Talk:Human rights in the Palestinian National Authority

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This is the talk page for discussing improvements to the Human rights in the Palestinian National Authority article.

Hello all. If this article is to be called this, then presumably the article on human rights in Israel should discuss Israel's human rights record in the territories, right? Alternately, we could move this to Human rights in the Palestinian Territories, and discuss the records of both Israel and the PA in the West Bank and Gaza. What I would not like to see is a set-up where there is no place to discuss Israel's record in the territories. What do people think would be the best way to accomplish this? john k 16:49, 31 July 2006 (UTC)

As of now, the Human rights in Israel article discusses Israeli actions in the territories, so I would have this article deal exclusively with Palestinian actions, in both Israel and the territories. Anyone else? -- Avi 16:52, 31 July 2006 (UTC)
A problem with this is that it makes the titles somewhat inaccurate, which would, in particular, make it easy for people to disrupt the compromise by noting that the contents don't fit the title. In particular, I fear that we will have this article, entirely about Palestinian activities, and that Humus will continue to remove any information about Israeli actions in the territories from the other article. I'd be happy to have a Human rights in the Palestinian territories article which discusses both Palestinian and Israeli human rights records in the territories, so long as there is a section in the article on Human rights in Israel summarizing that article and linking to it. I think this would, over all, probably be a better solution. (Either that or just a single article on Israel and the Territories, to cover everything). john k 17:03, 31 July 2006 (UTC)
I'd prefer the latter, but when I started adding palestinian actions, Oiboy and Saras got perturbed. I believe that they want an article exclusively on Israel, for reasons I am afraid are obvious. -- Avi 17:53, 31 July 2006 (UTC)

I'm not sure. I think the Israel article should cover Israel proper. There is a lot to say about human rights there. As far as the territories go, mixing in pre and post oslo human rights might get messy, confusing, and long. I'd say that there would need to be an organization which clearly distinguished if they were to be mixed. The Israel article could "also see" the other article, summarize and link etc. What I don't want to happen is people rushing in and deleting and reverting well referenced well sourced stuff here because they don't agree with it. Elizmr 19:04, 31 July 2006 (UTC)

The article on Australian human rights discusses the white Australia policy and the mistreatment of the Aborigines. As long as material is presented as historical, it shouldn't be a serious problem. I certainly agree with the last statement, and I agree that the real key here is to organize things clearly and well. I'm not sure the current arrangement does a very good job of this. In particular, the current titles seem to make it so that discussion of the State of Israel's human rights record in the Terrotories doesn't fit properly into either article. I think that everyone (including us here, but also Oiboy and Sarastro, and Humus, and whoever else is participating in this stuff), need to come to some kind of understanding about how articles on these subjects are to be organized, and what the proper subject matter of each is. Specifically, we have the following possible sets of issues:
  1. Israel's human rights record in Israel proper
  2. Israel's human rights record in the Occupied Territories
  3. (potentially) Israel's human rights record in other territories it formerly occupied, such as the Suez and southern Lebanon
  4. (potentially) Issues relating to human rights in the occupied territories before the Oslo agreements.
  5. the human rights record of the Palestinian Authority in areas under its control.
  6. human rights violations committed by Palestinian groups in Israel
  7. human rights issues related to Palestinian actions in those parts of the territories not under PA authority.

Is that it? What would be the best way to organize these sets of issues, given that our current standard seems to be that all such articles have to be at "Human rights in". There's a couple of options:

  1. a single article, Human rights in Israel and the Occupied Teritories, or alternately Human rights in Israel and the Palestinian Territories, although this would seem to either exclude the Golan, or possibly to accept the Israeli POV that Golan is, sort of, part of Israel. In this instance we'd need to be careful to have a clear organization of the article, which could become quite large.
  2. Human rights in Israel and Human rights in the Palestinian Territories, or, alternately, Human rights in the Occupied Territories, since we might want to include Goland, and, possibly, a historical discussion of Suez, in the same article. in this case, the division would be geographical, with issues relating to Israel itself in the former, and issues relating to the Occupied Territories in the latter.
  3. Finally we could abandon the usual format and have titles like Human rights record of the State of Israel and Human rights record of the Palestinian National Authority. In some ways, this would be a sensible way of doing things, in that it would be really clear what material belongs in which article. On the other hand, it has the disadvantage of not conforming to our usual way of titling things.

What do people think? john k 20:28, 31 July 2006 (UTC)

A quick problem with the last idea is that it will prevent us from using the {{Asia in topic}} template. PNA is already a redirect, but at least it begins with "Human rights in" -- Avi 21:13, 31 July 2006 (UTC)
I'm feeling reluctance to make it all one article.
Re: The Australia example: I find it bizarre. Australia included the aboriginal areas from the start, I think, and the treatment of them evolved over time. Israel is a distinct state with its own human rights record within its borders which did not initially or ever formally include the territories. And the palestinians aren't aboriginal people that the Israelis colonized and treated like savages.
I don't like the idea of treating Israel-PA as one entity beause this underplays the fact that Israel is a distinct and existing (for now, anyway) state.
Let's handle the territories separately. I don't really think the term "occupied territories" is all that appropriate post Oslo when the PA has control over and responsibility for some of the PNA areas. In this context, it is too easy to blame Israel for all of the problems there.
My first choice would be to have three articles:

1)Human rights in Israel (Israel proper) 2)Human rights in the PNA (this article, post Oslo): could add some stuff about the influences of Israeli control/occupation to this article 3)Human right in the Palestinian territories under Israeli Occupation (pre-Oslo)--this could be a separate article or a section of the israel article Elizmr 22:10, 31 July 2006 (UTC)

Elizmr, my point with the Australia issue was merely that the article discusses the history of Australian human rights issues, including issues which aren't serious issues any more - the White Australia policy is dead, and aborigines are treated much better now. Similarly, pre-Oslo issues could be discussed. I was not meaning to compare Australian treatment of the aborigines to Israeli treatment of Palestinians (although certainly it is arguable, and has been argued, quite vehemently, that the Palestinians were colonized by the Israelis). Beyond this, the PNA is not the same thing as the Palestinian Territories or Occupied Territories. Much of the land of the West Bank is still under Israeli control, and so was much of Gaza before last year. It has never left Israeli control, and the PNA has never had any jurisdiction. Does it makes sense to talk about the settlements in an article on human rights in the PNA? Once again, I am concerned that the main issue that human rights groups tend to talk about with respect to the region - which is current Israeli human rights abuses in the Occupied Territories, under your scheme pretty blatanly has now obvious place it can call home. We need to have an article title which clearly accommodates this topic, which is surely a valid one for an article. And I agree with Avi's criticism of the last point. I think at this point I'd prefer Human rights in Israel and Human rights in the Palestinian Territories, although this leaves out the Golan... john k 23:23, 31 July 2006 (UTC)

Another possibility is to divide it in the way that Amnesty does - Human rights in Israel and the Occupied Territories and Human rights in the Palestinian Authority (I think this latter is more commonly used than "Palestinian National Authority"). Note that in this organization, Hamas, etc. terrorist attacks in Israel are considered in the Israel/Occupied Territories section, not the Palestinian Authority section. john k 00:48, 1 August 2006 (UTC)

JK--I'm really not following you. The PNA does certainly have jurisdiction in urban areas, and in gaza. There has been post oslo opportunity to create something in those areas. The gaza withdrawl expanded this opportunity. There has been a huge amount of foreign aid given. Is there a problem with an article on the human rights record of these administrations? I'm not sure why not. Elizmr 03:35, 1 August 2006 (UTC)
Huh? No, of course there isn't a problem with an article that covers its human rights record (I'm not convinced we need an article only about it). The point is that we need to have an article which explicitly covers Israel's human rights record in the Territories. My point is that it doesn't make sense to talk about civil rights in the territories in general in an article titled "Human rights in the Palestinian National Authority" - there are large parts of the territories that are not part of the PNA. Another issue is that the PNA does not have anything close to full sovereignty in the areas under its control. The Israelis continue to interfere in various ways. The division you propose suggests an equal level of sovereignty for Israel and the PNA, which is not correct. Of course the human rights record of the PNA should be discussed somewhere, I'm just concerned that Israel's record in the territories (which most certainly did not end at Oslo) have a clear place to discuss it. john k 10:44, 1 August 2006 (UTC)
It does sound like it would be confusing to mix Israel and the territories into this article because of the limited control the PNA has over only certain areas. Maybe we could have a sep article on the territories. That would be quite reasonable. the two articles could be linked with top notes, as was previously done with this article and the Israel one. Elizmr 13:57, 1 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] This article is not encyclopedic as is

Before I start to edit it in the next few days (time permitting), I need some clarification from involved editors regarding this "screw the Palestinians" style article (no disrespect meant, I'm just really upset about the far-fetched embellishments here for reasons that should be plainly obvious):

1- Is this article discussing human rights in areas under Palestinian authority control? If so, why isn't this the title? The current title makes no sense, as it uses the word in, implying either a geographic area or an enclosure of some sort, neither of which would describe the Palestinian National Authority which is a name for a political governmental body.

2- Alternatively, is this article about the human rights record of the Palestinian National Authority? Again, why isn't this the title? And if this is the true meaning, why is the article riddled with examples of individual incidents, most of which happen every day in any other country, by individuals who are not part of the Palestinian National Authority?

3- Is this article discussing the general condition of human rights in the Palestinian territories? If so, how come there is not a single reference from Btselem, the leading Israeli human rights group, only one obscure reference from the Palestinian Human Rights Monitoring Group, and nothing from the UN Human Rights Watch?

4- For the record, towns are not "controlled" by Hamas, that's like saying New York City is "controlled by the Republicans" because Bloomberg is a Republican. Why this type of demeaning language?

I would appreciate responses so I can determine in what direction to fix this highly misinforming regurgitation of right-wing propaganda material. Basically, clarification on whether this article is meant to be #1, #2, or #3 above would be highly appreciated, as the title right now makes no sense grammatically or contextually. It's like saying "Human Rights in the Government of Israel". Thanks Ramallite (talk) 05:07, 22 September 2006 (UTC)

Hi Ramalite, I very much welcome your help, knowledge, and imput on this article. Please give the editors who have written this the benefit of the doubt and assume good faith. As the editor who wrote a lot of this stuff, I take exception with your portrayl of stuff here as a "highly misinforming regurg of right-wing propaganda material" and consider it a bit of an attack albiet not at all a personal one. No one can deny that the situation in Israel and the Palestinian territories is very complex. We need transparency on the concerning aspects on all ends if we are going to provide a resource that can best inform. In order to best portray the totality of the truth, Wikipedia should show the various aspects of the whole situation, including those which are uncomfortable for Israel, Israeli's, Jews, etc and also those which are uncomfortable for Hamas, Fatah, others in past and present Palestinian leadership, and even for the Palestinian people. Material should not be dismissed as "right wing" or "left wing" propaganda. As it stands now, the article on Human Rights in Israel (which was unfortunately started as a vehicle to attack Israel) contains Israel's human rights record in the territories and many refs from the sources listed above. This might not be ideal, although it may be less confusing. Also, as you point out, some of the language here might not be neutral, but that certainly was not the intent. (altho on the point you raise having been in New York during part of the term of the mayor before bloomberg, I could say that many of us did feel that the city was controlled by the republicians at that time). I would like to partner with you and any other Palestinian on this article in a collaborative way without edit wars and in a climate of mutual respect, but I would just ask that we allow the article to be three dimensional. Elizmr 15:00, 22 September 2006 (UTC)

Thanks - but I still don't know which of #1, #2, or #3 above is this article meant to be about. Is it about human rights in areas controlled by the PNA (which would involve Israel)? Human rights of the PNA pseudo-government itself (which would not necessarily involve Israel), or the human rights situation in the entire West Bank and Gaza Strip (most of which is outside the PNA jurisdiction)? Could you please direct me? More later, thanks! Ramallite (talk) 16:13, 22 September 2006 (UTC)

Also - why is there a whole section very recently written about Arafat? In case people didn't know, he died 2 years ago, and almost everything has changed since then. Ramallite (talk) 16:14, 22 September 2006 (UTC)


I think that the goal is the human rights record of the PNA administrations and the palestinian contributions to the human rights situation in the areas controlled by the PNA, and the title should certainly appropriately reflect the content. Please let's change the title of the article if it is not appropriate. We could add text into the language to clarfiy and also qualify some of the text along these lines. I tried to create a top section detailing what the status of the PA was and what structures to support human rights are officially in place but that certainly needs expansion. The various subject headings were pulled from perusal of some human rights orgs sites to reflect general categories of human rights but some may be ethnocentric. There is no reason we couldn't add Israel's contribution to the human right's situation in this article and take it out of the other article, but I would strongly suggest that we get the other side of things done before combining articles since it will be cleaner that way.
Of course I am sure editors here are aware that Arafat is dead. It is undeniable, however, that he was a major player in the shaping of how the PA approached these various human rights issues, contributed to conditions as they developed in the west bank and gaza, the relationship with Israel, etc. The stuff about him in the article is not irrelevant. We could certainly make it clear that he is dead in the article if you feel it gives the impression that he is alive.
Will look forward to your edits and collaboration. I will not be on line over the next few days; it is the Jewish New Year tonight at sundown and we observe here until Sunday at sundown. I'll look in a few times this afternoon. Elizmr 17:59, 22 September 2006 (UTC)
Thanks for the response, I probably won't get to it very soon because it will require a lot of reading and sifting through material from notable and verifiable sources. In the meantime, Shana Tova! Ramallite (talk) 19:01, 22 September 2006 (UTC)
Thanks for the greeting and will look forward to your work on the article. Elizmr 19:26, 22 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] PA history

I removed this recent edit since there was no PA in 1945. Care to clarify? Women have had full suffrage in the PA since 1945. [1]Elizmr 17:16, 10 November 2006 (UTC)

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