Wikipedia: History of Israel/Talk

This page discusses the history of modern Israel. I assume it is simply because the initial source was the CIA factbook.

Is this the right page for the history of ancient Israel? I'm wondering where to put links like David, Solomon, Rehoboam, and related. History of Levant seems too broad. --Alan Millar

I would sugget [ancient Israel]?. Something to keep in mind, though, is that for a time Israel was only the northern of two Hebrew kingdoms, and I would be suprised if you weren't intending to discuss both.

Good idea. I'm going with History of ancient Israel and Judah. --Alan Millar

Don't you think that History is implicit in ancient?

I can think of exceptions. For example an entry on "Ancient Rome" might give a description of the layout of the city, promonent landmarks, etc., without much discussion of history, but perhaps this example is irrelevent. :-)

The two articles on the page need to be integrated; and we need to decide how history of Israel, Palestine, history of Levant and history of ancient Israel and Judah relate to each other. They all overlap, though they cover different material. (The first two concentrate more on the modern period, while the later two on the ancient; but even Palestine has some info on the ancient period as well.) Finally, I think people need to be careful, especially when discussing modern history, to try to avoid bias towards either side. I must admit I myself have probably been a bit biased towards the Palestinians, though maybe not as much as say Joseph Saad; some other editors (RK for instance) have a quite strong pro-Israel bias. We need to work hard to make sure the articles remain neutral in the current conflict, such that a supporter of either side could read them, and mostly agree with what is said within. Of course one result of this is we will spend much more time writing about what each side says happened, than what actually happened; but that is inevitable when the history is at the centre of so much dispute. -- Simon J Kissane

This page seems a bit deficient on the actual creation of the state of Israel. I will try and flesh this out a bit because it is fairly important. sjc

I'm going to remove yet again the parenthesised assertion that Zionism does not enjoy universal support of Jews even today. While technically true, it's grossly misleading in the context of the relevant sentence. The controversy of Zionism 100 years ago was very different from disagreements that exist today. Back then the very idea of a Jewish state was questioned by many if not most Jews; thus Zionism was controversial. Today, Zionism in the sense "belief that Jews should have a state of their own somewhere in the historical homeland" is no longer controversial among Jews, as a result of the Holocaust and some subsequent events; even Jews who don't support Zionism in the stronger sense (i.e. they don't immigrate to Israel themselves) almost unilaterally support the idea of Israel and its right to exist. While there are Jews who reject the legitimacy of Israel and its right to exist, they form extremely small fringe groups, and no real controversy exists. The sentence in its current form equates the very real disagreements then with the extremely fringelike disagreements now, thus creating an entirely wrong impression in the reader's mind. The result is propaganda.

There's no reason for that addition in the first place; to assert that Zionism was controversial then and to say nothing about now is the right solution, since the article speaks of history of Israel, not of contemporary beliefs of worldwide Jewry. --AV

AV: Do you like the new version better?

I think the fact that some Jews today, even if they are only a small fringe (and I don't deny they are), oppose Zionism is important. If even a few Jews oppose Zionism, it proves that opposition to Zionism isn't necessarily grounded in anti-Semitism, something many Zionists would want people to believe. A Jewish anti-Semite is a contradiction in terms. Though I agree that sort of discussion doesn't belong in the History of Israel article.

-- Simon J Kissane

: Yes, that's much better, thank you. I think it's quite acceptable to me.

: Jewish anti-Semitism, alas, is not a contradiction in terms, and has been known to happen. You're right that anti-Zionism doesn't necessarily imply anti-Semitism; on the other hand, it's just as true that often today anti-Semitism hides itself behind the banner of anti-Zionism. But I digress... ;) --AV

Since the article this points to has been deleted, took it out of the article. On the other hand, it is true that Israelis have become frustrated with the peace process (as have the Palestinians), but we need a real discussion of why, not just some anti-Palestinian propaganda piece:

: Israelis have become somewhat less supportive of the peace process in recent years, in part because some leaders in the Palestinian Authority has been teaching that the Peace treaty with Israel is a temporary measure only.

--SJK