Talk:Population statistics for Israeli settlements in the West Bank

Update on Population of Settlements

http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?c=JPArticle&cid=1167467697743&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull

New statistics are out for the four largest settlements: population of 2006. The information is drastically different from what it was in 2003.

Community	Population
Modi'in Illit	34,514
Ma'ale Adummim	33,259
Betar Illit	29,355
Ariel	17,673

Furthermore, Gannim, Kadim, Homesh and Sa-Nur can be updated as having a population of 0 (since they were evacuated in the summer of 2005). I'll try to see if I can find more statistics.

I m dude2002 05:56, 14 January 2007 (UTC)i_m_dude2002

I've been looking on the internet, and Tzurit, which doesn't have a population estimate in the article, is estimated by the Israeli government (http://www.cbs.gov.il/population/new_2002/tab_5.pdf) to have had a population of 678 in 2001. Note that the spelling is different from what it is in the article, and also that I corrected the article's "Tzurif" to "Tzurit," since there is no "Tzurif" in the Etzion block.

I will continue to look through this source and others to see if I can find any more information.

I m dude2002 15:06, 14 January 2007 (UTC)

Tzurif/Tzurit

Tzurit is in the Galilee just west of Carmiel; not in Judea or Samaria. Tzurif, on the other hand, is an Arab town in Judea (a Hamas hotbed), just southwest of Bat Ayin. Tzurif is right next to Gush Etzion, but obviously, neither Tzurit nor Tzurif would be counted in the population statistics for Jewish communities in Judea and Samaria. (unisgned by User:88.154.199.16 )

I checked a few sources, and since none of them lists a Tzurif or Tzurit setllement, I will remove the data for the moment. Travelbird 19:01, 19 February 2007 (UTC)

I do believe the settlement in question is Tzufim. gidonariel GidonAriel (talk) 12:40, 19 September 2021 (UTC)

Variant spellings / Hebrew names

When searching for information on a settlement, many seem to have multiple spellings.

Should we include multiple spellings? Or perhaps have a column with the Hebrew name? --JWB 07:05, 14 July 2007 (UTC)

West bank outposts

Anandks007,I do not believe that your addition of Israeli outposts is one relevant to the article. The title of the article specifically states settlements and not outposts. Many of the places you have listed, have already been repeated above. Also, the table you have added is not in any specific order, which can easily cause confusion to the article. Please fix the edit you have made, before I fix it on my own. Leppi 04:58, 29 August 2007 (UTC)

Which ones are repeats? Also, extending the scope of the article to outposts seems not unreasonable - what would be the alternative, creating a separate article for the table? I have to agree this table is not of high quality now though. --JWB 05:27, 29 August 2007 (UTC)

A large number of the places you have mentioned are not communities, but actually a neighborhood in the above mentioned settlements. Therefore the population statistics are repeated twice (making them incorrect because it makes it seems that more people are living there then what is actually mentioned.) The ones I noticed immediately are as follows. Migdal oz, Adam, Ateret, Bat ayin, Beit el, Bracha (Har bracha), Givat Hadagan (part of efrat), Einav, Eli, Elon moreh, Givat Ariel (part of yitzhar), Givat Hahish (first of all it's called givat lachish and not hahish, and it's also part of alon shvut.) In short, most of the places mentioned are already part of above settlements and therefore distort the facts on the table originally listed.

Therefore, I think this page should be separate and not part of the current page.

The fact that you added the British police station is nonsense. No one lives there. It is an old British police station that is abandoned most of the time. It has been abandoned since 1948 when the British left.

Also, I looked at your source, and all I found was an excel worksheet with no explanation as to where the information is from. Leppi 12:44, 29 August 2007 (UTC)

Isn't it in the nature of an outpost that it is an offshoot closely tied to a nearby settlement? Actually, there is little explanation in Wikipedia of what an outpost is and the difference between a settlement and an outpost (e.g. existing settlements were acknowledged in Oslo and new ones were supposed to be banned) and somebody should add this to the settlement article. Anyway, looks like the author, Anandks007, has withdrawn his table for now. --JWB 17:19, 29 August 2007 (UTC)

Some are closely tied, and others aren't. But many of the ones that are closely tied, the settlement itself does not consider it an outpost, and therefore it counts the population of the outpost in it's settlement. Therefore by including the population of the outposts in a separate graph, you are skewing the population statistics. Leppi 17:49, 29 August 2007 (UTC)

I agree that double-counting should be avoided. Also since the outposts have small population and may change, population table is less important and location maps would be more valuable. --JWB 18:26, 29 August 2007 (UTC)

Ofrah Bloc

I've noticed that you've listed many settlements such as beit el, kokhav ya'akov and geva binyamin, as being part of the ofrah bloc. I have never seen this quoted anywhere, that there is even such a thing as an ofra bloc. Can you please provide a source?Leppi 12:50, 29 August 2007 (UTC)

I have no definitive or complete source on which settlement is in which bloc and any help you can provide in finding one and entering the data is welcome. That said, googling immediately brings up a few references to an Ofra-Beit El bloc, and this is what I went on. I have tried to keep bloc names short in the table for compactness and convenience. If we actually can find lots of info on the blocs, perhaps there can be an article on each and the table entries can link to them. --JWB 17:10, 29 August 2007 (UTC)

The reason there is no definite bloc for the above area is because none of the settlements are located within a close proximity to each other. For example, in the gush etzion bloc, almost all are within a five minute drive of each other. Or in the shilo bloc, all are in a five minute drive of each other. Beit el, ofra, psagot/kokhav yaakov, and geva binyamin, all have at least a 10 minute drive between them and are therefore not considered to be a bloc. Some people decide to call it a bloc, but geographically it is not.Leppi 17:52, 29 August 2007 (UTC)

Here is also one story which uses the actual phrase "Ofra bloc": [1]

Is there another name for a looser collection of settlements that are in the same area but not contiguous? The column heading could be changed to "Bloc or area" or similar.

One major reason why I added the column was to help locate settlements whose location you do not already know, and leaving the field blank is not helpful for this purpose. --JWB 18:23, 29 August 2007 (UTC)

There is no such thing as "Gush Ofra" (in hebrew 3! links)or "Ofra Bloc" (1!!!). It is something a few writers made up in an unsucessful attempt to coin a new phrase based on Gush Katif and Gush Etzion. --Shuki 18:37, 29 August 2007 (UTC)

Ok, I have changed "Bloc" heading to "Area or bloc" and Ofra area entries to Ramallah area. --JWB 19:56, 29 August 2007 (UTC)

While Ramallah is valid for most of the places, I don't know if I would list Geva Benyamin there. Seems to me the area is most often referred to as the Benyamin region. Leppi 05:04, 30 August 2007 (UTC)

Changing its area listing would be fine, but doesn't Benyamin refer to a larger area? (everything north of Jerusalem but south of Samaria) If so, simply listing this doesn't identify the location closely. --JWB 06:14, 30 August 2007 (UTC)

Area or bloc column

I understand the purpose of that 'area or bloc' column but think that it is confusing and simply redundant overcategorizing of what is already listed in the column to the immediate right. (WSam? what's that? Perhaps only for villages on the western ridge. In any case, Ariel, Kedumim and Revava are in the centre of Samaria.) Many settlements are not even informally grouped together, some would say 'isolated' and trying to create a grouping is OR. (Immanuel is not in the list and you can't say that it is in any 'area' or bloc) For the discussion, Ramallah 'area' is a legitimate yet definitely a very weird way to group settlements. It sort of alludes that it is the central hub. --Shuki 07:15, 30 August 2007 (UTC)

Simply knowing a settlement is in the Samaria or Benjamin regional council area does not make it easy to find it on the map - I've tried myself for the settlements on this list, and wound up having to take these notes to keep track. It seems bizarre that giving the location of the settlement would be considered OR. When I found a commonly used term for an area I used it, but in general no relation between settlements is implied other than that they are all located in a small enough region to comfortably search on a map, and it was initially my understanding that this is more or less what 'bloc' means. If someone can provide a more precise way to find location, like latitude-longitude coordinates for each settlement, that would be even better.

There are tons of references to a "Western Samaria" bloc including Ariel (and Immanuel, which is listed as Emmanuel in the article). For example, just from the first few pages of Google results:

• Western Samaria, just a few km west of Ariel
• Yakir is a religious settlement in the western Samarian (Shomron) Mountains, located in the dense Ariel-Elkana-Karnei Shomron-Alfei Menashe "rectangle" of Jewish settlement.
• The city of Ariel and its surrounding “Western Samaria” bloc
• Ariel and its surrounding “Western Samaria” bloc
• Western Samaria Bloc (including Ariel)

I am surprised there is objection to what appears to be the standard term. I do see a reference to to Ariel itself being in "Central Samaria", but this is the settlement considered in isolation and not the whole bloc. I see the bloc is also often called "Ariel bloc":

• The term "Ariel bloc" generally refers to an area of the West Bank delimited to the east by Ariel, to the north by the settlement of Kedumim, to the northwest by the settlements of Karnei Shomron and Ma'ale Shomron, and to the south by the settlements of Bet Arye and Ofarim. The resulting "bloc" includes numerous other settlements as well: Nofim, Yaqir, Immanuel, Peduel, Alei Zahav, Brukhin, Barkan, Kiryat Netafim, and Revava. In addition, the area includes at least 7 illegal outposts constructed mainly in the last few years. It should be stressed that there is no exact geographic or legal definition of a "settlement bloc."
• The settlements comprising the Ariel Bloc are Ariel, Beit Arye, Barqan industrial Zone, Israeli Quarry, Ginnot Shomeron, Immanuel, Karne Shomron, Kedumim, Ma'ale Shamron, Yakir, Barqan, Nofim, Ofarim, Giv'at HaMerkaziz, Peduel, Neve Oramin, Har Alei Zahav, Revava, Kiryat Netafim, Alei Zahav (Yoezer), Kedumim Zefon, Jit, Industrial Zone (Near Peduel), South West Arial, Ariel West Park Industrial, West (Arial West Park Industrial).

but I avoided using "Ariel bloc" as it might be unintuitive that the bloc goes all the way to Kedumim.

I'm not attached to Ramallah as a point of reference, but changed to this because of the objection to Beit El and/or Ofra bloc, which are terms I actually saw in the sources I've cited and others. --JWB 09:44, 30 August 2007 (UTC)

Giving the location of a settlement is not OR, but describing new categories is. As long as we can't find an accepted and wide-consensus definition of a bloc, or find some non-partisan organizations confirming the grouping of all settlements in blocs, then I suggest not listing it. I also seem to think that this page is not responsible for orienteering people on maps, that is why each settlement has an article, and the newer Israeli municipality template can pinpoint the location, not the list. What seems to be already accepted has already been grouped together in regional councils. I do not doubt that some informal blocs exist; 'Gav HaHar' usually describes the area around Elon Moreh/Shechem, or a certain area near Hebron. I 'think' (my OR) there is a Dolev/Talmon region as well. Kedumim is relatively not near Ariel, and neither is Beit Aryeh. Migdalim is definitely not in 'Jordan' region. All the references you found seem to be from anti-settlement groups, which is interesting but I do not know what that means. Perhaps an attempt to make order or to avoid admitting that settlements are basically everywhere and not concentrated in specific areas, I dunno. --Shuki 12:31, 30 August 2007 (UTC)

• One of the links above says that there is no fixed definition of 'bloc', so it is not true that verifiability requires settling on one fixed definition.
• There should be some way to help orient people on maps without having to click on every individual settlement article.
• 'Gav HaHar' is interesting, but less than optimal if it can refer to several widely separated areas and is a generic term.
• I have seen reference to a Talmon or Talmon-Dolev block; that is not OR. I went with Western Benjamin in the list because this is also used for the region and more easily findable.
• Yes, there is considerable separation between Kedumim, Ariel, and Beit Arye, but other settlements fill in the area between them, and they are enclosed by the same section of the barrier. Western Samaria or Ariel bloc is how this area is actually referred to, as I've shown with references. This may be an extension of the original meaning of 'bloc', but it is common usage now.
• Migdalim is an ambiguous case - it is not actually in the valley, but just above it and apparently its closest transportation connections are to the valley. I'm not against changing it.
• I did not try to pick anti-settlement references, but more of them came up in searches. Discussion of the barrier seems to use 'bloc' for the areas mentioned, whether one is for (e.g. Avi Dichter) or against the barrier.
• Haim Gvirtzman defines blocs in: [2]

The Settlement Map shows four large settlement blocs and three other smaller blocs that create a clear continuum of Jewish land:

Greater Jerusalem: This includes Gush Etzion, the city of Ma'aleh Adumim, the local authorities of Givat Zeev, Betar Ilit, Efrat, and Har-Adar, and additional rural settlements belonging to the Benjamin regional council. There are a total of 20 settlements in Greater Jerusalem, containing a total population of 52,000.

West Samaria: This includes the local authorities of Ariel, Emmanuel, Karnei Shomron, Kedumim, Elkana, Oranit, Alfei Menashe, and additional rural settlements belonging to the Samaria Regional Council. West Samaria contains a total of 18 settlements, with a total population of 44,000.

West Benjamin: This includes the local authorities of Kiryat Sefer and Beit Arieh, and additional rural settlements belonging to the Benjamin Regional Council. There are a total of 12 settlements in West Benjamin, with a total population of 14,000.

The Jordan Valley and Judean Desert: This includes the Ma'aleh Efrayim local authority, and additional settlements belonging to the Jordan Valley, Megilot, Benjamin, and South Mt. Hebron Regional Councils. It consists of a total of 44 settlements with a total population of 17,000.

The Richan-Dotan Bloc: This lies in northern Samaria adjacent to the Green Line (by Wadi 'Ara) and includes five settlements with a total population of 1,500.

The 'Einav-Sal'it Bloc: This lies in northwest Samaria adjacent to the Green Line (near Netania) and includes four settlements with a population of 2,000.

The Eshkolot-Shim'a Bloc: This lies in southern Judea next to the Green Line (near Beer Sheva and 'Arad) and includes five settlements with a population of 1,000.

Aside from these blocs there are 16 isolated settlements that are not included in typical settlement blocs, with a total population of 13,000. The largest of these are Hebron-Kiryat Arba (population 5,750) and Beit El (population 3,400).

(end Gvirtzman quote) --JWB 19:30, 30 August 2007 (UTC)

Huh, what kind of encyclopedia are we building here if you yourself claim that "it is not true that verifiability requires settling on one fixed definition"? The basic premise of WP is verifiability. WP is not a forum where editors create facts, we are simply supposed to collect the information, not make it up. And I still do not understand your obsession to make the article into some sort of tour book. The info you brought from Gvirtzman just seems like one person's analysis and personal attempt to make some order (in 1998) and it's not used by virtually anyone else. What does Beit Aryeh have to do with Kiriat Sefer (Upper Modiin)? You see, there are just too many inconsistancies in every system. The column should represent facts. I suggest you first attempt to add this 'bloc' material anywhere else before you try to push it elsewhere. It's like the parallel 'outpost' list. There is no article about what an outpost is, but there is already a list. --Shuki 21:06, 30 August 2007 (UTC)

Ariel bloc or Western Samaria bloc or Ariel and Kedumim fingers are well documented standard terminology (here's yet another reference) and should not be deleted, especially with no replacement. Also [3] which includes explanation of how "bloc" has expanded from its original meaning. Also, same definition of Ariel bloc on a pro-settlement site: [4] --JWB 21:52, 3 September 2007 (UTC)

Har Gilo article explicitly states "It is part of Gush Etzion". --JWB 21:53, 3 September 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for the links. Har Gilo is in Gush Etzion. But we still do not have a valid and accepted list of which settlements are in which blocs, and the link provided actually confirms that some of the information that was/is in the list is not 'right'. The link seems to be another OR attempt If keeping this bloc/area column is so important, I propose that a sandbox or temp page is created that will attempt to properly document and verify from external sources which blocs exist and what they include from different souces. The best way would be is to find any official documents used in the current agreements or various foreign proposals that could be used as the legitmate source rather than a collection of op-ed pieces, and it really does not matter if it is pro-settlement or not, pro-settlement does not make it any more credible than anti-settlement. --Shuki 19:40, 4 September 2007 (UTC)

no master list

I don't think there is any one master list. The Oslo Agreement defined Areas A, B, C and may have listed settlements but did not define blocs, and no agreement has been signed since then. When unilateral withdrawal or "convergence" and the West Bank Barrier became official proposals, the idea of "blocs" became much more visible because some blocs were going to be the units that were walled off and kept by Israel. Of course there is no specific withdrawal plan now, but the route of the barrier is well defined, and so the Ariel bloc or now Ariel and Kedumim fingers are well defined as the connected areas with boundaries consisting of the barrier and Green Line. This is less true for the settlements outside the barrier, although I have still found citations in the cases we've discussed.

For many if not most concepts, there is not complete agreement on their definition, but this does not mean they not exist. They are documentable by listing major points of general agreement where they exist, and by listing the leading popular viewpoints where there is well-known disagreement, as WP:NPOV mandates. It is certainly not true that a Wikipedia article cannot be written until there is complete information (it is normal to start with stubs and gradually extend) or that an article cannot cover a subject unless there is no disagreement about it (of course there are various POV on almost any interesting subject).

I did not intend to do an article or section on settlement blocs themselves, but after having to research it, I think there should be either an article, or a section in the Israeli Settlements or West Bank Barrier articles. For this article my main intent was to make it easier to locate a settlement. Is there another way to do this that you would not object to? Adding latitude-longitude coordinates for each settlement would be one. So far you have only suggested the existing regional council column, which is a relatively large unit, and the territorial extent of each council does not even appear on the maps. --JWB 09:50, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

A) I really don't think you need to have a 'locator' column in this list. It is not in the scope of a list-article with dry population statistics.

B) Once again, as long as there is no objective or widely accepted listing of which settlement is in which bloc (you admit this fact), and especially when there is a dearth of sources as well as conflicting opinions in the few that exist, then WP should avoid the issue, not attempt to finalize it. It has nothing to do with NPOV and more to do with OR meaning that you yourself are trying to decide what settlement is in which bloc. You might attempt to avoid this by referencing it to a certain author, but as you yourself have provided links to various 'bloc' articles, there is no single standard. Looking at a map and grouping settlements is OR and not the responsibility of a WP editor. Unless you can find more authoritative sources, preferably government, then this is quite misleading. --Shuki 22:02, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

A) There is no reason why any article should stay "dry", i.e. difficult to understand or use. For example List of cities in Israel has lots of extra discussion, extra tables, a map with locations of some cities labeled, and pictures of cities. The same is true of List of cities in Palestinian Authority areas. Are you trying to purge these articles?

B) By the same logic, because there is no agreement on which country the West Bank is in, Wikipedia should avoid covering the West Bank at all. Instead, Wikipedia has detailed discussion of the various sides' opinions.

There is no dearth of sources. The largest blocs are mentioned all the time by public figures like Israeli prime ministers, so you cannot claim they are nonexistent or nonnotable. The smaller blocs have fewer mentions, but then the smaller settlements themselves also have fewer mentions, and some references are from notable advisors who have shaped proposals for negotiations like Gvirtzman or Dichter. For settlements that are not referenced as in a bloc, we do not have to say they are in a bloc, but can give some other indication of location like proximity to a better known town, or coordinates, so there is no information being made up. --JWB 23:15, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

Most 'list' and statistics articles are dry by definition. The Israeli cities list has minimal explanation (discussion on the talk page is not part of the article) that could be in fact reduced, the pictures are a nice way to add colour too, and the additional statistics add moredepth and come from reliable sources. If you want to dress up this article, go for it, add more content to the page, but that is not even the issue here - the blocs. We return to the fact that there has been no attempt to do the same here, with references. Again, and again, I am not denying that 'blocs' have not been referred to the in the past and present, only that there is no agreement on what they actually mean or what is inside each one, and that including that column is not part of the statistics (where as the cities page lists districts which are decided by the Interior ministry). Since you feel so strongly about this issue, a seperate bloc population table which might be useful. The fact is that there is no one official way to list them unless you have multiple tables each titled 'settlement blocs based on Clinton, ___ based on Wye Memorandum, etc... --Shuki 23:52, 20 September 2007 (UTC)

Data for 1995

Population census of 1995 — Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.218.33.195 (talk) 08:41, 19 March 2013 (UTC)

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" As such, the data contains only population of settlements recognized by the Israeli authorities."

This is said in opening lines. I'm not able to edit due to restrictions on the small number of edits I have saved. (Without prejudice) I would remove this line because it is clear that the sentences on both sides of this one pretty much clarify the point being made, and the WP:LEDE is definitely long. --Edin Balgarin (talk) 08:15, 20 September 2017 (UTC)

Extended-confirmed-protected edit request on 23 July 2018

More recent (2016) population numbers for East Jerusalem are available at http://www.jerusaleminstitute.org.il/.upload/yearbook/2018/shnaton_C1018.pdf Barnyard fowl (talk) 06:56, 23 July 2018 (UTC)

 Not done @Barnyard fowl: please make sure you read the instructions in the edit request template: "Please change X" is not acceptable and will be rejected; the request must be of the form "please change X to Y".

Extended-confirmed-protected edit request on 4 October 2020

dear team

i am reaching out to you in order to update the figures with 2019 updates

many thanks in advance

kind regards Toto88888888 (talk) 20:19, 4 October 2020 (UTC)

Proposed merge with List of Israeli settlements

This article hasn't been updated in years and all the information that should be here is now in List of Israeli settlements. I believe a merging should be done; unless anyone points out why it is not a good idea, I intend to do it. Dan Palraz (talk) 20:22, 1 February 2023 (UTC)

Extended-confirmed-protected edit request on 8 July 2024

Change "Fence" column for entry "Kfar HaOranim" from "V" to "W". This settlement is in the seam zone near Modi'in Illit, not the Jordan Valley. 73.73.197.193 (talk) 03:47, 8 July 2024 (UTC)

I second this request. It should be classified as "W" Spluling (talk) 13:28, 19 August 2024 (UTC)

 Done – Isochrone (talk) 12:46, 29 August 2024 (UTC)