew, ever, to be classified as Palestinian. The line in the sand, no matter how we draw it, is arbitrary, but it must be drawn. In my opinion it is best to draw it at the contemporary definition of the term, which is, unequivocally, that of Arabs, generally Muslim, with a significant Christian majority, living in the western portion of the land falling under the British Mandate for Palestine. In other words, it encompasses the vast majority of non-Jews, with a tiny minority of Jews, living east of the Suez Canal, south of the Golan Heights, and west of the Jordan River. If we want to get overly technical, then it's worth noting that the State of Israel is just as much a Palestinian entity as the Palestinian Authority is. We're going to have to decide whether established racial definitions and contemporary usage actually mean anything to the article. Again, if Jesus is Palestinian, why isn't Hillel Palestinian. And if Hillel is Palestinian, then why isn't Bar Kochva Palestinian? And if Bar Kochva is Palestinian, where exactly does the distinction between those popularly known as Palestinians, and those established as Jews by genetic bloodlines really begin? Or does it even? Evanh2008, Super Genius Who am I? You can talk to me... 01:42, 3 March 2012 (UTC)

(Response to Jeff) Brilliant - so you cannot answer the question - if you think it elides the issue you need to explain why rather than bringing new (and not relevant) questions. Your proposed names are not relevant because they are conflating modern politics with history -they serve only to highlight your lack of understanding. The case of Tibet/China is not comparable, as modern Tibet was NOT known through most of history as "China" (even when part of the empire it was always an outpost and not china proper) in the same way that modern Israel was known through most of history as Palestine. Pakistan/India is more similar, but the example you gave is of a person who lived during partition and therefore is a parallel only for the complexities that recent history has brought to debates around nationality. On Pakistan/India a relevant parallel would be someone from pre-modern history like Guru Nanak Dev (the founder of Sikhism) - in your opinion was he Pakistani or Indian?

Let me ask my question again but more directly - do you believe it is fair to say that Buddha was Indian and Confucius was Chinese?

Oncenawhile (talk) 01:57, 3 March 2012 (UTC)

(response to Super Genius) There are actually quite a number of RS which refer to Akiva, Hillel and Bar Kochba as Palestinian Jews.

But I agree with your line in the sand point - a point well made, and we need to reach consensus on it. Before I give you my perspective of where that line should be, could you please do me the honour of:

(1) responding to my questions above on the founders of the three other religions; and

(2) letting me have your view as to whether we would even be in this debate if we were discussing this in 1946? Or put another way, if Palestine had not been partitioned in 1947/8 and the State of Israel had not been declared, would it be controversial to call Jesus or Hillel or Akiva Palestinians?

Oncenawhile (talk) 02:07, 3 March 2012 (UTC)

Call me Evan. : ) First off, I have no problem stating that Jesus is a Palestinian Jew, because that is quite obviously true. What I have a problem with is using an image of a Palestinian Jew and well-known founder of the largest religion in the world in the infobox of an article pertaining to a people who, under modern definitions, are almost exclusively non-Jewish. On the subject of Confucius and Prince Siddhartha, they were certainly Chinese and Indian, respectively. I'm not sure exactly how that relates to the subject here, though. The key difference here is the difference historically between the use of "Palestinian" as a national/regional affiliation, and its current usage as a ethnic-political denominator. As to whether we might be talking about this pre-1948, I can't say for sure, but I would say probably not. But again, I think the point is effectively irrelevant; we're not obligated to pretend that historical events didn't happen in order to increase the technical sophistication of our articles. The 1948 re-establishment of the State of Israel is the defining event which provides the paradigm by which the term "Palestinian" has been defined for the past half century. Is Jesus a Palestinian, technically speaking? Yes. Is he a Palestinian, as the majority of modern people understand that term? Absolutely not. And that, I would argue, is the more important question. Evanh2008, Super Genius Who am I? You can talk to me... 02:45, 3 March 2012 (UTC)

I added a source confirming Jesus as a Palestinian. There is no reason Jesus, aside from people's personal POVs and agendas, should not be included on the Palestinian page. He was the founder of Christianity; a Palestinian religion that was eventually adopted by other Peoples and Cultures and spread worldwide. The fact that many Palestinians converted to Islam after the Islamic Conquest and the centuries thereafter does not change the history of Palestine. Lazyfoxx (talk) 05:49, 3 March 2012 (UTC)

Jesus is only "Palestinian" in a narrow geographic sense (which is semi-anachronistic to the geographic terminology which was used during his own lifetime); however, he's not "Palestinian" in any sense having anything to do with cultural or ethnic or political identity (which is how the term is most commonly understood today). You can only call Jesus a "Palestinian" in the main meaning covered in this article by illegitimately conflating the specialized technical use of the term by scholars of the ancient near east with a separate meaning commonly used in English during the last 50 years or slightly more (since I doubt whether the majority of the population of English-speaking countries were at all familiar with the use of the word "Palestinian" to refer only to Arabs before the 1960s)... AnonMoos (talk) 07:45, 3 March 2012 (UTC)

Hi Anonmoos, your argument falls down because of your uses of the words "narrow" and "specialized" which illustrate the difference between your understanding and the reality. Your use of the word Arab is also problematic. I'll explain more in my reply to Evan. Oncenawhile (talk) 09:35, 3 March 2012 (UTC)

Whatever -- during the British Mandate period, the term "Palestinian" was used to refer to all aspects of the Mandate, including both its Jewish and Arab inhabitants. The Jerusalem Post was known as the Palestine Post as late as 1950, and I doubt whether the majority of the population of English-speaking countries were at all familiar with the main meaning of the word "Palestinian" as it is used in this article until the 1960s. What commonality is there between the technical scholarly meaning of the word "Palestinian" as used by scholars of the ancient period as a geographical term (not a cultural or linguistic term) to refer to non-Arab peoples of ancient times, and the other separate meaning of the word "Palestinian" as used during the last 50 years to refer almost exclusively to Arabs?? There is no real valid semantic connection which would allow Jesus to be legitimately referred to as a "Palestinian" in the sense in which the term is used in the title of this article. AnonMoos (talk) 15:41, 3 March 2012 (UTC)

(reply to Evan) Thanks for your thoughtful reply. I think we're making some progress.

Firstly, On Confucius and Buddha, the point is that they are technically less Chinese and Indian than Jesus was Palestinian - in the times they lived there was simply no concept of China or India (scriptures suggest they self identified as people from Lu (state) and Kosala respectively). The reason we call them Chinese and Indian is because that is how scholars today refer to their cultural regions. Jesus's definition as Palestinian is even stronger, since not only is the region in which he lived (Galilee and Judea together) known today by only one "cultural" name by scholars (Palestine), when Jesus lived his contemporaries were actually using the term Palestine to define the region.

Now to point you (rightly) describe as more important. You wrote "The 1948 re-establishment of the State of Israel is the defining event which provides the paradigm by which the term "Palestinian" has been defined for the past half century. Is Jesus a Palestinian, technically speaking? Yes. Is he a Palestinian, as the majority of modern people understand that term? Absolutely not." My comments below:

• With respect to your comment "as the majority of modern people understand that term", that is correct, but the issue here and the reason we are debating this is because "the majority of modern people MISunderstand the term".
• With respect to the "defining event" you are again 100% correct. But that defining event meant two things: (1) that most Jews in the region renounced their self-identification as Palestinians, but most Christians, Moslems, Samaritans and others did not; (2) the great Israeli PR machine began a 60 year attempt to deny any history to the Palestinian identity. I can't see how we should allow ourselves to be influenced by this.

Oncenawhile (talk) 09:56, 3 March 2012 (UTC)

""the majority of modern people MISunderstand the term" ? Oh, is this a debate about how most people misunderstand the term "Americans"? Choyoołʼįįhí:Seb az86556 ^{> haneʼ} 15:54, 3 March 2012 (UTC)

Oncenawhile -- Your analogies aren't too great, since there's no real room for doubt that Gautama Sakyamuni and Confucius were firmly situated within the Indian civilization and Chinese civilization of their periods. By contrast, since "Palestinian" is used as a geographic term (not really a cultural or linguistic term) by scholars of ancient times, there's no "ancient Palestinian civilization" in established scholarly terminology (there was a Canaanite civilization during some periods, but Judaism always defined itself in opposition to Canaanite civilization). Furthermore, before about 135 A.D. (a century after the Jesus' lifetime), there was no official Roman administrative subdivision named Palaestina, and it seems that the tendency to use the term Palaestina / Παλαιστινη to refer to areas beyond the coastal plain was strongest among those who were fairly remote from the area or knew little about it, so it seems extremely unlikely that Jesus or those closest to him would have considered themselves to be "Palestinian" -- and even in the unlikely event that they did consider themselves to be "Palestinians", there is no real substantial continuity between that purely-geographical non-political non-Arab meaning of the word and the meaning common in the last 50 years... AnonMoos (talk) 16:06, 3 March 2012 (UTC)

Anonmoos, I respect your editing but from your various posts you appear to be out of your depth here. In this post you are using terms like "Indian civilization" and "Chinese civilization", without acknowledging that those are actually terms of modern nationalism. You should read Nationalism and historiography so you can contextualise all of this. On a less fundamental point, your guess as to classical scholars' "tendency" has no basis and has chosen to ignore compelling primary (Philo and Josephus) and secondary (Jacobson) sources to the contrary. Oncenawhile (talk) 23:23, 3 March 2012 (UTC)

What does that mean? The ancient Greeks had a clear idea that there was an Indian civilization, and were they "modern nationalists"?? Please consult our articles on Greater India or "Indosphere" and Sinosphere before you continue making rather strange statements. AnonMoos (talk) 02:15, 4 March 2012 (UTC)

This is not a forum for personal views, or undocumented assertions, or idiosyncratic takes on matters. The only thing that counts is policy and RS. Repeating vague unsupported and often identifiably wrong ideas, as do AnonMoos and a few others here, is not an argument or grounds for editing. A huge number of historical RS define the area in the time of Christ as Palestine, describe Christ as a native of Palestine, or Palestinian. We write according to sources, if anyone needs to be reminded of that.Nishidani (talk) 16:20, 3 March 2012 (UTC)

No. Your personal view is that the "Palestine" referred to with respect to the time of Jesus is the same as "Palestinian" in the contemparary sense. Bring those sources. Choyoołʼįįhí:Seb az86556 ^{> haneʼ} 16:52, 3 March 2012 (UTC)

This page is under a 1 revert rule and you have effectively reverted two edits today. So please self-revert, or explain in terms of policy your unusual alacrity in removing edits almost instantaneously which were made to satisfy your personal objection, and which you dismiss without cogent reasoning.

(1) this (with the unintelligible summary (unacceptable, to who?) is a revert of this edit made by LazyFoxx, in reply to your request for a source, on 5.25 3 March today.

(2) this is a revert of my edit at 16:04 today. The edit summary, ‘sources must reflect contemporary meaning as given in the lead of this art’ refers to the first paragraph and ignores the third, hence invalid I told you on the talk page this article errs by superficiality, and that it requires emendation, as I have now begun to do per RS. The word ‘Palestinian’ is a term with an historical designation for antiquity, and cannot, as the earlier article suggested, be constricted in reference to modern times, or, contra historical usage, the modern people.

You are not the lone arbiter of what is acceptable. Nishidani (talk) 17:52, 3 March 2012 (UTC).

And, by the way, do not misrepresent my views. In writing, 'Your personal view is that the "Palestine" referred to with respect to the time of Jesus is the same as "Palestinian" in the contemparary sense,' you are attributing to me something I have no written. I have documented that biblical scholars consensually use Palestine, referring to the roughly same area as Israel/Palestine, as the default term for the area, at the period Jesus, whoever he was, was born, and it is standard academic usage to define people born in that area at the time, whatever their ethnicity as 'Palestinian'. The place has been called Palestine for 2,500 years. In wiki, correct me if I am wrong, there is no set policy on how nations or people are to be defined. They are defined by cultural, geographical, historical, political, and ethnic affiliation. Well, some of us just use policy and RS to write in wikipedia. So please, if you have rational objections, ground your remarks in both policy and established usage for defining nationalities and people in the past on wikipedia. We all call the following ethnically non-Roman writers Romans: Ennius, who claimed to be of Messapian origin; Horace, who was quite possibly was Illyrian origin; Terence, who appears to have been a Libyan Afer: St Augustine, who was of mixed Berber and Carthaginian descent. Some of the greatest poets of the Orient were not ethnically Chinese or Japanese in all probability and yet we call Li Po a Chinese poet, despite the evidence that he was of Turkish origin, just as we 山上憶良/Yamanoue no Okura) a Japanese poet, though the textual tradition gives strong evidence he was a Paekche 'Korean'. 'Palestinian' is not an ethnonym, but a toponymic adjective, referring in these cases to a highly variegated historical population associated with that area. So give me the policy on which you rest your judgement, and desist from, until this is resolved, unilateral and adventitious reverts of RS. Thank you. Nishidani (talk) 18:05, 3 March 2012 (UTC)

read your own treatise again: you are indeed conflating the historical and present meaning again. Your use of the sources is complete synthesis; there's a policy you should read (WP:SYNTH). Choyoołʼįįhí:Seb az86556 ^{> haneʼ} 18:21, 3 March 2012 (UTC)

Don't be silly. Don't avoid the questions other editors ask you to address. If you make an assertion, back it up. I have not edited in anything that violates WP:SYNTH, which if you read it, does not apply to comments made to explain issues other editors are unfamiliar with on the talk page. You asked what sources refer to Jesus as (a) Palestinian. I provided them. Your misprision is to think, since you apparently do not read books on that period, that the word is restricted to the present population. 'Palestinian' is a default term for all inhabitants of that area in the period we are dealing with, and no amount of wikilawyering can alter what WP:RS state plainly. By the way, if your two reverts today are not what they appear to be, I'd appreciate an explanation. Thanks Nishidani (talk) 18:44, 3 March 2012 (UTC)

Does everyone understand that a word may have different meanings in different contexts? Back in the 1940s, the mandate had "Palestinian Jews" and "Palestinian Arabs". The Palestinians Jews became Israelis and the term "Palestinian Arab" was shortened to "Palestinian." Here is Moshe Dayan as a "Palestinian Jew". Kauffner (talk) 17:22, 3 March 2012 (UTC)

And until well into the 1970s, the main Zionist fundraising body in Britain was the Joint Palestine Appeal.[4] RolandR (talk) 22:51, 3 March 2012 (UTC)

(Reply to Oncenawhile): Thanks for your reply. I think I have a better handle on the Confucius and Buddha analogies now, so I'll respond -- I would agree that, by the measure of the majority of historically accepted definitions of "Palestinian", that term is indeed MISunderstood by most people today. However, many other terms are also, technically speaking, misunderstood today but also accepted under their new definitions, for example the phrase "no love lost" originally meant the exact opposite of its modern usage (see post #13 here). Moreover, someone pointed out, quite rightly, the usage of the term "American". If indeed we were to use the system that you seem to be advocating, John A. Macdonald and Antonio López de Santa Anna could correctly be listed as Americans.

In fact, the region in which Jesus lived and taught was not commonly known as "Palestine" at the time, at least not in any official capacity. It was known by the Romans as Judea, and usage of "Palestine" by other sources is, to my knowledge, quite erratic during the first century. For example, Philo uses the term commonly, but Flavius Josephus, a native of the region and probably the most prolific source on the time period, as far as I know uses it once or twice, and then only in reference to outside sources that use the term.

But the thrust of my argument is that there are all kinds of terms that, if applied according to their strictest definitions, would render much of this site into nonsensical doublespeak and gibberish. As I said before, Jesus is certainly a Palestinian Jew, but I think being a Palestinian Jew (particularly a first-century Palestinian Jew) doesn't qualify him to be lumped into the modern category of Palestinians. As I asked before, if we apply the "Palestinian" label to Jesus, then what Palestinian Jew isn't going to be thrown into the Palestinian category? At what point do the distinct modern categories of Jew and Palestinian begin to have any meaning? Or do they even have any meaning? Is it our goal to be informative and understandable to the average reader, or to do all we can to exhaustively apply technical definitions and categories in order to blur the lines between commonly understood terms as they are commonly understood? Evanh2008, Super Genius Who am I? You can talk to me... 00:02, 4 March 2012 (UTC)

The inclusion of Jesus in the Palestinian people list is a complete historical fallacy and is denying that very existence of an Old Yishuv. Why not just delete all articles referring to pre-Zionist Jewish presence in Israel and completely pander to so-called "Palestinian" propaganda?

DionysosElysees (talk) 10:06, 20 February 2012 (UTC)DionysosElysees DionysosElysees (talk) 10:06, 20 February 2012 (UTC)DionysosElysees

RfC: Was Jesus a "Palestinian"?

Was Jesus a "Palestinian", e.g. was he a member of the "Palestinian people"? Choyoołʼįįhí:Seb az86556 ^{> haneʼ} 16:50, 3 March 2012 (UTC)

• Negative and neither is Saint George, both in the infobox image which should be removed or updated. Shuki (talk) 18:14, 3 March 2012 (UTC)
  • We use descriptors in this area of identity as per sources, not personal opinions. Multiple academic sources describe Jesus as a native of Palestine: he and his immediate disciples are defined by the adjective 'Palestinian'. The Gospels have Quirinius conducting a census of the population of 'Palestine' and Jesus's family are said to have gone to Bethlehem to register as denizens of that Palestine which was under Roman authority. The Italians did not have a 'national identity' before the Risorgimento (1868) as everyone knows (look up Massimo d'Azeglio). But all writers, academics, historians speak of the population of the preceding millenia as Italians. Editors who see something damaging to Israel's image here are in the wrong court of appeal. This is not politics. This is adherence to RS, which are unanimous that Jesus was born in, and native to, Palestine, and was a Palestinian, just as, according to Clement of Alexandria, Justin Martyr was. As is usual with the usual lads and lasses, exceptions must be made for all articles dealing with Palestinians. They mustn't have a history, as an 'invented people', whatever sources say. :)Nishidani (talk) 20:57, 3 March 2012 (UTC)

Since this is a serious problem, arising from the fact that (a) the word 'Palestinian' defines the earliest Christian founders in academic discourse yet (b) POV warriors, and also many others whose culture comes from newspapers and TV, hear only a contemporary resonance. Wikipedia is an encyclopedia that is neutral. Its neutrality is sustained by strict adhesion to the terms, concepts and insights of the best scholarship. Nothing else counts. It should not tolerate gerrymandering to rig a result that goes against RS. The best scholarship defines a cultural and territorial identity in the word 'Palestinian' that extends over two millenia, and applies it regularly to Jesus and his milieu. The article says Palestinians of today are in good part descendents of that milieu. Jesus is defined in those terms. So, if your judgement is adverse, please explain, and explain persuasively what on earth are the terms 'Palestine' and 'Palestinian' doing in the following sources.

• (1) 'In the time of the definitive redaction of the Gospel, the differentiation of two groups of indigenous Palestinians, the Jews and the young community of the Christians, had become a fact.' Georges Augustin Barrois - Jesus Christ and the temple St Vladimir’s Seminary Press1980 p,154

• (2)Much is made today of pre-Pauline hellenistic Christianity, whether pre-Pauline hellenistic Jewish or pre-Pauline hellenistic Gentile. To this category all concepts that manifestly antedate Paul but are judged too advanced for native Palestinians (Jesus and his disciples) are assigned; . .Rather than building hellenistic castles in the air, this work will centre its attention upon Palestinian foundations.’ Richard N. Longenecker - The Christology of Early Jewish Christianity (1970 SCM) Regent College reprint2001 p.8 n.15

• (3) Those events and that teaching would have meant much to the dozens of Palestinian Jews we call the early apostles. . . .Could any of those who were not familiar with Jesus in his native Palestine have been totally incurious about his public life and teaching, what manner of man he was that some had thought him intimately related to God and others wanted him dead.?’ Gerard S. Sloyan, Jesus: Word made flesh, Liturgical Press, 2008 p.40

• (4) Jesus’ rejection of divorce outright would have offended practically everyone of His day. Further, Jesus’ view that the single state was a legitimate and not abnormal calling for those to whom it was given, went against prevailing views in various parts of the Roman Empire about a man's duty to marry and procreate, but nowhere more so than in His native Palestine.’ Ben Witherington 111, Women in the Ministry of Jesus: A Study of Jesus' Attitudes to Women and and Their Roles As Reflected in His Earthly Life, Cambridge University Press 1987 p.125

• (5) The earliest church was not entirely homogeneous culturally. Acts 6 indicates that almost from the beginning two groups existed.: the Hebrews and the Hellenists. Most scholars conclude that the Hebrews were primarily Aramaic-speaking Jews and native Palestinian in dress. The Hellenists were on the other hand Jews that had .. adopted Greek as their language as well as Greek dress and customs David A. Fiensy, New Testament Introduction, College Press p.167

• (6) 'Jesus, a Jew of First-Century Palestine.' Frederick James Murphy, The religious world of Jesus: an introduction to Second Temple Palestinian Judaism, Abingdon Press1991 p.311

• (7) 'As I examined these scenes again, I could find none where Jesus directly challenged the forces occupying his native Palestine.' Virginia Stem Owens, Looking for Jesus, Westminster John Knox Press 1999 p.250

• (8) 'Jesus, and the message that he preached to the people of his native Palestine, was truly prophetic,' Joseph Stoutzenberger, Celebrating sacraments, St Mary’s Press, 2000 p.286

• (9) As a man, he (Jesus) traveled throughout his native Palestine teaching the word of God (see Sermon on the Mount), healing the sick,and performing miracles.’ Eric Donald Hirsch, Joseph F. Kett, James S. Trefil,The new dictionary of cultural literacy, Houghton Mifflin 2002 p.12

• (10) ‘The Bultmann era of New Testament scholarship did not encourage research into the Palestinian background of either Jesus or his movement’ (citing Freyne) Morten H. Jensen, The Literary and Archaeological Sources on the Reign of Herod Antipas and its Socio-Economic Impact on Galilee, Mohr Siebeck 2010 p.5

• (11) The "influence" of Sal terrae and Lux Mundi seems to have originated, as ideas, with the Palestinian Jesus. Eric Francis Fox Bishop, Jesus of Palestine: the local background to the Gospel documents, Lutterworth Press 1955 p.73

• (12) But of all the traditions to which Jesus and his Palestinian disciples would have been exposed, the most influential would naturally have been the Jewish.' John Davidson,The gospel of Jesus: in search of his original teachings, 2005 p.177.

• (13) 'We can say that Jesus was a Palestinian Jew who lived during the reign of Emperor Tiberius.' Christopher Gilbert,A Complete Introduction to the Bible, Paulist Press 2009 p.187

• (14) 'Jesus was a Palestinian Jew; Paul was a Jew of the diaspora.' William Baird,History of New Testament Research, Fortress Press, 2002 p.260

• (15a)‘Jesus was a first-century Palestinian Jew. .His faith in God was nurtured within the context of a Jewish home and family, within the context of first-century Palestinian Judaism.’ p.30
• (15b)'Catholic sacraments have their foundation in the preaching and teaching ministry of Jesus of Nazareth a first-century Palestinian Jew.' Gregory L. Klein, Robert A. Wolfe,Pastoral foundations of the Sacraments: a Catholic perspective, 1998 p.32

• (16) 'Born in Bethlehem, Jesus was a Palestinian Jew,' George Kaniarakath,Jesus Christ: a Meditative Introduction, Society of St Paul, Bombay 2008

• (17) 'Jesus, like many Palestinian Jews,..' Chuck Colson, Norm Geisler, Ted Cabal, The Apologetics Study Bible, 2007 p.1481 on Mark 7:35

• (18) 'The title Kurios applied to Jesus by the Palestinian disciples,' David B. Capes, Old Testament Yahweh texts in Paul's christology, Mohr Siebeck, Tuebingen 1992 p.13

• (19) 'The reader also will notice the new beatitude generated by Palestinian Jesus culture—'Blessed is whoever is not scandalized by me' (Matt. 11.4/Luke 7.22).' Vernon Kay Robbins, The tapestry of early Christian discourse, 1996 p.140

• (20) 'How did Jesus relate to Palestinian Judaism and how was he different from other Palestinian Jews?' Mark Allan Powell, Jesus as a figure in history, Westerminster John Knox Press, 1998 p.170

• (21) 'Christianity was at first essentially a sect of Palestinian Jews who believed Jesus was the Messiah.' Kathryn Muller Lopez, Glenn Jonas, Donald N. Penny, (eds.)Christianity: A Biblical, Historical, and Theological Guide, Mercer University Press, 2010 p.115.Nishidani (talk) 20:57, 3 March 2012 (UTC)

Nishidani -- what the heck is the real point of accumulating numbered bullet points and cutting-and-pasting in a bunch of stuff, when none of it directly addresses the basic question at issue, which is: Is there any substantial continuity between the technical geographical use of the term "Palestinian" by scholars (to refer to non-Arab peoples of ancient times) and the use of the term "Palestinian" in English over the last fifty years which is dealt with in this article (i.e. to refer almost exclusively to Arabs, as a political, cultural, and ethnic term, not just geographical)? You could assemble 500 numbered bullet points, and go on a binge of cutting-and-pasting in 50 megabytes of quotes, but if they don't actually address the main issue, then they will still be unpersuasive... AnonMoos (talk) 07:16, 4 March 2012 (UTC)

Well, read the evidence. Wikipedia is based on evidence which will quite clearly indicate to you that 'the use of the term "Palestinian" in English over the last fifty years which is dealt with in this article (i.e. to refer almost exclusively to Arabs, as a political, cultural, and ethnic term, not just geographical)' is incorrect. It is normative use in historical works, and the abundant confusion and refusal to admit that it has a precise and long-established use in contemporary scholarship as the default term for the country, and its culture only indicates there are too many political heads editing here, and not enough people who read books on history.Nishidani (talk) 11:52, 4 March 2012 (UTC)

Examples of the word 'Palestinian' used of near contemporaries of Jesus born, as he was, in Palestine.

• (22)Azzan Yadin Scripture as logos: Rabbi Ishmael and the origins of midrash, University of Pennsylvania Press, 2004 p.175: It also appears that the Nomos tradition is limited to Patristic authors with strong Palestinian ties. Justin was a native of Shechem, while Clement, who came to Alexandria from Athens, identified his greatest teacher as a Palestinian thinker “of Hebrew origins”.’

• (22) 'There was another type of allegory that was familiar to the Palestinian thinkers.' Willis Allen Shotwell,The Biblical Exegesis of Justin Martyr, S.P.C.K., 1965 p.41 (referring to Palestinians, Jews, pagans or others of the period of the 1st-2nd century CE) Nishidani (talk) 21:18, 3 March 2012 (UTC)

That's nice -- both Justin Martyr and Clement of Alexandria lived after ca., 135 A.D. (Clement of Alexandria was born after 135 A.D.), when the name of the Roman province of Judaea was changed to Palaestina, so there's not the same semi-anachronism problem for them that there is for Jesus... AnonMoos (talk) 07:22, 4 March 2012 (UTC)

You haven't noticed that scholars use the word 'Palestinian' to describe the world Jesus lived in, which is massively attested long before 135. Please understand that we follow scholarly conventions in descriptive language, and scholarly conventions call Jesus's world, its cultural patterns and the like, 'Palestinian'.Nishidani (talk) 11:52, 4 March 2012 (UTC)

That's nice -- scholars do use the word as you indicate (though this usage is actually semi-anachronistic for the period before 135 A.D.), but you've massively failed to prove that there's any connection between the narrow technical scholarly geographical use of the word (to refer to non-Arab peoples of ancient times) and the use of the word which is actually relevant to this article (to refer almost exclusively to Arabs of modern times) which would legitimately justify including Jesus and similar people of antiquity in this article. AnonMoos (talk) 17:49, 4 March 2012 (UTC)

Here is Britannica: "Henceforth [after 1948] the term Palestinian will be used when referring to the Arabs of the former mandated Palestine, excluding Israel." Does anyone think Jesus or St. George were Arabs? If we are using "Palestinian" in the pre-1948 sense of "an inhabitant of Palestine", then the opening of the article needs to be rewritten. No, the word "Palestine" is not mentioned in the Gospels. Quirinius was governor of Syria. As for the genetic studies, these are being spun in quite a different way than the sources do. These studies were designed to test whether European Jews are of Middle Eastern origin. If you want to show that Palestinian Arab identity is genetic, that would require a different type of study. The study would have to show that Palestinian Arabs are genetically different than Syrian Arabs or Egyptian Arabs. Kauffner (talk) 23:38, 3 March 2012 (UTC)

Kauffner raises an interesting point -- the word Παλαιστινη and related forms do not occur in the original Greek text of the New Testament (verified by looking in the Lexicon at the back of my Nestle-Aland). I would think that this has some relevance to whether Jesus and his earliest followers considered themselves to be Palestinians! AnonMoos (talk) 07:37, 4 March 2012 (UTC)

Yep. Indeed, no primary sources on the first century of Christianity use the term, to my knowledge. And primary sources should be considered highly relevant on a question like this. Evanh2008, Super Genius Who am I? You can talk to me... 08:05, 4 March 2012 (UTC)

Well, super-genius, again, read up policy, which even unbright people like myself can construe. Primary source language does not provide the narrative voice for articles in wikipedia.Nishidani (talk) 11:52, 4 March 2012 (UTC)

Again, you fail to understand that we do not write wikipedia articles from primary sources, but from secondary sources, a large sample of which I have provided which show unequivocably that 'Palestinian' is the default term for the society and country in wqhich JC was raised, is used of its thinkers, and rabbis. Please read up policy on this. Your comment goes in the face of standard practice-Nishidani (talk) 11:52, 4 March 2012 (UTC)

Whatever, dude -- I was not proposing to add "User:AnonMoos looked it up in the back of his Nestle-Aland" to the article page; however, it's an interesting fact which is quite relevant to this discussion. In any case, the Greek New Testament lexicon (as opposed to the Greek New Testament text) is actually a secondary source... AnonMoos (talk) 17:49, 4 March 2012 (UTC)

That has nothing to do with the issue. The issue is whether it is appropriate in a page dealing with the Palestinian people to include Jesus, St George, Justin Martyr etc, because scholarly sources define them as Palestinians. I never said the word 'Palestine' was mentioned in the NT. I said the NT ambiance in the secondary literature, which for editors here is the only thing that counts, is referred to as Palestine, and wikipedia adheres to the language of RS. The text already provides the genetic information you say needs provided. Just read the page.

I removed the infobox pending a consensus on this issue. There clearly is no consensus for this super contentions addition. If someone can restore the infobox that the article prior to the unagreeable additions, that would be awesome.--brewcrewer (yada, yada) 02:00, 4 March 2012 (UTC)

I've reverted and given explanations in the new section below. This is a matter of proper procedure. A 'consensual' (since no one objected for 2 weeks) editg was made. It was challenged only then. It is therefore under discussion until consensus is achieved. You've done even worse, and obliterated the whole infobox, which is close to vandalism. Nishidani (talk) 11:52, 4 March 2012 (UTC)

Palestinian refers to Palestinians throughout History, that includes Jesus, that is a fact, and a POV consensus is not necessary when we are dealing with facts. To say different is completely false. Nishidani has cited countless sources showing that Jesus was a Palestinian. The fact that he was Jewish does not make him not Palestinian. Palestinians have been Jewish, Christian, Muslim, and pretty much every other religion that was in the region throughout history. Lazyfoxx (talk) 02:39, 4 March 2012 (UTC)

That opinion is fine, but its clearly disagreed with. There is a clear cut lack of consensus (if not a consensus to the contrary) for your contentious addition and it is unfortunate that you had to resort to edit warring[5] to put it back in.--brewcrewer (yada, yada) 02:46, 4 March 2012 (UTC)

It's not opinion Brewcrewer, it's fact, that you clearly wish to ignore. I suggest you read the sources cited throughout this whole discussion. Lazyfoxx (talk) 02:47, 4 March 2012 (UTC)

This article is, however, about the "Palestinian people", which is a rather specific group of people, Arabs who in the early to mid 20th century lived in the Southern Levant (or their descendants), who share a cultural identity. The term "Palestinian" has been applied to all sorts of things, but they do not all have the same meaning. It is at best an anachronism, and at worst revisionism/negationism or cultural identity theft to apply the term to 1st century Jews like Jesus. It's not just enough to find some source that refers to Jesus as "Palestinian", which simply means that he lived in the area later designated by the Romans as Syria Palaestina; which reliable sources identify Jesus as a member of the "Palestinian people"? Jayjg ^(talk) 02:56, 4 March 2012 (UTC)

You haven't read the sources, or the page, evidently. We follow scholarly usage, and scholarly usage describes, as I have amply illustrated, the people, denizens and scholars of Palestine at that time as 'Palestinians' and 'Palestinian people'. Some may object that, from an Israeli political angle today, this is unacceptable and anachronistic, but unfortunately, wikipedia is written according to scholarly sources, not according to contemporary political interests in denying what scholarship habitually writes. I.e.,

the Palestinian Jewish people at the time of Jesus did not deal with such abstractions as "the individual" and did not separate the "religious" sphere of life from the "political and economic dimensions" of their common life'. Jeong Kii Min,Sin and politics: issues in Reformed theology, Peter Lang 2009 p.197 — Preceding unsigned comment added by Nishidani (talk • contribs)

Your comment included a statement or statements about editors, not article content. Per WP:NPA and WP:TPYES, "Comment on content, not on the contributor." I will be happy to read and respond to comments that refer only to article content.. Jayjg ^(talk) 16:45, 4 March 2012 (UTC)

• Negative Nothing in the new testament describes him as such, and the name of the area at the time was not Palestine. Drsmoo (talk) 02:50, 4 March 2012 (UTC)

Again, that violates policy. We do not prioritize the language of primary texts over the default language of acadedmic secondary sources in our narrative voice. Invalid objection.Nishidani (talk) 11:52, 4 March 2012 (UTC)

Excuse me? Drsmoo (talk) 01:46, 8 March 2012 (UTC)

• Not a member of the "Palestinian People". This article is about the "Palestinian people", which is a rather specific group of people, Arabs who in the early to mid 20th century lived in the Southern Levant (or their descendants), who share a cultural identity. The term "Palestinian" has been applied to all sorts of things, but they do not all have the same meaning. It is at best an anachronism, and at worst revisionism/negationism or cultural identity theft to apply the term to 1st century Jews like Jesus. It's not just enough to find some source that refers to Jesus as "Palestinian", which simply means that he lived in the area later designated by the Romans as Syria Palaestina; which reliable sources identify Jesus as a member of the "Palestinian people"? Jayjg ^(talk) 02:58, 4 March 2012 (UTC)

Again. Read the text. The British administration at the beginning of the Mandate determined that the people of Palestine were not 'Arabs' but, as many other sources say, an Arabic-speaking population of highly variegated origins. This is in the text, which also shows that the genetic evidence points to the Palestinian population's close proximity to the Jewish genetic pool. Syro-Palestina is, to repeat, a Greek term dating from the 5th century BC. You are arguing against sources, and should know better. You argued for 'Judea and Samaria' against sources, and that led no where. Scholarly conventions are what count, not popular partisan preferences, as we are seeing here.Nishidani (talk) 11:52, 4 March 2012 (UTC)

When you say "read the text", are you referring to the text you recently changed, to add a fairly opaque quote in support of your WP:OR addition of Jesus? And with your talk about "Jewish genetic pool" and "highly variegated origins", are you actually making a racial argument for this addition? I'm not "arguing against sources", I'm arguing against pure sophistry and Original Research. "Palestinian" in the context of the 1st century means "a resident of the Roman province of Palestine". It does not mean "a member of the modern Palestinian people and cultural identity". Show me the "scholarly convention" indicating that Jesus was a member of what is today called the "Palestinian people". Or, even easier, show me any reliable sources stating the same. It is you who should know better; this game-playing is tiresome. I've removed it once, but if I see it added again without consensus, I'm going to very rapidly escalate this. I have no patience for these long drawn out political campaigns. Jayjg ^(talk) 15:05, 4 March 2012 (UTC)

Read the article. I am repeating what it says, and the references therein. Don't confuse my representation of the data with my views. Thanks — Preceding unsigned comment added by Nishidani (talk • contribs)

I've read the article. It quite clearly indicates that the Palestinian identity was formed somewhere between the mid-18th century at the earliest, and the 1960s at the latest. In Palestinian Identity: The Construction of Modern National Consciousness, historian Rashid Khalidi cautions against the efforts of some Palestinian nationalists to "anachronistically" read back into history a nationalist consciousness that is in fact "relatively modern". Anachronism in this case would include appropriating the cultural identity of a 1st century Galilean Jew, and applying it to a national consciousness that formed no earlier than the mid-1800s. Jayjg ^(talk) 16:42, 4 March 2012 (UTC)

That again misreads Khalidi by citing what he says of a 'nationalist consciousness' as determinative of a people, which as the pages I cited show (Catalans, Welsh had no 'national consciousness' until modern times etc.etc.') National consciousness is a modern phenomenon. You would do well to examine the following words, earlier in Khalidi's book, regarding the excavation at the Haram al-Sharif/Western Wall: 'Each stratum is part of the identity of the Palestinian people as they have come to understand it over the past century — encompassing the biblical, Roman, Byzantine, Umayyad, Fatimid, Crusader, Ayyubid, Mameluke, and Ottoman periods.'p. Khalidi distinguishes national consciousness, a modern phenomenon for all peoples, from a people who are identified with a geophysical country, whatever their makeup. Nishidani (talk) 16:55, 7 March 2012 (UTC)

I just want to point out that the question at the heart of this RFC is completely irrelevant. I never disputed the fact that Jesus is a Palestinian, according to historical definitions. I merely put forward the argument that, given the modern usage of the term, he does not belong in the infobox. And I think that is the primary argument here. I note this impassively. Evanh2008, Super Genius Who am I? You can talk to me... 02:54, 4 March 2012 (UTC)

We are obliged to write according to secondary sources. They say that Jesus was Palestinian, and people who get confused by this are simply unfamiliar with scholarly conventions. Nishidani (talk) 11:52, 4 March 2012 (UTC)

Yes Evan, but the term Palestinian does refer to any Palestinian throughout history, since Jesus founded Christianity, a Palestinian religion that nearly all Palestinians were a part of (aside from the minority of Jewish Palestinians) until the Islamic Conquest. It is a great addition to include Jesus in the infobox because regarding the previous information, he was one of, if not the most influential and historical Palestinians throughout history. Lazyfoxx (talk) 03:03, 4 March 2012 (UTC)

See my question in the above thread. Evanh2008, Super Genius Who am I? You can talk to me... 03:07, 4 March 2012 (UTC)

• Negative as outlined in the section above. It is also unfortunate that no Judaism-practicing-Jews who were born and died in the Land of Israel from Jesus's time until now managed to get themselves into the infobox under the proposed expansive definition.--brewcrewer (yada, yada) 04:32, 4 March 2012 (UTC)

There you go. You push your favourite ethnic descriptor, which is rarely used in scholarship, Land of Israel, and hold to ransom precisely the descriptor scholarship uses. That is political editing. This is not about thed Israeli-Palestinian conflict, or race. It is about scholarly usage.Nishidani (talk) 11:52, 4 March 2012 (UTC)

Modern usage of the word "Palestinian" means "a member of the Palestinian people", a specific 20th and 21st century cultural group to which Jesus did not belong. This is only and solely about the I-P conflict, and the edit is purely for that purpose. Please consider exactly how far you wish to take this sophistry in support of a political goal. Jayjg ^(talk) 15:10, 4 March 2012 (UTC)

You're experienced enough as an editor to know that your own personal definitions have no weight. Where on earth do you get the idea that, 'Modern usage of the word "Palestinian" means "a member of the Palestinian people", a specific 20th and 21st century cultural group to which Jesus did not belong.'?

Palestinian.'A native of Palestine in biblical or later times'. The Oxford English Dictionary, 2nd ed.1989 vol. XI, p.93 col.3. I hope this hasbara meme in the template everybody seems to be writing of will be altered to conform to 'modern usage' as that is determined by the best available authority on the English language.Nishidani (talk) 15:21, 4 March 2012 (UTC)

Rather than continuing to promote WP:OR based on out-of-context dictionary definitions, please start responding to the main issue here; that Jesus was not part of the cultural group described in this article, that is the Palestinian people. Please provide scholarly sources that indicate Jesus was part of the Palestinian people. Jayjg ^(talk) 15:38, 4 March 2012 (UTC)

Your mechanical accusation that I engage in WP:OR is rather tiresome, and mastery of wiki formulae to toss into the ring is not evidence of familiarity with the topic or the talk page. If a RSource uses certain language, it is not WP:OR to cite that language. It is actually, chum, what editors are supposed to do. Nishidani (talk) 16:55, 7 March 2012 (UTC)

• No, for all intents and purposes. While the technical answer (as acknowledged above) may be "yes", the answer is an effective "no" if we have any real intention of being a source of information that reflects modern definitions of terms with potentially anachronistic applications. Evanh2008, Super Genius Who am I? You can talk to me... 08:12, 4 March 2012 (UTC)

Modern usage says Christ is was a native of Palestine. Please reread and digest the evidence before introducing your personal views, which happen to be wildly at odds with your perception of words.Nishidani (talk) 11:52, 4 March 2012 (UTC)

Modern usage of the word "Palestinian" means "a member of the Palestinian people", a specific 20th and 21st century cultural group to which Jesus did not belong. Please consider exactly how far you wish to take this sophistry in support of a political goal. Jayjg ^(talk) 15:10, 4 March 2012 (UTC)

If you think this has anything to do with my personal opinions, I don't think you've read a single word I've written. I also noticed that everyone has chosen to dodge the issue and resort to accusations of vandalism rather than thoughtfully engage the question I posed above. Jesus being a native of Palestine is far and away a different thing from him being a part of the modern group known as the Palestinian people (in other words, the subject of this article). Address those points, and prove that Jesus is part of the modern group known as the Palestinian people, or the picture cannot stand. Evanh2008, Super Genius Who am I? You can talk to me... 12:06, 4 March 2012 (UTC)

All the objections so far are based on personal opinions, no congruent scholarly evidence has been adduced to counter the books I have cited. and ignore answering the plain and comprehensive evidence that it is standard in scholarly literature to refer to Jesus and his apostles, their milieu and their culture as 'Palestinian'. You like everyone else objecting, are deeply confused because the word 'Palestinian' refers in most common speech to the people of modern Palestine. And you fail to read the text, which notes the scholarly evidence that the people of Palestine are, mostly, from genetic and other studies, not a race, but descendants of the aboriginal populations of that territory. You all have to explain why the word 'Palestinian people' must be restricted to the people who happened to be on the wrong side of Israel's border in the war of 1948 when scholarship is comfortable with the fact that these people have, as the edit I made yesterday shows, a lien of continuity with the pre-existing native population of that area. I.e. drop the politics, and explain why wikipedia must adopt a unique exclusion rule for the evidence of texts, since in all pages on nationalities, race or modern politics is not determinative, but birth in a land, or rearing in a culture designated by a national term is? Why is it that when Jacob Neusner writes (A history of the Mishnaic law of purities Brill 1974 p.7), 'At the time of Jesus, Jews were almost the whole of the Palestinian population and the true people of the country, the rest were aliens (usually "Greeks"),' singularly we must ignore the source, because a bunch of editors dislike the idea that the word 'Palestinian' can mean anything other than some folks conjured up out of the air half a century ago, as if they did not exist, and had no ancestors? You have to explain why uniquely, the Jewish people page refuses to identify Jesus as a Jew, which is an iron-clad fact from birth to death (Jayjg and I clashed on this some years ago) and now many editors, some Jewish, refuse to allow him to be classified as a native of Palestine (Iron-clad fact), making him uniquely in wiki articles a person who cannot be classified as RS classify him? It's a tabu, but we are not supposed to be intimidated by these prejudices.Nishidani (talk) 13:08, 4 March 2012 (UTC)

Modern usage of the word "Palestinian" means "a member of the Palestinian people", a specific 20th and 21st century cultural group to which Jesus did not belong. Show me the "scholarly evidence" indicating that Jesus was a member of what is today called the "Palestinian people". Or, even easier, show me any reliable sources stating the same. Jayjg ^(talk) 15:10, 4 March 2012(UTC)

'Show me the "scholarly evidence" indicating that Jesus was a member of what is today called the "Palestinian people". '

That's called, in gambling lingo, cogging the dice, since it is disputed that what is called the 'Palestinian people' can only refer to contemporary Palestinians, since massive textual sources demonstrate the contrary, and Jesus, by definition, does not belong to the Palestinian people of today, any more than Maimonides is a member of the Jewish people today.Nishidani (talk) 16:55, 7 March 2012 (UTC)

Palestinian.'A native of Palestine in biblical or later times'. The Oxford English Dictionary, 2nd ed.1989 vol. XI, p.93 col.3. I hope this hasbara meme in the template everybody seems to be writing of will be altered to conform to 'modern usage' as that is determined by the best available authority on the English language. It is not proper to represent what Tel Aviv defines as a Palestinian as the default meaning of a word in the English language. Thank you Nishidani (talk) 15:25, 4 March 2012 (UTC)

Quoting from our own article:

• Rashid Khalidi cautions against the efforts of some Palestinian nationalists to "anachronistically" read back into history a nationalist consciousness that is in fact "relatively modern".
• Baruch Kimmerling and Joel S. Migdal consider the 1834 revolt of the Arabs in Palestine as constituting the first formative event of the Palestinian people.

'Israeli historians claimed that no self-identified Palestinian people ever existed, at least not until the Arabs of the area were challenged by Zionism and Jewish settlement’ Baruch Kimmerling, Joel S. Migdal,The Palestinian People: A History, xxvi. The operative words in their argument are 'self-identified', which again points to a national perception. National perceptions are thought not to exist before the modern period, for all ethnic groups, but this is not relevant to arguments about ethnic (in terms of common cultural environments) group in premodern times.Nishidani (talk) 16:55, 7 March 2012 (UTC)

Also, your continuous accusations or "hasbara" are uncivil at best, and rather obviously not true. It would be best for the tenor of this conversation, and for everyone here - but particularly for you - to stop using this term. Now, rather than continuing to promote WP:OR based on out-of-context dictionary definitions, please start responding to the main issue here; that Jesus was not part of the cultural group described in this article, that is the Palestinian people. Please provide scholarly sources that indicate Jesus was part of the Palestinian people. Jayjg ^(talk) 15:36, 4 March 2012 (UTC)

Since you quoted Khalidi, I presume you are familiar with his remark:'The Zionist movement, . .since its implantation in Palestine at the end of the last century has strongly opposed any expression of independent Palestinian nationalism, Palestinian claims to the country, and the exercise of Palestinian national identity.’ p.22-23. It may be fortuitous that the opposition here by many editors to the idea that the Palestinian identity includes, as Khalidi says, see above, a continuity with the people of the land in the deep past . . . If it ios fortuitous, well, my apologies.Nishidani (talk) 16:55, 7 March 2012 (UTC)

Oh, and if it's WP:OR based on dictionary definitions that you're interested in, here are two dictionaries that each give two different meanings for "Palestinian":

Pal·es·tin·i·an  [pal-uh-stin-ee-uhn]
noun
1. a native or inhabitant of Palestine.
2. Also called Palestinian Arab. an Arab formerly living in Palestine who advocates the establishment of an Arab homeland there.
adjective
3. of or pertaining to Palestine or Palestinians.
4. of or pertaining to Palestinian Arabs: Palestinian guerrillas.
(Dictionary.com Unabridged Based on the Random House Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2012.)

Palestinian (ˌpælɪˈstɪnɪən)
— adj
1. of or relating to Palestine
— n
2. a native or inhabitant of the former British mandate, or their descendants, esp such Arabs now living in the Palestinian Administered Territories, Jordan, Lebanon, or Israel, or as refugees from Israeli-occupied territory
(Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 10th Edition) 2009

Is Jesus really "an Arab formerly living in Palestine who advocates the establishment of an Arab homeland there" or "a native or inhabitant of the former British mandate, or their descendants, esp such Arabs now living in the Palestinian Administered Territories, Jordan, Lebanon, or Israel, or as refugees from Israeli-occupied territory"? Jayjg ^(talk) 15:52, 4 March 2012 (UTC)

Yeah, that's one silly definition that requires fixing, because if Palestinian is 'an Arab formerly living in Palestine who advocates the establishment of an Arab homeland there", a large number of Palestinians aren't Palestinians, since they weren't born in, duh, Palestine, and those like Rashid Khalidi who argue a one-state solution already exists are not advocating the establishment of an Arab homeland.Nishidani (talk) 16:55, 7 March 2012 (UTC)

Jayjg. Answer the question. Why do you refuse to accept the definition given in the most authoritative modern dictionary of the English language? Quoting the OED is not WP:OR. The OED does not gloss Palestinian with Arab, and neither did the English authorities in 1920, who were quite clear that they spoke an Arab dialect but were not to be dismissed as 'Arabs'. So, tell me, if the OED says natives of Palestine since biblical times are 'Palestinians', why must this article refuse to accept this thoroughly attested English? Nishidani (talk) 15:59, 4 March 2012 (UTC)

Please review straw man, and then answer the questions asked above. Jayjg ^(talk) 16:12, 4 March 2012 (UTC)

Oh, and it gets even worse. It appears you left out the rest of the OED's definition, as follows: "In early use also: a Philistine (cf. Philistine n. and adj.). Now usually: spec. an Arab born or living in the area of the former mandated territory of Palestine; a descendant of such an Arab." So, it appears that the source you brought actually makes the very distinction we have been making here, and you misrepresented it in your arguments. Jayjg ^(talk) 19:50, 4 March 2012 (UTC)

No, obviously not, per above. The word "Palestinian" means different things in different contexts, and Jesus was not a member of the modern "Palestinian" cultural group. Plot Spoiler (talk) 18:16, 4 March 2012 (UTC)

• No - People born in the US aren't native Americans; Saint Paul wasn't a Turk. Tom Harrison ^Talk 19:05, 4 March 2012 (UTC)
• No—even if one is extremely liberal with the definition of "Palestinian", one cannot deny that the entire geographical area was renamed to Palestine by the Romans after Jesus died, so it's not relevant to Jesus. And again, that's only if one is extremely liberal with the definition. —Ynhockey ^(Talk) 21:36, 4 March 2012 (UTC)
• Yes. We go by what reliable sources say, which are clear (overwhelmingly so) that he was a Palestinian Jew. Today's Palestinian Christians identify themselves as the heirs of Jesus and his disciples: Although we [Palestian Christians] are the modern heirs of the disciples of Jesus in Jerusalem and despite our rich contribution to the Middle East, Palestian Christians have become unknown, unacknowledged, and forgotten by much of the world. (Zaru, Jean. Occupied with Nonviolence: A Palestinian Woman Speaks, Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2008, p.3 - similar remarks also on p.42). See also Tiamut's contribution below. Most of the rest of the argumentation here is really about the scope of this article, since the question of whether Jesus was Palestinian is clearly settled by reliable sources. --NSH001 (talk) 10:48, 5 March 2012 (UTC)
  • Americans today would consider themselves heirs to the 17th and 18th century settlers of North America, if not necessarily genetically, than certainly heirs to the traditions that these settlers established. Would we consider John Winthrop, Thomas Hooker or Roger Williams, among others, members of the American people? I don't think so. They would have been legally English (as, I believe, Jesus and his contemporaries would have been Roman subjects) and they would have considered themselves either English or New Englanders (or more specifically, members of a particular colony).GabrielF (talk) 18:00, 7 March 2012 (UTC)
• No There are a few ways we can look at this question: (1) Would Jesus have self-identified as a member of the Palestinian people? Clearly not, since the concept of a Palestinian people didn't exist at that time. (2) Would contemporary Palestinians look at Jesus as a member of the Palestinian people? Yes, there are reliable sources to support this, but, as the History and Memory article I described below makes clear, this is a relatively new phenomenon that emerged in the decades after 1967 and that previous generations of Palestinians regarded Jesus as an Arab rather than as a Palestinian figure. (3) Do reliable sources identify Jesus as a member of the Palestinian people? Nishidani provides numerous examples above, but I think its worthwhile here to look at the historical examples listed in the OED. The OED's first use of the term Palestinian dates to 1564. It's clear that sources from this era using the term "Palestinian" are not referring to members of the Palestinian people, since that concept did not exist at the time, but are referring to residents of a particular region regardless of ethnicity. I believe that the modern sources Nishdani cites are following the same tradition. Generally, in a case where there's a controversial claim, Wikipedia attributes that claim to somebody and explains the arguments for and against it. That's not really possible in an infobox, where something can be present or not present, but not present with a lengthy explanation. If we want text that explains the issue by saying something like, "Since 1967, Palestinian thinkers such as... have identified Jesus and others born in the region during Roman times as members of the Palestinian people. Other scholars, such as... say..." that's fine, but I think it has to be done in a way that explains the reasons for and against inclusion. GabrielF (talk) 17:47, 7 March 2012 (UTC)
• The question is, did Abraham or Moses or David, (and a cast of hundrds) self-identify as Jews? 'Clearly not, since the concept of a Jewish people didn't exist at that time.' By the way, the OED registers English usage, not Latin usage. In the meantime, I am waiting for someone to answer my question. If the descriptor Palestinian in Palestinian people must restrict the term to modern Palestinians, why is the descriptor, Welsh, Armenian, Kurd, etc.etc. not restrictive in the parallel articles I cited. The only argument you all have is that the article's status quo cites material that limits it (so far) to modern Palestinians, and the premise here is that the article as written cannot be changed to better reflect the complexities of many RS not yet used. That is a non-argument, and not consonant with wikipedian practice. Nishidani (talk) 20:34, 7 March 2012 (UTC)

Jewish Christians vs. Palestinian Christians

Regarding YehudaMizrahi's continuous attempts to change Christians to Jewish Christians in the introduction where genetics is being discussed, could you please stop? Others have tried to change it to Palestinian Christians. Let's just tick to the source cited and the study being discussed which simply says Chistians, okay? Its verifiable and doesn't take a side in the politico terminological battles. Tiamut^talk 19:46, 20 February 2012 (UTC)

I agree Tiamut, the link should either remain simply as Christians or if anything else as Palestinian Christians, the constant changing of it to Jewish Christians is inaccurate, both historically and ideologically. Lazyfoxx (talk) 00:44, 1 March 2012 (UTC)

Proper prcocedure IUnfo box part 2

I see an edit war has broken out, which has now come to the point, with Brewcrewer and Drmoos's reverts, to something close to vandalism, in so far as the entire info box section has been elided because of objections to the inclusion recently of just one figure.

On the 16th of February I vetted the idea that JC should be included, and waited for input and a discussion to develop before touching the text. This is a page that is watched by hundreds. Over the following two weeks, only two people thought of commenting, and, in the absence of objections, Lazyfox went ahead and made the adjustment to the info box.

Only when this edit was made, were objections given, by many people no one has ever seen around these pages. If there were objections by the many who are regular I/P contributors, why were they not voiced beforehand? Procedurally, had there been prior objections, the edit could not have been made because it would have been controversial, and, lacking talk page consensus, preemptive. By in lieu of a massive silence, the edit made by Lazyfoxx was correct, if now challenged.

The edit made, it was then placed under discussion. A cn tag was inserted. A discussion is now underway. Procedurally, no preemptive cancellation of what is under discussion on the talk page is proper, and for this reason, I have reverted both Drmoos and Brewcrewer's erasures to leave the page as it was edited on March 2nd. So please respect customary practice, and sort your objections out before editing.Nishidani (talk) 11:10, 4 March 2012 (UTC)

I don't want to comment on the above, other than to remind you that this page falls under WP:1RR, and that BRD exists. Your disagreements with certain edits do not entitle you to label them vandalism so as to be able to evade 1RR. Evanh2008, Super Genius Who am I? You can talk to me... 12:11, 4 March 2012 (UTC)

It is vandalism to remove an entire info box without discussion. Since you raise the issue, after my same point has been ignored, I'd been interested in having your informed opinion as to why you or I should not report Choyoołʼįįhí:Seb az86556 for the following edits against two other editors' work in less than 24 hours. I.e.,

Why this is not a revert of this edit made by LazyFoxx

and why this is not a revert of my edit. I notified the editor, he has not responded. I notify you since you are warning me, and I haven't broken the rule, while ignoring the evidence of a person who has the same opinion as yourself. So? Nishidani (talk) 12:50, 4 March 2012 (UTC)

It was disruptive in my opinion to include Jews in this infobox without gaining a consensus first for this kind of edits.--Shrike (talk) 12:59, 4 March 2012 (UTC)

I proposed the edit. None of you objected. Now once the edit was made, you and others, most of whom have never shown any interest in the page (email and friends are important) rush to object, or revert and fuss. You don't like the edit, though it is thoroughly sourced. Discuss it, and tell us why the sources cannot be used. And, tell me why I should not report Choyoołʼįįhí:Seb az86556. I'll take silence, or refusal to enlighten me, as assent that he has broken policy. But perhaps I don't understand it, so please help me avoid a report and wasting administrative time by indicating how he could revert two editors on the same day, and not break 1RR. Thanks. Nishidani (talk) 13:15, 4 March 2012 (UTC)

It's a purely tendentious edit, supported by OR and sophistry, and one that those making it knew would be highly controversial. The fact that a couple of editors agreed to something that was obviously at best a political statement doesn't mean it has consensus when the wider population of experienced editors has a chance to comment. I'm quite disappointed. Jayjg ^(talk) 14:51, 4 March 2012 (UTC)

I believe the infobox should be as neutral as possible (not in a political sense, but in a historical sense), that's why I made the collage by consulting everyone. I don't think making too controversial inclusions is a good idea. And note that I did include Leila Khaled, so I'm not exactly biased against the Palestinian cause. FunkMonk (talk) 15:24, 4 March 2012 (UTC)

(re to Nishidani) I made the original 1RR comment because I read your post to state that you had made multiple reversions. I was obviously wrong and should have read closer, so I apologize for that. In any case, those edits by Choyoołʼįįhí:Seb az86556 certainly violate the rule and should be reported.

Regardless, "no one said anything before" does not constitute a consensus, nor is it considered vandalism to engage in any efforts to improve the encyclopedia. WP:VANDALISM states "Edit warring is not vandalism and should not be dealt with as such" and "Even if misguided, willfully against consensus, or disruptive, any good-faith effort to improve the encyclopedia is not vandalism. Edit warring over content is not vandalism." The page is locked now, and that's a good thing. Let's talk this out. Evanh2008, Super Genius Who am I? You can talk to me... 17:33, 4 March 2012 (UTC)

I appreciate that retraction. Look, I've had that edit in my mind for both the Jewish people page and the Péalestinian page for some years. But I don't rush. I didn't edit it in. I asked people marking this page for their opinion on Feb 16. Only two cared to comment, in two weeks. Even then I would have preferred the edit not to be made, for I know how this place works - anything 'Palestinian' gets people anxious. There is now equanimity in patrollers of these pages. The page had a consensus, hence I waited for a consensus to permit my edit. Someone went ahead. Okay, adapt. What happened? All hell broke loose, and now even some are trying to charge me with 'sophistry' and 'deliberate misrepresentation' while numerous people have reverted in what looks like tagteaming, have gutted the info box, even in its consensual form, and systematically removed most of my edits. That is vandalistic, not editing slowly, and deliberatively, but under the premise that everything an editor on one side of an argument says is to be read with suspicion.Nishidani (talk) 20:24, 4 March 2012 (UTC)

Arbitrary break

Let's all try to cool down and keep this as impersonal as possible. I'm going to lay out some thoughts below. I hope others can follow me on them:

1. This article is about an ethnic group known in modern times as the Palestinian people.

2. The population of that group is given in the infobox. The population within undisputed Israeli territory is given as about 1,000,000. A small, but potentially genetically significant portion of these 1,000,000 people are of Jewish extraction. This means that

3. The currently accepted definition of "Palestinian people", under which this article is presently operating, excludes the 6 million non-Palestinian (according to modern definitions) Jews living in the State of Israel. Thus,

4. In order to satisfy the demands of sourcing, a source is needed which states that, were Jesus around today, he would be "Palestinian enough" to be included in the population figures given in the infobox, rather than being included in the non-Palestinian Jewish population of Israel.

Despite efforts to persuade to the contrary, the infobox makes clear that this article is largely not about historical inhabitants of Palestine, but about those (predominately Arabs) who are given the title today. No source has yet shown that he is part of this people, either genetically or culturally. Unless a source can be provided which shows that, all attempts to insert Jesus into the infobox represent a misleading brand of synthesis, applying technical and anachronistic definitions of the term "Palestinian" to an article which is operating under a clearly established definition which is not that used in the sources given. Jesus would be right at home in the infobox of an article entitled Inhabitants of Palestine, but in this one, he is not. Evanh2008, Super Genius Who am I? You can talk to me... 17:57, 4 March 2012 (UTC)

Please read the page. Things like:'High-resolution Y chromosome haplotypes of Israeli and Palestinian Arabs reveal geographic substructure and substantial overlap with haplotypes of Jews.and 'According to historical records part, or perhaps the majority, of the Muslim Arabs in this country descended from local inhabitants, mainly Christians and Jews, who had converted after the Islamic conquest in the seventh century AD (Shaban 1971; Mc Graw Donner 1981). These local inhabitants, in turn, were descendants of the core population that had lived in the area for several centuries, some even since prehistorical times (Gil 1992)... Thus, our findings are in good agreement with the historical record..." note 84.' If you understand that, you will understand why all scholars worth their salt see nothing wrong in stating as a matter of commonsense that Jesus, like his apostles, and Jews and Samaritans of that time etc., was a Palestinian. They are, unlike editors here, unprepossessed by contemporary political taboos. In technical terms, using anthropological nomenclature, 'Palestinian' in historical terms is 'inclusive', whereas 'Palestinian' in contemporary political history is used as an 'exclusive' term in opposition to 'Israeli'. Both terms are accepted by the OED. But the usual faction in here refuses to allow the page the comprehensiveness which the academic literature that goes beyond contemporary history amply allows. The I/P area is, when these kinds of tabus are touched, an area of panic where the official party line must rule over whatever is said, with an eye to its contemporary political implications. That is why articles here are never encyclopedic and neutral. Fear, taboo, panic, maintenance of stereotypes and strict border maintenance. Nishidani (talk) 21:33, 4 March 2012 (UTC)

What does all of the original research about genetics have to do with whether or not the first century Galilean Jew known as Jesus was a member of the modern cultural identity known in English as the "Palestinian people"? Jayjg ^(talk) 21:38, 4 March 2012 (UTC)

I read the article; it would really help the dialogue here if you stopped assuming that you're the only editor present who can read. If indeed this article is not about the contemporary people known as Palestinian, then please explain to me why the current population numbers of those currently known as Palestinians are listed in the infobox.Evanh2008 (talk) 21:39, 4 March 2012 (UTC)

Changing the infobox back to a version from 2 years ago without consensus is wrong. A consensus was not reached that Jesus should not be included in the infobox. I suggest a revert at minimal to the version before I added Jesus in, because the revert that was made took out many Notable Palestinians, without any form of consensus. It seems this page cannot move an inch in progress to the likeliness of other ethnicity pages without going back a mile in reverts. There seems to be a high level of pro-Israel/ anti-Palestinian editors on this page, when people's personal viewpoints and agendas should remain Neutral on wikipedia, people visit these pages for facts, the fact that anyone can edit these pages makes that matter difficult. But when reliable sources are provided and they go against your personal views, that should not justify a reverting of content on this page. Lazyfoxx (talk) 00:51, 5 March 2012 (UTC)

Waitaminit. You're saying that "No consensus against it" = "Consensus for it"? You can accuse me of being biased all you want, but until someone answers the questions I and others have thoughtfully posed, your argument demonstrably hasn't a leg to stand on. Evanh2008 (talk) (UTC) 02:53, 5 March 2012 (UTC)

Evan, you said yourself that you agree that Jesus was a Palestinian Jew. The fact that he is Jewish does not change the fact that he was Palestinian. Many of the editors on this page and others would like to equate the ethnic term Palestinian with the ethnic term Arab (time and again might I add) which is not an accurate equation at all, yes it is accurate in a modern cultural and linguistic sense. Palestinians both modern and historically have various ancestries along with a substantial ancestry from the aboriginal populations of the region and have had various religions. This article is about the Palestinian people, which not only includes modern Palestinians but also historic Palestinians, such as Jesus Christ and his Disciples. It seems as some editors on this page would like to ignore Palestinian history, are we to ignore historical Palestinians? That doesn't seem like a very accurate thing to do on a wikipedia page about an ethnicity. I see on almost every other ethnic page they include historical members of their ethnicity. See English people including Alfred the Great, Norwegian people's St. Olaf etc. To not include historical members of the Palestinian people would be to ignore Palestinian history. Lazyfoxx (talk) 03:33, 5 March 2012 (UTC)

Don't tamper with the lead, please

Since the above threads show that the opposing editors are editing in defiance of the accepted meaning of 'Palestinian' to refer to a native of Palestine from biblical to modern times, and do this despite massive textual evidence showing this is the default scholarly term for writing, for example, of Biblical and post-Biblical Palestinian people, I would suggest that edits like Jayjg's, who has just removed a key reference in the lede that clarifies the continuity, are not proper, since the lead must clarify succinctly what is a key element in the definition of Palestinian people. Jayjg, you removed, with a wave of the hand (opaque!) the following passage from the lead:

'Though Palestinian identity in its contemporary sense essentially emerged in recent times, the similarity in the names of the modern population with that of the Biblical Philistines 'suggests a degree of continuity over a long historical period',ref David Seddon (ed.)A political and economic dictionary of the Middle East, Taylor & Francis, 2004 p.532./ref

That is not opaque, it comes almost word for word from Seddon's entry on the Palestinian people.

In restoring Seddon to the lead, the following adjunct phrase should be added, given your political confusions over what the word means.

and 'Palestinian' refers broadly to the natives or inhabitants of that country from Biblical to later times.ref'Palestinian:sb.'A native or inhabitant of Palestine in biblical or later times.'J.A. Simpson, E.S.C.Weiner, (eds.) The Oxford English Dictionary,Clarendon Press, 2nd.ed.1989, vol.XI, p.93, col.3.ref

So, stop the politics, and respect sources.Nishidani (talk) 15:47, 4 March 2012 (UTC)

I will restore in due course the text before an edit conflict with Jayjg disrupted the patently necessary clarification of the term. I.e. 'Though Palestinian identity in its contemporary sense essentially emerged in recent times, the similarity in the names of the modern population with that of the Biblical Philistines 'suggests a degree of continuity over a long historical period', and the noun 'Palestinian' refers generally to the natives or inhabitants of that country from Biblical to later times. Nishidani (talk) 15:51, 4 March 2012 (UTC)

"Don't tamper with the lead"? "Jayjg disrupted the patently necessary clarification of the term"? How extraordinarily uncivil, not to mention a violation of WP:OWN. Did that dictum apply also to you, when you added it to the lede less that 24 hours ago? Moreover, per WP:LEDE, material in the lede should summarize the article itself, not introduce entirely new material, as you did. And, of course, I didn't "remove" the text, but rather moved it to the proper section of the article, on Palestinian identity

In addition, you claim the quotation you brought "is not opaque, it comes almost word for word from Seddon's entry on the Palestinian people". However, when I moved the material, I also checked the source, and added the rather critical parts you left out: specifically "[t]he creation of Palestinian identity in its contemporary sense was formed essentially during the 1960s, with the creation of the Palestine Liberation Organization", and the end of the quote you brought, "(much as 'the Israelites' of the Bible suggest a long historical continuity in the same region)". In context, it becomes clear that Seddon has said that a) "Palestinian" as an identity in the contemporary sense formed in the 1960s, and that b) the name "Palestinian" is intended to indicate historical continuity, just as the name "Israelite" indicates historical continuity - a political point. Seddon is making the exact opposite point of yours; he is quite clear that "Palestinian" has a contemporary meaning that starts (according to him) in the 1960s. It becomes apparent that your addition not only was not a summary of the relevant material on Palestinian identity (which contains a variety of opinions on when modern Palestinian identity was created, ranging from the mid-1800s to the 1960s), but far more seriously, misrepresents the view of the source used. As I've stated above, I'm quite tired of the games played in this area, and I don't intend to play them. I consider what has been done here to already be serious and sanctionable. Jayjg ^(talk) 16:10, 4 March 2012 (UTC)

That is profoundly mischievous. The material I added to the lead was restricted to the new information there, not to the whole source. Leads are by definition brief. Everyone knows Khalidi's work, and it is mentioned on the page, and the lead alludes to it. Therefore, in adding those extra words to the lead, I was adding what in Seddon had not yet been said on the page, preparing to develop it in the body of the text. You see where your suspicion leads. Think man, or ask your interlocutor, before jumping to conclusions. Unlike most editors, who spent there time repressing relevant material, I have never once challenged or removed a reliable source, nor misrepresented it maliciously, in 6 years.Nishidani (talk) 21:10, 4 March 2012 (UTC)

You added material that a) violated WP:LEDE, b) was not an accurate summary of the relevant material in the article, and c) was not even an accurate summary of the source you were quoting, and d) did not even include the full relevant quotes from the source in question. It is not clear, but if you are describing your own actions as "profoundly mischievous", then I would congratulate you on your honesty. If not, then I recommend you review again the sequence of events, and your own actions. Jayjg ^(talk) 22:04, 4 March 2012 (UTC)

Nishidani -- Unfortunately your unexamined axiomatic assertion of the "continuity of the Palestinian people" is historically quite dubious, and certainly cannot be used to legitimately support arguments on other subjects. It's of course true that many people who lived in the region during the 20th century had a long line of ancestors who also lived in the region -- but the vast majority of those ancestors would not have had a strong "Palestinian" self-identity. During long periods of time, the word "Palestine" either did not refer to the whole territory later included in the 1923-1947 mandate (e.g. caliphal Jund Filastin did not include the Galilee, etc. etc.) or was not the name of any official administrative unit (such as the Ottoman period, during most of which the Arabic word Filastin was used mainly either nostalgically to refer back to the glory days of the Arab caliphates, or by Christians under European influence...). AnonMoos (talk) 18:09, 4 March 2012 (UTC)

I'd like to second Jayjg's analysis of WP:OWN here for editor Nishidani. There is clear WP:CONSENSUS against the claim that Nishidani is singlehandedly trying to push. This discussion is going nowhere and if editor Nishidani feels so strongly about this, they should edit the JC article and see how much more support the idea will receive. --Shuki (talk) 18:11, 4 March 2012 (UTC)

Oh, and it gets even worse. Nishidani brings the very beginning of the OED's definition of "Palestinian", but leaves out the rest of the OED's definition, as follows: "In early use also: a Philistine (cf. Philistine n. and adj.). Now usually: spec. an Arab born or living in the area of the former mandated territory of Palestine; a descendant of such an Arab." This appears to be deliberate misrepresentation. Jayjg ^(talk) 19:51, 4 March 2012 (UTC)

I think you would do well to cancel out what you insinuate here as it is defamatory to suggest I am deliberating misrepresenting things in my work here. Unlike most editors in the I/P area, I never go beyond what my academic sources write. So, ask anyone to read the relevant column of the printed edition I cited and you will find, no more, and no less, exactly what I wrote. That checked, cross the insinuations, and we can continue this civilly. I'll continue this when you do the proper check, and get back to this page. (Apropos 'tamper with'. That has nothing to do with WP:OWN. It's just that several editors, most of whom no one has seen round here, rushed in and started a revert war (I have one revert since 16 Feb.) I asked people to desist from this. I then thought of asking an admin in, but didn't want to trouble many I am familiar with. Fortunately HU MItchell stopped the nonsense. Unfortunately, he did so just as you and several others had gutted the page of new sources I had added, wiped out and then trimmed the info. box. The edit-warring isn't coming from me. And it's rather disgraceful to see such frantic haste by people popping up from nowhere to advance adventitious opinionizing and wikilawyer a way oround what dozens of RS reproduced here. Articles on Palestine should not have to pass an Israeli checkpoint, as often happens, every time an edit is made. Nishidani (talk) 20:16, 4 March 2012 (UTC)

Let's get some facts on the table:

1. I have not "gutted the page" of any sources at all. In fact, I have not removed a single source.
2. I've shown two examples of sources you've provided (Seddon and the OED) which you have clearly expurgated to remove any material that contradicted your claims - and when the full sources were examined, it was clear they both, in fact, directly contradicted your claims. That is, to use your term, "disgraceful".
3. You have not brought one single reliable source that indicates Jesus was a member of the "Palestinian people", an Arab identity that formed – according to all reliable sources – at some point between the mid 18th and mid 19th and mid 20th centuries. Instead you have brought sources that indicate that Jesus was a "Palestinian Jew", a quite different 1st century identity, and then used synthesis (including arguments based on genetics!) to claim that he was a member of the "Palestinian people", the subject of this article.

When all of this has been pointed out to you, your response has been (again using your words) "to advance adventitious opinionizing and wikilawyer a way" around these obvious facts. As I've stated more than once, I have no patience for this I-P game-playing any more. Feel free to continue down this path, and to ignore the very clear message been given you in the RFC above. I am not going to waste time refuting anachronistic political posturing. Jayjg ^(talk) 20:36, 4 March 2012 (UTC)

Nothing you say reflects what occurred. But that doesn't interest me. I asked for an apology for your saying that I misrepresent my source the OED 2nd ed. 1989 vol.11 p.93 col.3, which does not, as anyone can verify contain the words you say I have deliberately suppressed. (2) You were warned, and instead of retracting or even checking, now repeat the accusation of my use of sources saying I 'have clearly expurgated (them) to remove any material that contradicted your claims', which is a second assertion of bad faith in lieu of evidence. So please do the proper thing and retract. I don't expect an apology. I do expect you to get off your arse, pick up a phone and ask someone with the OED to check it.Nishidani (talk) 21:00, 4 March 2012 (UTC)

Nishidani, the only one who has even mentioned politics in connection with this is you, so I suggest you check yourself before telling others to stop "insinuating" things. Anyway, I'll have more to say if/when anyone ever responds to my questions. Evanh2008, Super Genius Who am I? You can talk to me... 20:53, 4 March 2012 (UTC)

Nishidani, so far you have accused those who disagreed with you of "hasbara", "tampering", "disrupt[ion]", "gutt[ing] the page", and of promoting an "Israeli political angle", so it's rather odd you would now accuse other of "assertion[s] of bad faith". However, I'm happy to apologize whenever I'm wrong. Let's test the hypothesis; does your copy of the OED define "Palestinian" solely as "A native or inhabitant of Palestine in biblical or later times"? Is that its complete definition? Or does it include additional material following that? Jayjg ^(talk) 21:32, 4 March 2012 (UTC)

Palestinian (A) adj.'Of, pertaining to, or connected with Palestine.(illustrative examples follow) B.sb.'A native or inhabitant of Palestine in biblical or later times.' (examples follow). end of definition. But since you appear to distrust me, I suggest you get someone to check. I don't have a scanner or would have emailed the page. Nishidani (talk) 21:48, 4 March 2012 (UTC)

I apologize, then, for suggesting that you expurgated the OED definition. The current OED definition (easily confirmed online) is as follows: "A native or inhabitant of Palestine, in ancient or modern times. In early use also: a Philistine (cf. Philistine n. and adj.). Now usually: spec. an Arab born or living in the area of the former mandated territory of Palestine; a descendant of such an Arab.See note at Palestine n." As is clear, current usage is "spec. an Arab born or living in the area of the former mandated territory of Palestine; a descendant of such an Arab." "spec." is an abbreviation for "specifically". Jayjg ^(talk) 21:59, 4 March 2012 (UTC)

Now, are you going to apologize for defaming editors here by suggesting that they engage in "hasbara" and have been promoting an "Israeli political angle"? Jayjg ^(talk) 22:09, 4 March 2012 (UTC)

Jayg -- I think you mean "at some point between the mid 19th and mid 20th centuries"... AnonMoos (talk) 02:45, 5 March 2012 (UTC)

Also, with reference to any and all genetics claims -- For anybody who lived more than 2,000 years ago, if they have any descendants now living, then unless they lived in an extremely isolated region (such as Tasmania), they're likely to have have tens of millions of descendants now living (see Most recent common ancestor etc.)... AnonMoos (talk) 02:50, 5 March 2012 (UTC)

Quite correct AnonMoos, I've fixed the comment. Jayjg ^(talk) 13:25, 5 March 2012 (UTC)