I agree that maps without watermarks are preferable. But in the absence of better maps, Wikipedia's policy doesn't prohibit the use of maps with watermarks. There are plenty of examples where maps containing the same small watermark ("OCHA") are used, including Azerbaijan, Benin, Guam, Guadeloupe, Mozambican general election, 2014, Namibian general election, 2014, Outline of Denmark, Outline of Croatia, Comorian presidential election, 2016, Botswana general election, 2014 and many others.--Simon Wtekni (talk) 02:35, 23 November 2014 (UTC)

The map in the Russia article has Crimea marked in light green on the grounds that the peninsula is "de facto administered by Russia." Now, Israel de facto administers the Golan Heights, to say nothing of the Judea and Samaria Area. See where I'm getting at? 213.109.230.96 (talk) 17:23, 24 October 2014 (UTC)

What the Russia article says turns on what high quality sources say about Russia. What the Israel article says turns on what high quality sources say about Israel. Cheers, --Dailycare (talk) 19:21, 24 October 2014 (UTC)

Thanks for demonstrating Wikipedia's Israelophobic bias, Dailycare. It seems Wikipedia, just like everybody else, holds Israel to different standards than other countries. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 190.73.142.175 (talk) 06:35, 2 November 2014 (UTC)

Now fellow Wikipedian, 190.73.142.175, let's abide by the advice of good faith assumption, shall we? Chances are, Dailycare was acting with the requirement of neutrality in mind. And actually, thinking about it, I tend to agree now with Dailycare's proposal of preserving the status quo on the issue. You see, I've browsed some articles and discovered that the option of marking disputed territories in light green is not applied consistently here at all, meaning the Golan Heights area is not exactly an exception; and indeed, there's no need to emphasize it. However, the fact that the West Bank area is marked in plain gray on the map is still a bit odd to me. 213.109.230.96 (talk) 04:41, 25 November 2014 (UTC)

This is the most unbalanced and biased article I have seen on Wikipedia. The majority of editors consistently delete any reliable sources representing the view of the 165 UN countries who voted for the right of the Palestinian people to self-determination, and only allows the view of the 6 UN countries who voted against it to appear in the article. Gouncbeatduke (talk) 15:22, 3 November 2014 (UTC)

The following sentence "The United Nations estimated that more than 700,000 Palestinians were expelled or fled during the conflict from what would become Israel" seems to deliberately leave out from what the Palestinians fled and ""who"" expelled them, leading an uninformed reader to surmise that they could have just as easily been fleeing from Arab armies, or even just from the conflict in general. As the provided source substantiates, a more honest summary of the event would be ""...were expelled by or fled from advancing Israeli forces."" Let's stop with this lying by omission and whitewashing just to avoid hurting the feelings of special interest groups.68.191.148.45 (talk) 14:49, 6 November 2014 (UTC)

I agree that phrasing would help add a more NPOV Gouncbeatduke (talk) 22:06, 10 November 2014 (UTC)

I do not agree this is the way to phrase it ""...were expelled by or fled from advancing Israeli forces."" - this phrase is incorrect since the advancement of the Israeli forces is only one of the Causes of the 1948 Palestinian exodus. For example, some believe they were encouraged to leave by the Arab leaders. --Abtalion (talk) 13:08, 21 November 2014 (UTC)

Abtalion, I don't think anyone believes anymore that the refugees were encouraged to leave by Arab leaders. To the contrary, Arab leaders implored for them to stay where they were. There may have been individual, localized instances where Arabs would have advised a limited number of Palestinians to leave, but overall the picture is overwhelmingly that the Arab leaders communicated to the Palestinians to not leave but stay and fight. Cheers, --Dailycare (talk) 19:16, 21 November 2014 (UTC)

That Arab leaders encouraged them to stay is previously unknown to me, admittedly. Dailycare, will you be so kind as to provide a source for verification or so I can read more about it? Thanks. 213.109.230.96 (talk) 04:45, 25 November 2014 (UTC)

Hi, see the Causes of the 1948 Palestinian exodus article, where we have these direct quotations from sources: i) "Childers, from his research into the BBC archives of radio traffic monitoring from Cyprus in 1948]: "[T]here was not a single order, or appeal, or suggestion about evacuation from Palestine from any Arab radio station, inside or outside Palestine, in 1948," and that to the contrary (Arab) broadcasts gave flat orders to civilians to stay put" and ii) "Briefly, these are the following: (1) There are countless broadcasts by Zionist radios which indicate deliberate psychological warfare against the Arabs. (2) There is not one single instance of an Arab evacuation order or a hint of such an order. (3) There is an impressive stream of explicit Arab orders to the Palestinian Arab civilians to hold their ground and remain in their towns and villages.", the sources are indicated in the article. I can dig up more sources that make the same point if you like. Cheers, --Dailycare (talk) 18:53, 25 November 2014 (UTC)

You might also want to read this article, which described how the whole idea that the Arab leaders urged a Palestinian exodus was fabricated by Ben Gurion. Sad but, apparently, true. --Ravpapa (talk) 10:27, 26 November 2014 (UTC)

After dealing with Arabs, the text says " Other minorities include Maronites...." Is this meant to imply that Maronites are not Arabs? --Richardson mcphillips (talk) 17:47, 22 September 2014 (UTC)

Yes. Maronites are not Arabs. Just ask them. Try walking to a Maronite and calling him an Arab. Few Christian groups in the Middle East consider themselves Arabs. Even some Arabic-speaking Muslims in the region espouse a non-Arab identity. 213.109.230.96 (talk) 15:18, 10 October 2014 (UTC)

"Few Christian groups in the Middle East consider themselves Arabs". Do you have anything to verify that claim with? As far as I'm aware about 2-3% of the Arab population is Christian, and in some areas up to 40% such as Lebanon.

Some Christian minorities don't like being called Arab, such as the Armenians in Jerusalem (who also don't like being called anything other than "Armenian"), but the majority consider themselves Arab.

Also, there's a pattern in the Israeli political speech to address Druze and Christians by their religions, and refer to Muslims as "Arab", which is misleading and is actually divisive since they all speak Arabic and often identify as Palestinians. --Abderrahman (talk) 14:27, 27 November 2014 (UTC)

new president has ben elected today, Jun 10 2014: Reuven Rivlin.

The previous discussion has been archived, which breaks the link in the link in the template of this section.

I'm not sure the dispute was considered resolved. Pygy (talk) 01:03, 18 December 2014 (UTC)

@Pygy: Silence to the point a section is archived can be seen as agreement. Which link is broken ? “WarKosign” 07:25, 18 December 2014 (UTC)

You fixed the link by recreating this section with exactly the same name, this is why I saw nothing broken. “WarKosign” 09:05, 18 December 2014 (UTC)

The only possible resolution will come when some more NPOV editors become interested in the article. As long as the majority of editors continue to delete anything that does no conform to their WP:FRINGE theories, this will remain an article written from a WP:FRINGE POV. Gouncbeatduke (talk) 19:44, 27 December 2014 (UTC)

I assume by FRINGE you mean "something that you disagree with". “WarKosign” 07:59, 28 December 2014 (UTC)

I mean the article is written solely from a minority world view and the editors disallow the inclusion of the majority world view. If you look at the UN vote on General Assembly resolution 67/19, this article (Israel) is solely written from the view of the 9 countries that voted against the resolution, and the editors here disallow the inclusion of the view of the 138 countries that voted for the resolution. Gouncbeatduke (talk) 14:10, 29 December 2014 (UTC)

That article looks quite balanced to me: it describes the history, the content of the resolution, campaign for and against, the vote, the reactions (with Palestinian and Israeli given equal room that is more than for other reactions). If you think otherwise, you should use article's talk page to suggest specific changes you would like. In any case, how is it relevant to this article ? “WarKosign” 14:48, 29 December 2014 (UTC)

I am saying that this article (Israel) is solely written from the view of the 9 countries that voted against the resolution, and the editors here disallow the inclusion of the view of the 138 countries that voted for the resolution. Gouncbeatduke (talk) 16:36, 6 January 2015 (UTC)

Where is this resolution mentioned in the article, and why should it be mentioned at all? “WarKosign” 20:55, 6 January 2015 (UTC)

|religion = Judaism "Israel is known as the Jewish state. Majority of its population is Jewish over 75%" 50.248.46.25 (talk) 16:08, 8 January 2015 (UTC)

Not done: it's not clear what changes you want to be made. Please mention the specific changes in a "change X to Y" format. — {{U|Technical 13}} ^{(e • t • c)} 16:34, 8 January 2015 (UTC)

I'm guessing the request is to change the religion in the infobox from 'none official' to 'judaism' based on the fact that 75% of the population is of Jewish ethnicity. It is wrong since there are 3 sources for the statement that there is no official religion. There is little doubt that there are more people practicing Judaism than any other religion, but it doesn't make it the official religion. “WarKosign” 16:55, 8 January 2015 (UTC)

while viewing the Israel page in wikipedia, i have stumbled upon a wrong map of an existing borders of this country. While it is known widely, i don't understand why the golan heights were removed out of the map,while israel got cities there, and even jurisdiction. All of this while Israel is the last fort of Resistance to terrorist groups.

sources :http://www.sheppardsoftware.com/Middleeastweb/snapshot/GolanHeights.htm http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3411166,00.html http://www.foxnews.com/world/2014/09/04/al-qaida-fighters-along-israel-border-in-golan-heights-give-israelis-new-cause/ Dmagio (talk) 17:05, 3 January 2015 (UTC)

There is no explicit request here. The question you seem to pose is whether we should change the map. The answer to that is no, we use the map with Israel's internationally recognised borders.Jeppiz (talk) 18:08, 3 January 2015 (UTC)

The Golan Heights are a sovereign part of Israel according to international law. Why is the OCHA map displaying boarders that haven't existed since 1967 being shown?124.180.140.187 (talk) 06:28, 6 January 2015 (UTC)

No country has accepted Israel's annexation of the Golan Heights, just as no country has accepted Armenia's annexation of Nagorno-Karabach.Jeppiz (talk) 10:49, 6 January 2015 (UTC)

The IP's definition of “international law” is the exact opposite of what every international court has said. Gouncbeatduke (talk) 19:20, 11 January 2015 (UTC)