Talk:List of World Heritage Sites in the Arab states

Classification

Should we move this to something like "List of World Heritage Sites in the Middle East." This is because non-Arab nations like Turkey, Iran and Israel share a common heritage with Arabs.Bless sins (talk) 22:12, 8 March 2008 (UTC)

We are currently using the classification that UNESCO uses, which seems appropriate. Anatolian Greek sites, for example, obviously were not built by Arabs. <eleland/talkedits> 22:31, 8 March 2008 (UTC)

Jerusalem

Eleland restored this under the heading "Arab sites in Danger", incorrectly assuming that that this is the way UNESCO lists it. Upon realizing his mistake, he created a new subheading "Jerusalem" - which is indeed how UNESCO lists it. The problem is that this now introduces a not-so-subtle POV, since this article is called "List of World Heritage Sites in the Arab States". So while UNESCO takes care to avoid stating that Jerusalem's old city is within the boundaries of any Arab state, Eleland has now introduced this POV into the article. I am therefore removing it. Canadian Monkey (talk) 02:06, 9 March 2008 (UTC)

Sigh, you've made at least two mistakes in that post.

First, I restored it both under "Arab sites in Danger," where UNESCO lists it - read the damn footnote - and "Jerusalem," where UNESCO also lists it. Second, if you read the extremely detailed footnote, UNESCO's website lists the Old City in the "Arab States" regional group. Click on note "1," then scroll down to "Jerusalem," then look at the "ARB" region it's listed under.

Please try and exercise a little bit more care, CM. <eleland/talkedits> 03:00, 9 March 2008 (UTC)

Sigh, indeed. I did read the footnote, and the accompanying reference. UNESCO does not list it under "Arab sites in danger", it lists it under "World Heritage in Danger List". And it most certainly does not list it under (Palestine), as you've twice done, incorrectly. We can settle this very easily: which Arab state is this world heritage site in, according to UNESCO? Canadian Monkey (talk) 05:29, 9 March 2008 (UTC)

We can resolve this very clearly, if you stop lying about the content of my edits, and start reading the damned sources. UNESCO lists Jerusalem under region "ARB", Arab States, and leaves the state party blank. <eleland/talkedits> 05:43, 9 March 2008 (UTC)

Then we have two choices: Change the name of this article to "List of World Heritage Sites listed by UNESCO under the ARB region", or leave it out. We can't have an encyclopedia state as fact that Jerusalem is in an Arab state, without any source. Canadian Monkey (talk) 05:57, 9 March 2008 (UTC)

Let me see if I understand here: we should contradict UNESCO's terminology for the list that they, and nobody else, define, all because one "Canadian Monkey" objects to a speculative interpretation of that terminology which he himself has invented. There are, of course, no other options: he said so himself. No caveat is good enough; "The situation of Jerusalem is an exceptional one [...] inscription should in no way be regarded as a means for registering political or sovereignty claims by any State" is totally inadequate.

"ARB region," what an asinine straw man that is. You know quite well that "ARB region" is "Arab States," as demonstrated by [1] [2] [3] et al. Do not attempt to impose your views on this article by sheer force of will. <eleland/talkedits> 07:02, 9 March 2008 (UTC)

I've restored the listing of Jerusalem and expanded the footnote slightly. At Wikipedia, we report what the reliable sources state. UNESCO states the site is part of the Arab regional group, and not European like other entries belonging to Israel. I've added that explanation to the footnote as well. It also states that its final status is yet to be determined, something that is noted in Eleland's footnote. I don't see why this information should not be included in the article. Wikipedia is not censored. Tiamut^talk 11:43, 9 March 2008 (UTC)

Your comment regarding Israeli entries is actually quite illuminating with regards to this discussion. If you look at List of World Heritage Sites in Europe, you will not see Tel Aviv, or Acre, nor will you see Masada, any of the biblical Tels or the Nabatean cities. This is not because some anti-Israeli bigot removed them, but rather for the mundane reason that the list is called List of World Heritage Sites '''in Europe''', and UNESCO's listing of Tel Aviv in the "EUR" region does not magically change geography and move Tel Aviv or Acre into Europe. Similarly, UNESCO's listing of Old Jerusalem in the "ARB" region does not magically change geography or decide legal issues, and certainly does not override UNESCO"s own stated position that by accepting the Jordanian application, it is not making any political statement and is not deciding anything with regards to sovereignty. We do indeed report what reliable sources say. UNESCO, however, does not say Jerusalem is in an Arab state. UNESCO lists Old Jerusalem in a regional category called "Arab". If you want to change the name of this article to List of World Heritage Sites listed by UNESCO under the ARB region, I would have no objection. If not, kindly keep POV-pushing out of the encyclopedia. Canadian Monkey (talk) 15:34, 9 March 2008 (UTC)

What makes you think we were aware of that, CM? I'm going to go and update the Europe entry right now. And please drop the "ARB region" straw man; as no less than four sources provided demonstrate, UNESCO deals with Jerusalem through the "Arab States" regional group. <eleland/talkedits> 17:28, 9 March 2008 (UTC)

Third opinion

Hey. I saw some requested a third opinion, so here it is. I believe that this article should remain true to the UNESCO's standards. On the page where the site is listed, if you click on the Jerusalem header, it just redirects to the list of all the countries involved - and this page clearly reflects that. Now to the issue at hand: this article clearly lists Jerusalem in the Arab states list. The paper is titled "World Heritage in Arab States"; Jerusalem is listed in the index on page 2; the site is listed on page 25. UNESCO puts it in the Arab states, and that should be reflected on this page.

Hope this helps. — HelloAnnyong ^{(say whaaat?!)} 15:54, 9 March 2008 (UTC)

I also think that Jerusalem should be listed in this list as is. Perhaps we can even have this list in a chart format, where entries are first entered alphabetically, but later can be sorted by country or date (or something else as well).Bless sins (talk) 12:35, 14 March 2008 (UTC)

"Israel is on the European list"

I'm sorry but I can't find Israel here http://www.qudswiki.org/?query=List_of_World_Heritage_Sites_in_Europe.
Can anyone explain this or remove this sentence from the article? Thanks 77.125.74.6 (talk) 20:15, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

I have no view on whether or not the old city should be on the list in the Arab States as opposed to Europe but I take issue with the way it is listed. The top of the article states "This is a list of the UNESCO World Heritage Sites in the Arab States.[1] Some of these [b][u]countries[/u][/b] are geographically located in Asia and some in Africa."

The list is a list of countries with sites in them. Jerusalem is not a country. Jersualem is a city in Israel. If you want to contest the legitimacy of Israel's right to exist or it's ownership of Jerusalem, do so in some other forum. Several of the sites on the list are in territory which is currently disputed, yet Israel is the only one being singled out. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 137.52.255.85 (talk • contribs) 05:17, August 12, 2009

UNESCO lists it as Jerusalem, so that's how we show it here. — HelloAnnyong ^{(say whaaat?!)} 12:49, 14 August 2009 (UTC)

Why this list?

Possibly it is obvious, but I don't get the point of this list. "Arab States" (which links to Arab League) seems to be a recent concept, while the sites are much older than that. So why collect all the sites in the Arab States in one list? Should we have also a List of World Heritage Sites in the OPEC states, List of World Heritage Sites in the PAMSA States,... ? bamse (talk) 08:38, 28 August 2010 (UTC)

I think the article was created to reflect how UNESCO categorizes the sites. http://whc.unesco.org/en/list/stat has a list of regions, one of which is "Arab States". Not that I necessarily agree with that logic, but there you go. — HelloAnnyong ^{(say whaaat?!)} 13:47, 28 August 2010 (UTC)

I see. However, looking at the first table in [4], the regions chosen by UNESCO are not overlapping (which does make sense), while on wikipedia it appears that some countries appear in more than one list (which is ugly in my opinion). For instance Egypt is in both, the List of World Heritage Sites in Africa and the List of World Heritage Sites in the Arab States. If the reason for the existence of this list is how UNESCO categorizes the sites (a weak reason in my opinion), we should copy the UNESCO classification one to one, i.e., with non-overlapping regions. BTW, is there a reference for what UNESCO considers as "Arab States"? Is it really the same as the Arab League? bamse (talk) 15:45, 28 August 2010 (UTC)

This appears to be a list of those. It does not appear to have a direct attachment to the Arab League, though there is considerable overlap. But you're right that this list does overlap with the Africa one, and that should probably be resolved. — HelloAnnyong ^{(say whaaat?!)} 15:57, 28 August 2010 (UTC)

Other countries seem to overlap as well in the lists: Algeria, Mauritania, Tunisia, and Morocco should all be here instead. I'm currently in the process of an FL drive, so I'm working on the African list right now; but if someone would like to help out, the table format will need to be transferred to this article. Once that is done, I'll gladly switch the countries' article location. _EricLeb⁰¹ (Page | Talk) 18:17, 28 August 2010 (UTC)

Libya as well. Forgot it. _EricLeb⁰¹ (Page | Talk) 19:47, 28 August 2010 (UTC)

I can see two possibilities of how to organize the lists:

1. forget about UNESCO's categorization and have only continent lists
2. use UNESCO's definition for Arab States and remove the Arab State sites from the African and Asian lists

My preference would be the first option, because basically everybody knows about continents, but who knows what "Arab States" are? Shall we ask the wikiproject World Heritage Sites for its preference? bamse (talk) 20:51, 28 August 2010 (UTC)

No to both #1 (oops =)). This isn't a geographically or politically classified list; this is simply the way UNESCO decided to sort them out. We should be following the classification in which it is clearly given by the creator of the list in question. _EricLeb⁰¹ (Page | Talk) 23:45, 1 September 2010 (UTC)

OK, makes more and more sense to me. bamse (talk) 10:09, 3 December 2010 (UTC)

I wholeheartedly agree. For better are worse the world heritage system is a creation of UNESCO, so it's a mistake to deviate from their classification of the sites they designate. Chouji Ochiai (talk) 16:03, 6 December 2010 (UTC)

There's a discussion to finalise this matter at WT:WHS. Please join in. Nightw 15:20, 10 September 2011 (UTC)

In case of expansion

If somebody wants to expand this list into table form like it was done with the Africa list, an old revision of the List of World Heritage Sites in Danger (particularly the "Description" column) might be useful. bamse (talk) 11:15, 5 December 2010 (UTC)

Request for comments

There is discussion on what should be included in this and other regional lists of World Heritage Sites. Please voice your opinion on the issue here. Thank you. bamse (talk) 15:39, 11 December 2010 (UTC)

Arabian Oryx Sanctuary

Should the list include the Arabian Oryx Sanctuary, even it has already been delisted? Of course we would have to mark it as "delisted" or something.Dvl007 (talk) 12:37, 18 August 2011 (UTC+8)

Moving to "List of World Heritage in Western and South Asia"

Per the small consensus at WT:WHS, I propose moving the list to List of World Heritage in Western and South Asia. Any objections? _EricLeb⁰¹ (Page | Talk) 16:41, 21 September 2011 (UTC)

Yes, I object. The name is inaccurate at North Africa is not in western or south Asia. Also, UNESCO does not include sites in Israel as being in this category, whereas your proposal would include sites in Israel. I dont see why we should not use the subdivisions that UNESCO uses as it is after all decided by them on what is a World Heritage Site. nableezy - 17:15, 21 September 2011 (UTC)

Take note that the North African sites, including Egypt, have always been included in the List of World Heritage Sites in Africa. Naming it this way would avoid the problem with Israel, as UNESCO does not list it anywhere. We would place it in the new list and mention that the site's country is disputed and that the site was proposed by Jordan. The problem with the UNESCO subdivisions is that it's purely political... The Canary Islands are located in Africa, but they are classified under "Europe and North America". The Pitcairn Islands are in Oceania, yet they are classified under "Europe and North America", again. No one will be looking for those islands on the Europe list.

"Arab States" is similarly ambiguous. Not everyone knows what is included or not (whereas the limits of Western and South Asia are very well-defined). We can't place countries like Egypt, Algeria, and Libya on both the African list (where people would first look through) and the Arab list. It's just too much work to properly standardise these lists and make them accessible to everyone, when we could simply go by geographical position, and not by geopolitical position. _EricLeb⁰¹ (Page | Talk) 20:24, 21 September 2011 (UTC)

UNESCO does list Israel in a region, they classify it within the Europe and North America sites (see here). If you mean the specific classification of the Old City, you are right, UNESCO specifies no country, but does specify that it is in the group of World Heritage Sites in the "Arab States". The UNESCO classification may be purely political, but it is their classification the title "World Heritage Site" is given by them. Again, I see no reason why we should not use their divisions for articles covering what they make. Finally, you say the limits of Western and South Asia are very well defined. Would sites in Sinai be included in this proposed list, or would they be included in the Africa list, or both? I say list things only according to the UNESCO classification, which means removing North African sites from the Africa list and maintaining an Arab States list. nableezy - 15:27, 22 September 2011 (UTC)

Yeah, I meant the Old City, sorry. As for the Sinai Peninsula, we would place it in the African list for the sake of accessibility; if I'm looking for Egyptian sites, I'm not going to think to look to the Asian list, thinking that there may be a site located in Sinai.

Could we centralise this here? There is a discussion on this topic going on already. _EricLeb⁰¹ (Page | Talk) 01:50, 23 September 2011 (UTC)

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Copyright problem removed

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Israel and Palestine

There seems to be some edit warring about labeling places in Israel and Palestine. I don't think it is the job of Wikipedia to settle complex international problems. We need a consensus as to what the label should be in these cases. Jason Harvestdancer | Talk to me 15:09, 8 June 2018 (UTC)