Wikipedia:Featured article review/Jerusalem/archive1

The following is an archived discussion of a featured article review. Please do not modify it. Further comments should be made on the article's talk page or at Wikipedia talk:Featured article review). No further edits should be made to this page.

The article was removed by User:Marskell 13:21, 7 August 2008 [1].

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Jerusalem

Review commentary

Notified WikiProjects Israel, Palestine, Christianity, Islam, and Judaism; notified all seventeen editors with more than 40 edits to the article. <eleland/talkedits> 21:59, 2 July 2008 (UTC)

This article has serious problems with FA criteria 1b, 1c, 1d, and 1e. Specifically, it systematically neglects, minimizes, and downplays important aspects of the international controversy over the legal status of Jerusalem since 1967, and the "facts on the ground" created by Israeli policies in housing, entry visas, and political activity of the Palestinian population in the East. Attempts to redress these failings of accuracy and neutrality have let to edit skirmishes, so the article is also unstable. There are also somewhat less severe problems in the areas dealing with the British Mandate period and the 1947-48 war.

A chorus of UN Security Council resolutions (252, 267, 271, 298, 476, 478) have condemned Israel's occupation and attempted annexation of the Eastern sector. The wording has become progressively harsher as Israel continues to ignore the resolutions; by 476, they speak of "overriding necessity to end the prolonged occupation of Arab territories occupied by Israel since 1967, including Jerusalem;" Israeli measures which "have no legal validity and constitute a flagrant violation of the Fourth Geneva Convention." However, the lede continues being restored to a version which describes the occupation of East Jerusalem as merely a Palestinian view, and reduces this chorus of condemnation to a mere lack of "official recognition." Under "Establishment of the State of Israel," there is a vague and diffident account of the UNSC condemnation, which is described tendentiously as "non-binding," without a source. This last bit is particularily galling, as A) there is no international legal consensus whatsoever that resolutions such as these are "non-binding," and B) the article simultaneously describes an earlier UN General Assembly reccomendation as a "ruling," apparently because the resolution was favorable to Israel.

Israel has mounted a sustained, intense campaign to marginalize the Palestinian community in Jerusalem and fully "Judaize" the city. Palestinians are denied building permits, they build houses anyway because they need a roof over their heads, and then Israel comes in with soldiers and bulldozers and knocks the houses down. Palestinians leave for a month and while they're gone, their residency permits are suddenly, mysteriously revoked, again leaving them homeless. And outside the city, the figurative wall of Jewish-only settlements, coupled with the literal concrete separation wall, cut off Jerusalem from the rest of the Occupied Palestinian Territory, with dire consequences for the economic and cultural life of the entire nation and cast doubt on the viability of any future Palestinian state. The article mentions almost none of this. Interestingly, it actually cites an article which discusses some of the issues; however, the main thrust of the article is completely ignored - instead, every sentence favorable to Israel is cherry-picked. All this under a section entitled "Palestinian claims," no less!

The same is true for Palestinian political activity. Israel has taken an extremely hard line against any organizing or electioneering in East Jerusalem. In 2001 they seized the tiny PLO office in Orient House, ransacked the place, and shut it down for good; the article merely mentions that it is "currently closed." During the 2006 Palestinian legislative election, Israel arrested every candidate who tried to campaign there. They originally planned to allow no voting, but then relented under pressure, and decided to allow Palestinians to vote for their preferred candidates, openly declaring that nobody suspected of holding the wrong loyalties would be blocked from the polling stations. The article doesn't mention this even in some vague abbreviated fashion.

What vague reference to "controversy" and "dispute" do exist, with no specifics presented, don't come close to comprehensive and neutral coverage. In addition, the massive watering-down of the controversy has led to factually dubious statements, such as the aforementioned "non-binding" silliness, and to article instability and even protection. In summary, this piece comes nowhere near meeting FA standards. It's a weak B-Class, in my opinion. <eleland/talkedits> 22:49, 28 June 2008 (UTC)

• Comment: I think this FAR is completely inappropriate. It reads as if Eleland is just trying to force other people's hands in a content dispute by hanging the threat of FA removal over their heads. Half of this is Eleland explaining why his position on something (I'm not sure what) is correct, rather than explaining why this article does not meet FA standards. While one might reasonably be able to argue that there is more to be desired from this article (like a good cleanup), Eleland's vision of what this article should look like really concerns me. There is excessive attention given to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and specifically what Israel is doing to Palestinians. This article is about the city of Jerusalem, not the about the conflict itself. Of course, the present-day conflict needs to be mentioned, but the details suggested by Eleland, if (all) included, would give undue weight to the conflict and Palestinian suffering. Eleland seems to be basing much of this FA on a rather recent (< 1-week-old) dispute, a dispute, incidentally, he has inaccurately portrayed. However, the lede continues being restored to a version which describes the occupation of East Jerusalem as merely a Palestinian view. What are you talking about? It didn't say that before Imad's edits nor after Jayjg's, and it certainly doesn't now. Eleland suggests that the article repeatedly takes the stance of Israelis, when I see little evidence of that happening. Just about the only time anything conceiveably related to the conflict is mentioned is when the capital issue is mentioned (as disputed by much of the international community). The second paragraph under "Palestinian claims" looks a little flowery, but that could easily be cleaned up -- no reason for an FAR. So, yes, much isn't said about Palestinian sentiment and treatment, but the same can be said about Israeli sentiment and treatment. And it shouldn't; this article is not about that. It's a weak B-Class, in my opinion. Unbelievable. -- tariqabjotu 00:53, 29 June 2008 (UTC)

• Comment: There is a considerable number of editors who are worried about the neutrality of the article, and about the absence/minimizing of some significant information. Something that is apparent in the article talk page. Imad marie (talk) 08:32, 29 June 2008 (UTC)

• Comment: In my opinion, this article does not meet FAR standards: there is neutrality problem, the "citation need" appears twice, the article is not stable, and the section "Culture" contains a tag that says that the section has to be expanded. Idontknow610^TM 17:50, 29 June 2008 (UTC)

• Comment: I hope that this FARC gains significant contribution from the normal featured article contributor and isn't just a place for those of us who have been active in the arguments around the page to continue it in another place. On one level I would like the FA status to be removed as it has been used by some editors as an excuse to say that all is right in the world and any claims that the article is politically biased are dismissed onthe grounds that this is an FA and all FAs will have been properly evaluated. Of course, the best solution for Wikipedia would be to fix things. My biggest gripe with the article is with the first sentence which makes it seem uncomlicated that the city is in Israel. This is clearly the de facto position but reflects an extreme view of the de jure position in international law. There is an equally extreme view that woul deny all legitimacy to Israel and refers to it as the Zionist Entity. But Positions on Jerusalem demonstrates that the position is complicated. Countries such as the United Kingdom believe that the position of Jerusalem is unresolved as it was intended to be a corpus separatum and was illegally occupied by Jordan and Israel. Others accept that the pre-1967 West Jerusalem is part of Israel but deny that East Jerusalem is. Having the opening sentence of our article assert uncomplicatedly that the city (imploicitly the whole of it) is part of Israel ignores the disputed status and fails to reflect a neutral point of view instead taking an extremist position in the dispute.--Peter cohen (talk) 18:21, 29 June 2008 (UTC)

The comparison between the first sentence of the article and people calling Israel a Zionist entity seems plainly unfair. Clearly, the latter is a more extreme and derogatory tactic. That being said, I'm not sure what else you're hoping the first sentence to say. That Jerusalem sits partially on the West Bank? Or are you expecting the whole intro to be reworded entirely? In any event, the biggest point of contention during the FAC was the introduction. There was a bit of discussion surrounding that before we settled on an introduction very similar to the one that currently resides in the article. So, it seems a bit strange to me that the current introduction was a product of the FAC, and now is a source of the FAR. But, for that reason, if a consensus for changing it again really exists, this would be the best place to initiate the discussion. I'm not sure if that's the case, though. However, I dispute the idea, which could easily be inferred from the tone of your comment, that the original writers of the introduction were not aware of the complicated issues surrounding Jerusalem (or, as Eleland has more directly suggested, knew about them and have intentionally suppressed them). Just as complicated as the issues is how to address them without taking the focus away from the topic of the article, which, after all, is a city with thousands of years of history and significance that continues to this day despite the conflict.

As for the rest of the article, I think the issues there could easily be addressed without the FAR as a motivator. If you think some of the people involved with the article or who had a vested interest in bringing this to FA status should get involved, you may want to notify them. However, I don't have the time at the moment to work on cleaning up this article or notifying others who certainly have an interest in maintaining this article's status. -- tariqabjotu 19:12, 29 June 2008 (UTC)

Further: I'm not sure if your referring to me, but I am going to stand by my statement that biased articles do not become featured articles. But this is also similar to saying bad articles don't become featured articles. This is not to say nothing should be changed; changes have obviously been made to the article in the sixteen months since this article was made an FA, and (many of them) rightfully so. Rather, this is in response to claims, either explicit or implicit, that there is a cadre of pro-Israel editors that have been defending the article against anything critical of Israel. The featured article process is supposed to gather opinions from a variety of editors, and this case was no different. While some may still contest parts of the article -- as you wish -- the assertions by some (not, apparently, you) that this article is a bastion of pro-Israel sentiment are off the mark and do not take into account the suggestions that were offered, considered, and/or implemented during the FAC. -- tariqabjotu 19:37, 29 June 2008 (UTC)

Thanks, for taking the time to think about my comments. What I would regard as a preferable opening to the lede would be something like the following: (

Jerusalem (Hebrew: יְרוּשָׁלַיִם‎ (audio) (help·info), Yerushaláyim; Arabic: القُدس (audio) (help·info), al-Quds) is an ancient city of great significance to the three monotheistic religions of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. Following the Six-Day War of 1967, the whole city has been united under Israeli control, functions as Israel's capital, and has been expanded to be her largest city both in terms of populaton and area. However, the status of the city is internationally disputed.

I'd like to see if anyone has any observations I'm missing, but for now I don't have anything to dispute. -- tariqabjotu 06:52, 2 July 2008 (UTC)

Re-wording of my proposed text to highlight long history of international dispute follows: --Peter cohen (talk) 10:49, 3 July 2008 (UTC)

Jerusalem (Hebrew: יְרוּשָׁלַיִם‎ (audio) (help·info), Yerushaláyim; Arabic: القُدس (audio) (help·info), al-Quds) is an ancient city of great significance to the three monotheistic religions of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. It has been fought over many times, including during the Crusades. Most recently, the whole city has been united under Israeli control following the Six-Day War of 1967. It functions as Israel's capital, and has been expanded to be her largest city both in terms of populaton and area. However, the status of the city continues to be the subject of internationally dispute.

• Will the nominator please follow the instructions at the top of WP:FAR to complete the notifications and post the notifications back to the top of this FAR (see Wikipedia:Featured article review/Trigonometric functions for a sample). SandyGeorgia (Talk) 03:40, 30 June 2008 (UTC)

I have listed on the Talk page several of some dozens of notes I have made on the text indicating why this article does simply not approximate to FA quality standards. It is not simply a matter that the political controversy on the city's status is consistently glossed over. The etymology section is woefully substandard, and indeed biased towards wild unhistorical etymologizing. Both I and User:Zero0000 have indicated how it should be handled. The section on Palestinians sounds like hype from a tourist brochure, whereas the record shows a situation of extreme administrative prejudice against Jerusalemite Palestinians, as Eleland has noted. The history section is poor, as Jewish editors themselves admit, particularly on the non-Jewish aspects of its traditions, but also the Jewish history of the city could be much improved. There are many sentences that require rewriting purely from a stylistic point of view.

Take, just these few arbitrary bits and pieces:-

‘client kings of Judea’

can mean they are clients of a power called Judea’ or ‘kings of Judea’ who are client of Rome.

'Hadrian proceeded to rename the entire Iudaea Province to Syria Palaestina after the Biblical Philistines'

You don’t in English ‘rename . .to’. Syria Palestina is not a naming after the Philistines. It is a restoration of the 6th century BC Greek designation of the area. Philistines are not identifiable with Syria.

'16th and 17th centuries, . . Regional trade flourished and Jerusalem's economy and population expanded.'

Elsewhere we are told that trade in Jerusalem was historically based on pilgrimage, which is, again, untrue. In any case the two sentences contradict each other. No hint here of the real state of the city in those centuries, by the way.

'foreign missions and consulates were established throughout the province that the Ottomans were unable to dislodge following re-occupation'

What was to be dislodged? the province or the consulates? In any case, 'following reoccupation' is obscure, and the point not reliably sourced.

'As the British Mandate for Palestine was expiring'.

'Expire' is an inappropriate word here, suggesting a natural end.

'the nascent Israeli troops'

(we are really meant to get the impression that the Israeli troops fought a war in swaddling bands?!!.

'Contrary to the terms of the Armistice Agreement of 1949 between Jordan and Israel, Israelis were denied access to Jewish holy sites,and only allowed extremely limited access to Christian holy sites.'

I.e. Israelis were denied access to Jewish sites, but could, rarely visit Christian holy sites. So what does this imply? Where are the Christians? Were they denied access? The subject makes Israelis the only relevant category in the disputes.(There should be more on the very strong Christian revival of interest in Jerusalem at that time. The Christian myths and work on the city spurred in turn the Jewish revival.

'The status of the city and of its holy places remains disputed to this day'

(IF you admit this in the text, then ‘disputed’ belongs to the lead definition of Jerusalem as capital of Israel). Yet all attempts to signpost the fact in the lead suffer massive challenges. The status of its holy places is too generic. Most are secured in law all accept, except for marginal areas of any one site.

'On December 5, 1949, the State of Israel's first Prime Minister, David Ben-Gurion, proclaimed Jerusalem as Israel's capital' I.e. he proclaimed all of Jerusalem the capital of Israel, or West Jerusalem, the part in Israel's sector?

'It has also been critiqued for its emphasis'.

'Critique' as a verb is academic jargon for a critical review of some thesis. It is a textual operation. The word intended was obviously 'criticized' .

Dozens of other slipshod usages, unhistoric assertions, unsourced remarks ('sacred to the Jews from the 10th century'? No historian would underwrite this, since it cannot be documented), could be added to the list (I'll provide a full list if required). One can only remark on these, since editing the text tends to run into revert wars by hyperventilating editors. It needs to be thoroughly reviewed with a senior administrator, preferably two, imposing strict supervision, preferably with the most disputed element left until the end (i.e., the question of political status). The rest of the page is ragged and consistently uneven, and that should be addressed first. As a contribution and sign of good faith, I would be quite happy to provide a thorough, strongly sourced rewrite, according to the standard philological criteria, of the Etymology section, a section which does not involve political differences. On condition that the page is placed under intelligent, depoliticized supervision by administrators who care about textual quality. Nishidani (talk) 10:29, 2 July 2008 (UTC)

• Comment: I agree with a statement high above that this article is about the city of Jerusalem, not about the Israeli Arab conflict itself. Unfortunately, Israeli articles are being attacked ferociously in wikipedia by many anon users (I'm not commenting on users on this page) in the hope of crushing the spirit of editors who works on Israeli related articles. Jerusalem is just a city in Israel, its capital, and it's not a political issue - or more accurately it doesn't have to be. People live there and the article is written about the culture, the government seats, the parliament, the geography, the climate of Jerusalem. It is quite understandable of course, but sad, that users like to exploit the platform to sway discussions to the conflict. This is the whole point of course - to de legitimize the state of Israel. It's a similar situation to if the New York City article would be attacked by supporters of Saddam or Castro for example. They would make it out that it's not of course, but it really is. The experienced editors like User:Eleland should know better not to be dragged to these anon users' wishes. If the article "downplays important aspects of the international controversy over the legal status of Jerusalem since 1967" it is because this is not Politics.com or Jerusalem-the-future.com . It is an Encyclopedia which describes the city of Jerusalem. Not more than a paragraph or two should be concentrated on political violence - it just opens the door for extremists to make antisemitic comments about Jews, about whether or not it is the capital (which is a fact on the ground) and whether or not Israelis should be allowed to be free in their country and write about their cities in wikipedia. Cheers, Amoruso (talk) 22:14, 2 July 2008 (UTC)

In line with this, I think the most significant thing about Jerusalem is its religious history. Mecca starts with a mention of its status in Islam before moving on later to mention it is Saudi. Bethlehem, I think mistakenly, mentions it is Palestinian before mentioning its place in Christianity. And similarly, I think Rome's status as the core of the Roman Empire and the seat of the Roman Catholic church is actually more important than its being the capital of the youngish nation state of Italy. In my proposed opening to the Jerusalem above, I have placed the religious status first and the current political status of a city that has changed hands many many times second. I hope that you would agree that that is progress.--Peter cohen (talk) 10:49, 3 July 2008 (UTC)

A palmary suggestion, beautifully worded,Peter. To respond to another editor's remarks, there are implicit and explicit politics in these textual redactions, indeed there's far too much politics driving our edits. The Jerusalem article, as it stands is a very good example of the former, while all attempts to challenge the covert drift are taken as 'political', whereas they are driven by a perception, not unfounded, that attempts at a comprehensive NPOV account of the city has yielded to a rather one-sided perspective, centered around the possessive myth of the eternal return, what was 'ours' in the beginning shall be ours at the end of time, and on the facts of recent acquisition. I would underwrite every word Peter has just written, a sense that 'eternal' cities, must be narrated sub specie aeternitatis and not in terms of the temporal politics that focus on possession. It has played a powerful role in the religious and literary imaginaries of three civilizations, and that unity of transcendental value should unite the various narratives, rather than divide them, as a politically-centered narrative does.

But my preoccupations remain predominantly those I alluded to above. Too many sections are simply not up to snuff, and ripe with errors, of detail, generalization, strategic underplayings of realities extraterritorial to the dominant impress of Jerusalem as a Jewish city, and issues of expression and style. Nishidani (talk) 12:07, 3 July 2008 (UTC)

R to Amoruso

I certainly understand and respect the argument that present-day politics ought to be minimized in an article about a city that is several thousand years old. I would be willing to leave this issue alone if the article just skirted modern times entirely; technically that's not acceptable in a featured article, but whatever, it's not my concern.

However it seems to me that nobody has yet proposed that politics be left out of this article. Rather, they've defined an extremist, irredentist "pro-Israel" position as being the natural, objective, apolitical state of affairs, and then proposed that Palestinian politics be left out of the article. This can be seen clearly in Amoruso's own comment. "Jerusalem is just a city in Israel, its capital," and to argue for any nuance beyond this fiat is an exploitation intended "to de legitimize Israel," comparable to supporting Saddam Hussein or Fidel Castro, linked to an effort to "crush the spirit" of Jewish editors, and a stalking horse for antisemitism. "Israelis should be free to write about their cities," the twin corollaries apparently being that 1) any city Israel manages to conquer becomes "its city" and 2) everybody else shouldn't be free to write about them.

This view would be at variance with WP:NPOV even if the issue were as clear cut as Amoruso pretends it to be; of course, it is not. Israel's official claim that all of Jerusalem is and ought to be Israeli is rejected by the entire international community. Even the United States, out at the extreme fringe of "pro-Israel" opinion, voted for the relevant resolutions. All fifteen judges of the ICJ reject this position. Every respectable map of the area uses the 1949 cease-fire line that divided Jerusalem in two, even though it is completely irrelevant "on the ground." The BBC apologized for calling Jerusalem Israel's capital, saying that "We of course accept that the international community does not recognize Jerusalem as Israel's capital, and that the BBC should not describe it as such." Even Disney World, for pete's sake, took the same position.

If Amoruso wishes to believe that this is all a worldwide conspiracy led by Saddam Hussein and Fidel Castro to crush the Jewish spirit, of which I am a hapless dupe, fine, that's his prerogative. It's not his perogative to demand that WP comply with such beliefs, or to present them as neutral, apolitical facts. They are clearly not. <eleland/talkedits> 18:15, 3 July 2008 (UTC)

Currently, the article reads like a discussion of Jerusalem as an Israeli city, and the talk page reads like a discussion of the need to also treat Jerusalem as a Palestinian city. In my opinion, above all, the article should emphasize Jerusalem as a world heritage site that in fact belongs to all of us, including Israelis and Palestinians, but not exclusively. I think if it were to read in this way, then there would be more of a willingness to treat Jerusalem as a city that has, at different times and in different ways, been perceived as "the capital" of a variety of different peoples, whether in possession of a nation-state of their own or not.This is indeed what makes Jerusalem so significant, no?, not merely its status as today's capital of Israel or Palestine. LamaLoLeshLa (talk) 22:51, 3 July 2008 (UTC)

• Comment. I'm just going to be brutally honest here, though not politically wise. It is incredibly tiresome to find editors whose main purpose for editing Wikipedia is to demonize Israel coming here to try to "punish" an article because it doesn't view the ancient city of Jerusalem through their incredibly narrow "Zionism is evil" lens. Tariqabjotu, who doesn't have a dog in the I-P fight, did an admirable job of creating an informative and well-written article about the city; those who lack either the talent or inclination to contribute in this way have come here to tear his work down. The main "issues" raised so far are trivial at best, and rank POV-pushing at worst. Yes, the article might benefit from a little more detail about the city's religious significance, and parts of the history section could be sharpened, but these are issues of personal preference more than anything else, and overall the article is top-notch. Using this process in an extortionist attempt to advance a political agenda is shameful. Jayjg ^(talk) 00:47, 4 July 2008 (UTC)
  • Reply: I suggest you focus less on being brutally honest and more on being intellectually honest. Your comments here, as on Talk:Jerusalem, are simply thesis statements (there's no real issue here, the article is informative and well-written,) followed not by supporting evidence or logical argument, but by insulting speculation about personal motives, mock astonishment, and other such histrionics. The one time, Jay, that you've actually cited a relevant source (Britannica) to support your position, you claimed that "you wouldn't see" it saying, in the introduction or anywhere else, something that it said in the very first paragraph. Apart from this one rather ineffective attempt, and from a torrent of personal attacks, all you've done is re-state your original premise, preceded by phrases like, "As has been previously pointed out to you" and "As can be clearly seen." If you haven't anything of substance to offer, then kindly desist from such useless and trivial exercises. <eleland/talkedits> 20:28, 4 July 2008 (UTC)
    • See, this is the kind of partisan poppycock that has marred this entire FAR. I've been brutally, emotionally, intellectually, and every other kind of honest about this. I stated quite clearly wouldn't see Britannica pushing this kind of POV about the ICJ into the lead of their article on Jerusalem - indeed, it's unlikely they'd even bother mentioning it anywhere in the article. Indeed, I made very sure to clarify that this was specifically what I was referring to. Despite this, Eleland instead responds to some other claim that I never made. When I point this out to him, he ignores it, and then repeats his canard here. That's the kind of gamesmanship that destroys the editing environment on these articles. Jayjg ^(talk) 01:08, 10 July 2008 (UTC)

  'It is incredibly tiresome to find editors whose main purpose for editing Wikipedia is to demonize Israel coming here to try to "punish" an article because it doesn't view the ancient city of Jerusalem through their incredibly narrow "Zionism is evil" lens.

• There's nothing 'brutally honest' about this. It's terribly tiresome for all of us 'on both sides' to find irresponsible POV editing for political or national or partisan ends. It happens to be an unfortunate reality that I/P articles by their very nature deal with mediating a variety of strong and opposed perspectives (not, as often as some would wish, simplified oppositions between an Israeli' and a 'Palestinian' perspective). Their editing, for that reason, requires particular talents, equanimity and a capacity to listen. If you think there are specific editors here whose 'main purpose is to demonize Israel' name them. Perhaps there are, but I see none. The implicit corollary in your declaration is that 'there are no editors in Wikipedia whose main purpose is to demonize Palestinians, when not eliding them from the cognitive map of the area'. Arguments are to be addressed on their merits, not by preemptive torpedoeing of their proponents by raising suspicions about their mala fides. Finally, it is not to 'tear down' an article that one notes that two sections are lamentable sub-par. The Etymology section is, precisely because it has been written to highlight the 'Hebrew' etymologies for the city and apparently secure its jewish identity linguistically, a disgrace. Had it not been politicized, we should have had no problem in simply drafting what any reference book says of its etymology, that the term is Semitic, predating historical Hebrew and the Jewish presence in the city by nearly a 1,000 years. Afterwards, the word, assimilated into Hebrew, developed a rich series of folk etymologies, that happen to be just that, speculative attempts to give a foreign word a religious significance within Judaic tradition. Is it pushing a Palestinian POV to note this? It is a good example where an apparently non-political issue, from a technical point of view of pure linguistics, has unwittingly assumed a strong POV colouring, innocently perhaps, because not all are familiar with the philology of the term Nishidani (talk) 08:28, 4 July 2008 (UTC)

• Comment: Jerusalem is currently the capital of Israel. Other countries can decide that New York should be the capital of the US because it has special significance for more people, but it is not up to other countries or entities to decide the capital of another, sovereign state. Whether that is legal by international standards or even accepted by other countries is really moot , unless they try to take it over like the Crusaders or Saladin. Right now it is in Jewish (Israeli) hands (again). There is absolutely no way that a Jewish/Arab-Muslim consensus about this city will be reached either here or in "real life" in the near future. The article will never be written to please both sides. Already a user suggests another believes in " a worldwide conspiracy ... to crush the Jewish spirit." One might be excused for thinking this latest effort to de-feature the article is part of the endless propaganda(and real) war [2] being waged, part of the asymmetric warfare cycle, at minimum transparently an attempt to instill WP:POV. The substance of this article reaches back thousands of years; tens of centuries. The debate that's being raised here is a little over 60 years old. Can't we just leave contemporary political arguments out of it for once? There are plenty of blogs and political interest groups concerned with (the status of) Jerusalem from both sides. [3] Don't let's import the battles to Wiki. There is absolutely nothing wrong about correcting errors of fact, if indeed there are factual errors in the article. But if unhappy with the politics of it all, how about starting a whole new other, "Jerusalem" article, calling it "Political Jerusalem" or "Muslim/Arab/Palestinian Jerusalem" or "Arab East Jerusalem" or something, and give as much time to the Israeli/Jewish perspective as the Arab/Muslim perspective has enjoyed in this article? This has been considered a good 'featured' article and doesn't need to be burdened with these politics. If it ain't broke, don't fix it. Tundrabuggy (talk) 01:00, 4 July 2008 (UTC)

• Comment Exactly, as you say, Tundrabuggy, "The debate that's being raised here is a little over 60 years old." Jerusalem's significance reaches far beyond this debate. Despite the fact that the city is thousands of years old and has wide-reaching historical significance for many peoples worldwide, about 2/3 of the article focuses on Jerusalem's significance as an Israeli city. I am a Jerusalemite, and would welcome an entry called: "Israel's capital, Jerusalem"; however in an encyclopedia entry on "Jerusalem" I expect to see an emphasis in tone on the broader significance and context of the city than we see here. (It's all a matter of flow and organization - much of the content is there, but because of the article's ordering, the emphasis of the entry is on Jerusalem as a center of Israeli governance rather than Jerusalem as a center of world history.)

In particular, although personally I am secular, it stands out as quite bizarre that one has to scroll halfway down the article to get to the "religious significance' section.

Jayjg says that a little more religious significance would be useful, as would some sharpening of the history section. Well, let's get to it then - as we have seen in the debate over the capital issue, a few sentences, and their placement, make an immense difference in conveying the tone/focus of an article. It's easy enough to move the religious significance section up, to start...LamaLoLeshLa (talk) 05:48, 4 July 2008 (UTC)

• Comment I hate to be the guy that adds the "citation needed" tags in article and I always try to avoid doing so, but some subsections in the history section (of an FA by the way) are almost completely unreferenced. I placed several tags where needed and I can't believe no one has brought this up (actually I didn't look at above conversations so I'm not sure). We get these passages referenced, improve the general style, add info on the Arab Jerusalemite culture as well as the Arab, Crusader and Mamluk history in the city and this article could be saved. The "status" sentence is an issue, but I don't think it'll bring down the article. --Al Ameer son (talk) 05:55, 4 July 2008 (UTC)
• Comment I won't waste bytes by repeating what Tariq and Jayg said. I agree with their words here. The issues raised here are mostly minor stylistic issues, or issues of personal preference. Some of the less-than-optimal phrasing is a natural result of a heavily edited article, and basically "crops-up when no one's looking". A simple cleanup would solve these in less time than this discussion is taking up. The article could refer more to the Arab aspect of the city, both today (mainly in the Culture section), and in the past (History section). While it's easy to refer to such points to claim the article is biased, it's also misleading; this information isn't there not because "pro-Israeli" editors removed it, but simply because no one wrote it. It wouldn't be prohibitively difficult for one of the Arabic speaking editors to research this issue, but I guess it's easier to complain and argue against an article than do something productive. I also find it in very poor taste that people are, on the one hand, complaining over lack of stability of an article, and on the other causing it. okedem (talk) 07:22, 4 July 2008 (UTC)
• CommentThanks for the previous two constructive comments, AlAmeer son and Okedem. The article is not a disaster by any means despite the contested sentence. It just needs some finetuning. Who is willing to do it, rather than just complaining? I'm afraid I will not have the time myself in coming days... LamaLoLeshLa (talk) 07:34, 4 July 2008 (UTC)
• Suggestion Perhaps a good model, as far as ordering goes, would be Rome? The Rome entry, I see, emphasizes the city as the capital of Italy as opposed to a world heritage site (contrary to my arguments above) however it gives due emphasis via placing an "Architecture, landmarks and city layouts" section after "history" and before "Government". I think what this article is perhaps missing most of all is a "Landmarks" section? What do others think? Or are the landmarks simply too numerous to count?LamaLoLeshLa (talk) 07:41, 4 July 2008 (UTC)

Note. If some doubts persist as to the inability of many editors to perceive obvious bias in word choice, I would ask them to see the recent edits designating the Moroccan Quarter as a 'slum'. All of the old City was, technically a slum. The Moroccan Quarter alone is a 'slum', a word prefacing a comment on its being razed (slum clearance, a sanitary measure) to allow Jewish access to the wall. People who note this kind of operation and protest it are not, in Jayjg's description, 'demonizers of Israel' who set out to 'punish' Israel. They are readers who are appalled by the inability of otherwise forthright editors to see the implications of the choices they make, as though our perspective is the only real option available. True, there follows a long setpiece to satisfy the 'minority' (opposition): several notes on foreign condemnations. As Peter Cohen, LamaLoLeshLa and others have pointed out, one could well wipe out most of this political documentation, reduce it to a single phrase, with sources, and used the saved space to actually provide a little detail on that historic quarter, now razed, with its two mosques. Instead, a waqf property, with attached mosques, razed to the ground is described implicitly as an improvement on access to the wall. The indelicacy of the editors who support this is, frankly, quite unbelievable (were it not so frequent). Perhaps, since one doesn't expect much to change (people are conservative about this text, I am conservative culturally; what was, should be remembered), one could open up an article on the Jerusalem we have lost, the many historic areas destroyed, from the 19th through the twentieth century (Jordanians in 1948 included), down to the present destruction of archeoligical ground sites in Silwan. I live in Rome, and in reading of such razings, recall spontaneously what was done in this city: Quod non fecerunt barbari, fecerunt Barberini. Nishidani (talk) 15:42, 4 July 2008 (UTC)

• Comment First, it seems to me that many of the comments above have nothing to do with FA criteria and whether the article meets them. I think there are some obvious problems with the quality of the writing, and the article doesn't seem all that stable right now. As for neutrality, I don't think it is a great distance away from something acceptable - but the editing process at the moment does not appear to allow improvement in this regard. As things stand, I wouldn't be keen to send my students to this article. Nomoskedasticity (talk) 23:19, 6 July 2008 (UTC)

The reason the article is "not all that stable" is because POV-pushers keep trying to insert their nonsense into it; a bit of a Catch 22 there, destabilize the article, then come here claiming it shouldn't be a FA because it's unstable. As for the rest, it's actually Tariqabjotu who has brought up the most serious issue with the article: that it focuses far too much on the post-1948 history, and the material is chosen to push various POV agendas. But try to actually cut that down to size, and the howls of protest would spring up from the our victimhood must come first and foremost!!! crowd. Jayjg ^(talk) 06:47, 8 July 2008 (UTC)

• Comments - Just had a quick look, and found plenty of problems:
  • The neutrality tag raises an eyebrow—it certainly wouldn't pass the FAC process with that, suggests failure of criteria 1d and possibly 1e.
  • No reference for: "A city called Rushalimum appears in ancient Egyptian records, which many scholars believe to be the first reference to Jerusalem"
  • The footnotes need cleaning up: "Ceramic evidence indicates the occupation of Ophel, within present-day Jerusalem, as far back as the Copper Age, c. 4th millennium BCE,[25][5] with evidence of a permanent settlement during the early Bronze Age, c. 3000-2800 BCE.[25] [26]" - Some are together, some have a space. Some are after a period, some after a comma.
  • "King David reigned until 970 BCE." - Very short, can this sentence and the one after be changed to improve flow?
  • There are citation needed tags. This article fails 1c.
  • Though not a reason for delisting, this article is overlinked. Please consider reducing the number of linked words to only necessary ones.
  • No reference for "Enforcement of the ban on Jews entering Aelia Capitolina continued until the 4th century CE."
  • Space between footnote: "In 1517, Jerusalem and environs fell to the Ottoman Turks, who remained in control until 1917.[59] The Ottomans built tanneries and slaughterhouses near Christian and Jewish holy places "so that an evil smell should ever plague the infidels." [62]"
  • "[67]In the 1860s, new neighborhoods began to go up outside the Old City walls to house pilgrims and relieve the intense overcrowding and poor sanitation inside the city" - Missing space after footnote.
  • Unsourced paragraph: "At the end of the 1948 Arab-Israeli War, Jerusalem was left divided between Israel and Jordan (then known as Transjordan). The ceasefire line established through the Armistice Agreement of 1949 between Israel and Jordan, cut through the center of the city, and left Mount Scopus as an Israeli exclave. Barbed wire and checkpoints divided the city, and military skirmishes frequently threatened the cease-fire."
  • Unsourced paragraph: "After the establishment of the State of Israel, Jerusalem was declared its capital. Jordan formally annexed East Jerusalem in 1950, and declared the Palestinian Arab population to be Jordanian citizens. This move was not internationally recognized. In 1951 the Jordanian King Abdullah was assassinated by a Palestinian while visiting the city."
  • Current refs 2 and 6 contains article context.
  • Refs 60-67 need formatting correctly. Do not repeat book title and first author name if the same book is referenced more than once. Please add the missing ISBNs and format in the correct way.
  • Current ref 74 is missing access date.
  • Current refs 85, 87, 93, 94 are not formatted.
  • There are many other citations which need fixing for consistency and accuracy, please go through all of them.
  • I have not checked image copyright/rationales, so it might fail criteria 3 for images.
  • I have not checked the prose, but it might need a polish to satisfy criteria 1a for prose of a "professional standard".
  • In conclusion, this does not meet the FA criteria. It fails 1c, 1d, possibly 1e, and 2c.

— Wackymacs (talk ~ edits) 09:31, 9 July 2008 (UTC)

Comment (a) The lack of a ref for Rushalimum (which should be Rušalimum/ Urušalimum, since the Execration texts allow both forms) is easily fixed, by inserting:- G.Johannes Botterweck, Helmer Ringgren (eds.) Theological Dictionary of the Old Testament, (tr.David E.Green) William B.Eerdmann, Grand Rapids Michigan, Cambridge, UK 1990 p.348</ref>. Of course, this won't solve the problem, that the whole etymology section must be completely written since it is a hodge-podge of folklorish etymologies.

(b) King David's reign and times being conjectural must be phrased to reflect that conjectural status.

(c) Mt Scopus was a Jewish enclave, but demilitarized, and with a perimeter on the mountain, defining (doc. and map 21 July 1948) that enclave from the rest of the hill. Israel insisted the whole site was Israeli territory. In practical terms it wasn't part of Israel, since the agreement of 7 July 1948 allowed passage of two convoys per month to maintain the Israeli position, which included the Arab village of Issawiyya. Hence the incident as late as April 1952, when Israel violated the agreement on non transporting military material into Mt Scopus by hiding it in the convoys. When you simplify, everything tilts POVwards.

(d) I have been blocked as many others, for ever using the word 'Palestinian' by pro-Israeli editors who insist on 'Palestinian Arab', esp. for this period. So it caught my attention again that when King Abdullah was assassinated, it wasn't a Palestinian Arab (Mustafa Ashu of the the Sheikh Jarrah suburb of Jerusalem) but a Palestinian tout court, a good example of double-standard composition. etc.Nishidani (talk) 12:35, 9 July 2008 (UTC)

Comment

• There are a couple of unformatted citations, such as http://www.merip.org/mero/mero080400.htmland (which is a dead link anyway).
• Dead links:
  • Citation 101 ^Official site of Bezalel Academy of Art and Design: (Hebrew) & (English)
  • Citation 102 ^"About JCT". Jerusalem College of Technology. Retrieved on 25 March 2007.
  • Citation 124 ^(Hebrew) "Home". Hapoel Migdal Jerusalem. Retrieved on 7 March 2007.
  • Citation 131 ^"The Rockefeller Archaeological Museum". The Israel Museum, Jerusalem. Retrieved on 28 February 2007. --maclean 07:11, 10 July 2008 (UTC)

FARC commentary

Suggested FA criteria concerns are neutrality (1d), comprehensiveness (1b), referencing (1c), and stability (1e). Marskell (talk) 17:29, 19 July 2008 (UTC)

Often with reviews of this sort we've shut them down early because FAR is not dispute resolution. Given the concerns raised above, I think this should go through the full review process. I can't order people to keep it short or to avoid threaded conversations, but that's my hope here to make this easier to close. Make precise declarations of keep or remove directly focused on the FA criteria. For longer comments, what Wackymacs has done above is preferable—specific textual issues raised or addressed, rather than lengthy discursions about POV. Marskell (talk) 17:29, 19 July 2008 (UTC)

• Remove per my comments given in the reviewal process. Numerous problems with the article as already mentioned by Marskell. The references are not good enough, the prose is poor in places and the article is not considered comprehensive or stable. Little has been done to fix these problems in the past weeks since the FAR started. If this went up at FAC today, it would not pass. — Wackymacs (talk ~ edits) 17:35, 19 July 2008 (UTC)
• Keep The article has some issues, granted, but none severe enough for FA removal. The article is comprehensive, and the stability issue is caused by people edit-warring with the specific intent of causing FA removal. The issues raised are minor, at best. The people arguing for FA removal would have spent less time and effort simply fixing those (non-controversial) problems, instead of complaining about them. However, this FAR was political from the start, initiated because some editors want the article to discuss the conflict at every single paragraph. This would be a prize for them. Quite frankly, the simplest thing to do would be to just revert the article to the version that got FA. okedem (talk) 19:33, 19 July 2008 (UTC)
  • The issues are far from minor. This article has [citation needed] tags-an absolute no-no for a featured article. — Wackymacs (talk ~ edits) 19:38, 19 July 2008 (UTC)
    • Minor. None of the tagged sentences have any importance, and were added recently. They can be removed in a heartbeat. okedem (talk) 19:44, 19 July 2008 (UTC)
      • Then why not remove them now? You think this should be Kept, but you're suggesting that things be changed/removed, which suggests the current revision is not FA standard. — Wackymacs (talk ~ edits) 20:38, 19 July 2008 (UTC)
• Remove The quality of this article is obviously substantially lower than it was the day it was promoted. And that's a real shame, because as I mentioned (and Marskell implied) the tenor of the opening statement to the review was way out-of-line. Removing this article's FA star may seem, as Okedem suggested, like a "prize" for some editors, but the poor state of the article can't be ignored. Unfortunately, no one at this point seems to want to put any effort into fixing this article. For those who have been constantly attacked as unreasonably pro-Israel, that's understandable. For those who have been on the offensive, attacking editors who have contributed to the article, it's merely unfortunate you didn't put that energy into proposing (new) alternatives. Over the past few weeks alone, we have seen the article descend even further in quality, highlighting violations of (4) length / summary style, as excessive detail regarding the Israeli-Palestinian conflict still keeps getting added. There are times when the article is not (1a) well-written, (1e) stable, or (2c) consistently cited, but that is primarily due to sloppy insertions of new (and frequently unnecessary) elements. The fact that the article may not appear (1b) comprehensive is primarily due to the fact that too much space is devoted to the past sixty years, suggesting that we need to say a heck of a lot more about pre-20th century history (while more could be said, not tons more should). Neutrality is not, in my opinion, a major concern, except insofar as it relates to undue weight given to the entire conflict (rather than just Israel or just Palestinians); the tags make the problem seem worse than it is. Are these things, and the issues that don't fit concretely under FA criteria, able to be fixed in a few weeks? Absolutely, but not without a great deal of patience, patience I don't think anyone has it this point. But, FA removal is not forever. The article can be put into the shop, ideally without the destructive instigators, and brought back via FAC. -- tariqabjotu 20:55, 19 July 2008 (UTC)

• Comment. I'm really sorry to see that the nominator put this article here, mainly in order to make a political statement. This, however, does not alter the reality: The article has indeed many problems. Without reading in detail, the first thing I saw is its overciting, which makes it difficult for anybody to read it. And there are many other issues the above reviewers mentioned (for instance, why is reference 6 so looooong, when there is a seperate [?] notes section?). Happy to see that there are no POV tags.--Yannismarou (talk) 11:48, 23 July 2008 (UTC)
  • I couldn't tell which type of 'overciting' you were referencing (no pun intended), but there are two types I'm thinking of: we can either cite too many statements, or cite certain statements with too many sources. The former I think is impossible on this article; the subject of the article is an invitation for people who want to fling accusations of bias and misrepresentation to do so, and I think it would be best if nearly everything was cited. The latter, however, I think is a problem. Reference 6, as you mention, looks ridiculous. Certainly, debatable statements can have multiple references, but seven lengthy citations seems overboard. As for the separate sections for notes, I don't understand why this has been brought up; that is a perfectly acceptable way of presenting endnotes. -- tariqabjotu 12:09, 23 July 2008 (UTC)
    • I did not say it is not acceptable! I have used such sections repeatedly. I just said that since there is such a section, why having this long note in citations? And my question mark has to do with the fact that this notes section has no "heading"! That's all! By overciting I mean that there are too many citations, even in the middle of sentences, breaking them and making the reading a tough task. Why don't you ask Sandy about how to place them at the end of the sentences (unless is is an absolute need to cite something in the middle of a sentence) and group them (I'll mention Tourette syndrome once again as a model on this issue!).--Yannismarou (talk) 17:29, 23 July 2008 (UTC)
• Remove Apart from the issues concerning referencing etc., the article needs recasting sio that the emphasis is on Jerusalem as an ancient city notable predominantly for its major religious significance and this recasting should begin with the lead. The conflict of the past 60+ years is just another variation of the religious wars that have gone on for many centuries and should be discussed in this context. WP:RECENT may be only an essay but it ost certainly applies here.--Peter cohen (talk) 18:39, 23 July 2008 (UTC)
• Remove It's taken me over an hour and six edits just to check the most elementary data (the population). During this I found mistakes in template use, mis-numbered references, duplicated references, incorrectly formatted references, references which did not match the information they were next to, and references which contradict each other, e.g.[4][5][6] in addition to MoS breaches [7]. This indicates to me that the rest of the article probably suffers from the same problems. DrKiernan (talk) 08:34, 5 August 2008 (UTC)
  • All you did was nitpick. There are featured article criteria, which enjoin you to analyze the article as a whole rather than base an objection to featured status on trivial, and in a couple cases repetitive or misleading, complaints. There were no misnumbered references (merely a difference of opinion on whether a reference in a footnote goes before one in the body). Also, the duplicated reference was not an exact match. So, basically, you're left with a (common) WP:DASH error, and some other issues with a few references that were added recently. And because (gasp) you found a few mistakes in the article, that must mean the article as a whole is a minefield of referencing issues. You're certainly not going to see if that's the case, or look at the other FA criteria, because it took you a whole hour to look at a few references (that long; really?). The focus of FARs should be long-standing issues, not recent, minor referencing mistakes that take a couple minutes of one's time to fix. Featured articles are not intended to be perfect at every level, which is why the quality of the article as a whole should be considered. Further, if it took you "over an hour and six edits just to check the most elementary data", you need to be more efficient and use the Preview button; that alone is not a sign that an article should not be featured. -- tariqabjotu 13:27, 5 August 2008 (UTC)
    • You're quite wrong. This edit shows that I removed an exact duplication [8]. This version, before my edits, shows clearly that footnote 5 came before footnote 4 (you can't actually see the identifier for footnote 5 in the lead because it is mal-formatted). The length of time I have spent on the article is indicative of the great effort I have gone to fact-check, assure reliability and ascertain MoS compliance. This article has failed on those counts. Finally, why are you berating me when we are both "voting" remove? The contentious and argumentative attitudes of you and the other contributors to this article is one of the main causes of the article's poor state. DrKiernan (talk) 14:15, 5 August 2008 (UTC)
      • Exact duplication? No, they're not, given the two links go to articles with different titles. Misnumbered reference? Okay, this was a mistake on my part; I didn't realize the (current) reference [v] was also in a footnote. So you are correct that the numbering was out of order. Regardless, me voting "remove" does not mean I should sit by and let misguided reviews stand. This isn't about forming rigid gangs of pro-FA-removal and anti-FA-removal editors; it's about providing feedback for improving the article and deciding whether this should still be a featured article, based on the criteria which does not, in fact, call for this level of nitpicking. You found that maybe one percent of the references had minor issues. Okay, big deal. We're human; people make mistakes and others are not entirely experts on wiki-code. It is especially conceivable that the errors you mention were due to a mistake by one or two people considering the errors you found surrounded a similar topic (population and demographics). These people, who exist all over Wikipedia, do not kill featured articles. When someone comes across obvious mistakes, like the ones you found, you fix them (as you did) and move on (as you didn't do). What kills articles is long-standing, unresolved problems with this article. If you think my "contentious and argumentative attitude" is what has caused the downfall of this article, you really haven't been paying attention. On the contrary, I was a primary reason it was featured in the first place. -- tariqabjotu 16:52, 5 August 2008 (UTC)
        • I must interject here, seeing two good editors arguing. Tariq has obviously provided enormous effort for this article, from it's original nomination through to this review. I can understand that he's frustrated and that little nitpicks seem trivial when compared with the larger issues surrounding this article. DrK, meanwhile, is absolutely one of the best editors the FA review has—in no way a member of a "rigid gang". Any work he is putting in is because of an earnest desire to save the article, as he has done so often before. I think this probably can't be saved, unfortunately; I'll leave the review up another day to see if there are any last comments. In the meantime, AGF is needed all around. Both of you want to improve content and needn't view the other's efforts badly. Marskell (talk) 17:41, 5 August 2008 (UTC)
          • I didn't say he was part of a rigid gang. He asked me "why are you berating me when we are both "voting" remove" and my response was that we're not part of a rigid gang. -- tariqabjotu 18:19, 5 August 2008 (UTC)
            • Fair enough, Tariq. I was only trying to deescalate. Marskell (talk) 18:28, 5 August 2008 (UTC)
        • I apologise to Tariq for using a poor choice of words in my edit summary. DrKiernan (talk) 07:12, 6 August 2008 (UTC)
        • (An aside: I wish everyone was so gracious as to apologize, like you.)LamaLoLeshLa (talk) 20:20, 6 August 2008 (UTC)

Closing. I don't see that more time is going to add much to this article. I am acutely aware of the problem of using FAR as a club in the middle of a content dispute and it's unfortunate that that has happened here. At the same time, if even the long term page builders suggest removing than I think it must go. Marskell (talk) 13:18, 7 August 2008 (UTC)

The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this page.