Talk:Palestinian diaspora

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

	Palestinian diaspora is part of WikiProject Palestine - a team effort dedicated to building and maintaining comprehensive, informative, balanced articles related to Palestine on Wikipedia. Join us by visiting the project page where you can add your name to the list of members and contribute to the discussion. This template adds articles to Category:WikiProject Palestine articles.
NB: Assessment ratings and other indicators given below are used by the Project in prioritizing and managing its workload.
Stub	This article has been rated as stub-Class on the Project's quality scale.
High	This article has been rated as high-importance on the Project's importance scale.
	After rating the article, please provide a short summary on the article's ratings summary page to explain your ratings and/or identify the strengths and weaknesses.

[edit] numbers

Can you please find an alternate location for the doc at [1] reporting some of the statistics, it seems a broken link. Besides A) questioning the numbers that 3.9 million Palestinians live in Gaza and West Bank/Judea and Samaria, as well as the three million that live in Jordan, B) not confirmed by the numbers in this article: Demographics_of_the_Palestinian_territories C) why are they all considered in the diaspora? Are all Palestinians in the diaspora? Even if they were displaced by the wars (I'm not questioning that that happenned), they are still located in 'historic Palestine'. OK, going to the P. territories article I see that Jordan is not part of historic Palestine (and I'll stay away from questioning that claim), it's not possible to accurately claim that all Palestinians are in the diaspora For instance, the millions of Americans displaced by Hurricane Katarina were not in the dispora as long as they were still in the US. Nonetheless, if there are 3.5 million residents of Gaza, or even 2.5 million as researched here: Demographics_of_the_Palestinian_territories#Recent_Developments, then all are not counted as in the diaspora. --Shuki 05:52, 6 September 2007 (UTC)

The article does not claim that all Palestinians are in the diaspora. In order to avoid confusion, I've changes the name of the chart with the breakdown of populations to clarify that it includes all Palestinians everywhere. It's not necessary to remove Palestinians in Israel or Palestinians in the Palestinian territories from the chart. The text makes it clear that the diaspora generally refers to those outside historic Palestine. Tiamut 11:20, 6 September 2007 (UTC)

No, that's wrong and quite misleading. I just went through a few articles here Category:Diasporas and none include people still living in the 'homeland'. This article should follow a similar template to the rest. Arabs and Palestinians living on the western side of the Jordan River are not in the diaspora and do not belong in this article at all. The scope of this article is the specific issue of diaspora, not refugees or people misplaced from original homes still living in the same country or specified region like 'historical Palestine'. The article is legitimate, thanks for beginning it. --Shuki 19:20, 6 September 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for your slightly backhanded acknowledgment. The scope of the article is outlined in the definition provided in the first two paragraphs:

Palestinian diaspora (Arabic: الشتات, al-shatat) is a term used to describe Palestinians living outside of historic Palestine - an area today known as Israel and the Palestinian territories or the West Bank, Gaza Strip and East Jerusalem.[1] Of the total Palestinian population worldwide, estimated at between 9 to 11 million people, roughly half live outside of their homeland. Since the 1948 Arab-Israeli war, Palestinians have experienced several waves of exile and lived in different host countries around the world.[2] In addition to the Palestinian refugees of 1948, hundreds of thousands were also displaced in the 1967 war. Together, these refugees make up the majority of the Palestinian diaspora.[2] Besides the people who were displaced by war, others have emigrated overseas for various reasons such as work opportunity, education, and/or persecution from Israeli or Palestinian authorities.[citation needed]

I appreciate your correction of the table to bring it into line with other diaspora templates. Tiamut 00:49, 8 September 2007 (UTC)

There was certainly no backhanded comment and if I was American, I'd be insulted for the lack of AGF. This article is very important.--Shuki 21:48, 8 September 2007 (UTC)

I think people can read and see why I said what I did. I don't understand what your being or not being American has to do with anything. But I agree, the article is very important. Tiamut 21:24, 9 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] British Mandate of Palestine

Any mention of the British mandate, which includes Jordan, contradicts the opening sentence and definition of 'historic Palestine' described as basically territory now controlled by Israel between the Mediteranean and the Jordan River. Is Jordan part of the Palestinian diaspora or not? Does the 3 000 000 figure (broken link the monitor site) include only Palestinians misplaced by the 48 and 67 wars (and their extended families) or all Palestinians who have been living there since the British Mandate and even before. In the Jordan article, it says that 45% of Jordanians have Palestinian origins, but only 'many' fled to Trnsjordan. In the reference to that claim, it says the 2/3 of Jordanians are Palestinians. Can it be specified that there were no Palestinians in Jordan before the 48 war? --Shuki 19:34, 6 September 2007 (UTC)

The British Mandate of Palestine does not include Jordan. The Transjordan was governed under a separate mandate. The Palestinian population in Jordan forms part of the diaspora. (Are you reading the source provided by the way? Because they cover this.) Whether or not all the Palestinians in Jordan were displaced by the wars is irrelevant. The definition of Palestinian diaspora also includes others who emigrated before or since which I believe is already explained in the article. Tiamut 00:41, 8 September 2007 (UTC)

Shuki, would you like to discuss this issue further? You keep reincluding Jordan when it was not part of the mandate after 1922. It was under a separate mandate of the Transjordan. I don't understand why you feel the need to keep reinserting it. Could you explain? Tiamut 21:23, 9 September 2007 (UTC)

Please read the mandate article. It states that, Britain retained mandatory authority over the region until it became fully independent as the Hashemite Kingdom of Trans-Jordan in 1946. The territory east of the Jordan River was part of mandate Palestine. --Shuki 21:46, 10 September 2007 (UTC)

Shuki, Wikipedia is not a WP:RS. The boundaries of the British Mandate for Palestine from 1922 until its termination in 1947 excluded Jordan which was governed under a separate mandate known as the Transjordan.

eastern frontier was formally established in 1922 when the final draft of the Mandate for Palestine and Transjordan was approved by the League of Nations. This instrument provided the British with the authority to exclude the territory east of the Jordan river from those provisions concerning a National Home for the Jewish people. The British decided to administer Transjordan separately, leaving the Jordan river as the effective eastern boundary of Palestine.

In other words, Jordan was not part of British Mandate Palestine. Tiamut 02:00, 11 September 2007 (UTC)

WP is not a reliable source? ROFLMAO! That's great, then I wonder what we are all doing here wasting our time? I suggest that you go change that page before claiming that it includes false information and 'dissing' WP for not being reliable. --Shuki 20:27, 11 September 2007 (UTC)

I will in due in time (change it, I mean). While some of the sources quoted say exactly what is said in the quote above, the text as it is currently written misleads the reader into thinking Jordan was part of British Mandate Palestine. This is why WP:V says that Wikipedia is not a reliable source. It is, only insofar as it abides by WP:NPOV and WP:V and so on. In other words, it's only as good as the sources it uses and their faithfulness to their NPOV interpretation.

Anyway, are you going to address the content issue, or not? Jordan wasn't part of the British Mandate according to the source I gave you (and many others). Do you have a reliable source that says otherwise? Tiamut 22:01, 11 September 2007 (UTC)