Talk:West Bank

For future reference the Project:CIA World Factbook 2002 import can be found at Talk:West Bank/CIA World Factbook 2002 import.

Isn't it a bit strange to have a picture of the wall? The West Bank has a lot more to offer, I suppose.

POV
Seems like the edits keep going back to a pro-Israeli/settler viewpoint? I was trying to keep the guide objective -we should not see this occuring over and over again... Think of the situation in kosovo - are we to only offer a pro-Serbian or Kosovar view? hope we can take out the pro-Israeli bias or at least offer more neutral language!.. —The preceding comment was added by (WT-en) 69.215.158.15 (talk • contribs)


 * Hmm, can you provide some examples? Are you referring to the Understand section, or to something more systematic? I suppose striving for objectivity is useful for the historical background section, but for the most part, the information here should be subjective&mdash;from the perspective of what we think a traveler should know. --(WT-en) Peter Talk 20:18, 13 April 2008 (EDT)

Sure, first off the West Bank is home to Christian and Muslim areas of interest too. Secondly, to refer to parts of Israel as part of the West Bank?? (as it maybe geograpically as this is the only way I can make sense of this statement, but not in the political sense!) is plain wrong. The territory is officially not part of any nation. period. To not mention anything of the PNA aspirations of the West Bank to be part of a future Palestine but to talk at length about settler policy is strange and to refer to Jewish settlers in the West Bank as ones returning from exile is clearly showing bias any way you look at it. Thanks for your quick interest to my post! Hope we can make the article more neutral as it has a great start!

Switched back the statement regarding the "liberation" of the west bank by Israel to an apolitical statement regarding occupation- the official term used by the media. Loosing hope that this article will ever meet the goal of pro-settler bias with such events...

Population figures
the population number for the jewish settlements are wrong! Check the latest AP news reports.. if you combine both the regions including the E. Jer. area the total would amount much less than the stated 500,000 but this too is always switched back to appear to give the Israeli settlement more of pop. base than really exists in reality... very frustrating as I try to make all articles on the P.T. neutral as possible. the political agenda in this article must be removed! We need facts not pro-right wing Israeli statements. —The preceding comment was added by (WT-en) 218.6.247.158 (talk • contribs)


 * First, please assume good faith. If someone challenges your edits, best to provide a reference (an AP report, I assume) for your figures here.  Otherwise, plunge forward!   --(WT-en) Peter Talk 22:48, 28 July 2009 (EDT)

F.Y.I.: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090824/ap_on_re_mi_ea/ml_israel_netanyahu;_ylt=AlM_86931HHTzvgC91iAxNFY24cA;_ylu=X3oDMTJtb3AwaTQyBGFzc2V0A2FwLzIwMDkwODI0L21sX2lzcmFlbF9uZXRhbnlhaHUEY3BvcwM0BHBvcwM0BHNlYwN5bl90b3Bfc3RvcmllcwRzbGsDaXNyYWVsc25ldGFu

Separate articles for areas A+B and area C?
As someone who lives in the West Bank it is obvious to me that there is a clear distinction between tourists who come to areas A+B and those who tour area C. Tourists in areas A+B are mostly Christian tourists going to visit holy sites who have little interest in attractions in area C whereas the vast majority of tourists visiting are C are Jewish and therefore very unlikely to safely visit areas A+B. This being the case it would seem prudent to make separate pages for area C and areas A+B as the goals and interests of the visitors to each area are mutually exclusive. Separate pages would make it easier for tourists to plan their trips.

Suggested titles: Palestinian areas of the West Bank Judea and Samaria —The preceding comment was added by 79.176.142.225 (talk • contribs)


 * I hope you don't mind that I moved your new topic to the bottom of the page and added your signature, as is customary on talk pages on this site.


 * My answer is no, I don't think it would be a good idea to have separate articles on Palestinian areas and Jewish settlement areas, because I think that would make things even more complicated. However, it would be great to clearly and coherently cover these different areas in this article.


 * But all that said, if you'd like to try making the separate articles you propose in your userspace (e.g., User:79.176.142.225/Sandbox) and providing a link to them in the Travellers' pub for comments and possible edits from others, go ahead. You might convince a consensus to support them, or they might end up having useful information to merge here, which would be good in itself. Ikan Kekek (talk) 11:20, 17 April 2014 (UTC)


 * I should add that I put some rudimentary information on the differences between travel to Palestinian and Israeli areas in the "Understand" section. Any corrections or elaboration would be most appreciated. Ikan Kekek (talk) 11:55, 17 April 2014 (UTC)

Editorializing
What do you think of the following?


 * Quote:"Don't spend much or any money going to Mar Saba. Palestinians are currently trying to claim back the land here to get shops and houses built to earn money from the tourists that come here. However, this is exactly the opposite of what the monk at Mar Saba are intending or interested in – talk to them about it. It makes you think whether Mar Saba might be a good example of what Israelis do to Palestinians, Palestinians do to orthodox Christians on a small scale, claiming the land of other people on the basis of their own business and society interests without respecting the will of the people that legally lived there originally."

I'm not sure we want that kind of editorializing in our articles, especially in politically sensitive ones. What do you think? Hobbitschuster (talk) 14:56, 23 March 2017 (UTC)
 * Strongly agree with removing that. Ground Zero (talk) 15:11, 23 March 2017 (UTC)
 * I agree, too. Wikivoyage doesn't take a position on political questions like this. About the most that could be said is that Palestinians are split on this question, but it really seems easiest just to remove this. Ikan Kekek (talk) 16:45, 23 March 2017 (UTC)
 * Removed. Ikan Kekek (talk) 16:49, 23 March 2017 (UTC)
 * Re-added the part relevant for the respect of Mar Saba - no reference to any conflict with Palestinians. Ceever (talk) 01:23, 24 March 2017 (UTC)

Is there any sensible regional breakdown?
Should we break this down by region in some way? If so, is there any sensible breakdown? How relevant are the various overlapping political lines? Hobbitschuster (talk) 16:58, 26 August 2017 (UTC)
 * I would need two questions answered before I could support breaking up the article: 1) is there a sensible division? 2) is the article even big enough to need division? Ar2332 (talk) 17:58, 26 August 2017 (UTC)
 * (edit conflict) Looking at the dynamic map, one might assume they're attempting a world record in border density, I guess we need a local to make any sense of that :P . Not sure if we need to divide the West Bank into regions; the article isn't that extensive, the Hebrew article doesn't do it and we have some countries (that are even larger) like Moldova and Sierra Leone that aren't divided either. --ϒpsilon (talk) 18:01, 26 August 2017 (UTC)

Bethlehem - "and a Jewish holy site as the City of David"
While the Bible says Bethlehem is David's hometown, I have never heard of any Jews regard it as a "holy city" or a site worth visiting for that reason. They do visit the Tomb of Rachel, but that is outside the city. So I would delete this line. Ar2332 (talk) 18:02, 26 August 2017 (UTC)

Irrelevant material in Understand section
What exactly is the point of the extremely long additions to this article, including many things of little relevance to West Bank travelers like the quality of Nasser's military predictions, the strategic relevance of the Golan to Israel, where Egypt and Israel signed their peace agreement with Israel, and the moderate policies of Jordan decades ago? I understand we all have strong opinions about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, but Wikivoyage is not the place to trumpet them. I suggest that a lot of the Understand section now needs to be deleted. Ar2332 (talk) 11:56, 29 August 2021 (UTC)
 * I think we should have more people weighing in before we do something major about it... Hobbitschuster (talk) 16:09, 5 September 2021 (UTC)