File talk:Israel location map.svg

When drawing a map of Israel there is always the question of how to draw its borders. I suggest several corrections:

1. The Gaza Strip can be marked as a foreign territory (dark gray). Israel renounced this territory officially in 2005 and there are no Israelis living there anymore.
2. The western demarcation line of the Golan Heights region reflects the Israeli military deployment line before June 1967, as agreed in the ceasefire agreements of 1949. The last recognized international border is the 1923 border which lies a bit eastwards. I think the last recognized border is the better option here, because a military deployment line has nothing to do with actual control (which may be a civilian control) or the concept of sovereignty. Also, the 1974 Syrian military deployment line (the most eastern line in the Golan Heights region) can be removed. Israel has no control over the territory between the Syrian civilian line and the Syrian military deployment line.
3. The part of Jerusalem annexed by Israel in 1967 looks like one of the 1949 demilitarized zones. That's a bit misleading.
4. The southern part of the Dead Sea looks a bit bigger than it actually is. Drork (talk) 03:32, 25 November 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for your suggestions:

1. The borders and the seaside of the Gaza Strip are still controlled by Israel, fresh water, energy and telephone, too, so I prefer the Gaza Strip not to be shown in dark grey.
2. Ynhockey posted at my disc page at de-wp. I followed him in showing all borderlines of the demilitarized zones. And I decided to keep the borders of the UNDOF zone (with Quneitra) in Syria, too. I think this is the best solution. (And I deleted the rivers and canals of which he thinks they better should not to be shown.)
3. The annexed part of Jerusalem has got a different line style now.
4. The southern part of the Dead Sea has been taken from satellite pictures (Google Earth). If there have been changes I don't know where. --NNW (talk) 18:51, 29 November 2008 (UTC)

The question here is how you define a separate geopolitic entity. There are several small countries in Europe like Andorra, San Marino, Vatican City, Lichtenstein which are very much or even totally dependent on foreign infrastructures, and yet they are considered a geopolitical entities in their own right. Currently, the Gaza Strip is no longer claimed by Israel and it has its own independent administration.

The southern part of the Dead Sea is in fact non-existent for many years. Today there are artificial shallow pools there used by the industrial factories. Drork (talk) 06:55, 1 December 2008 (UTC)

Gaza never claimed itself as a separate state, any country or international organisation don't recognize it as a separate entity actually. Legal Gaza status is not different from the West Bank.

Andorra, San Marino, Vatican City, Lichtenstein are legally recognized as officially independent countries by their neighbours and the international organisations.

Southern Dead Sea is really divided in the technologic ponds. Bogomolov.PL (talk) 07:28, 11 December 2008 (UTC)

Reverted update

I replaced the map with a more accurate version. Areas within the State of Israel are white and everything else is gray. It was reverted. Why ? The Gaza Strip is not in Israel, it is part of the Palestinian Territories. The West Bank is not in Israel, it is part of the Palestinian Territories and regarded as occupied territory by the international community and the Supreme Court of Israel (HCJ). East Jerusalem is not in Israel. It was annexed in 1980 in a move not recognised and considered to be illegal by the international community. It is regarded as occupied territory by the international community. The Golan Heights are not in Israel. Although they were not formally annexed, in practice they were in 1981 by the Golan Heights Law. Again, the international community regards the move as illegal and the territory as occupied. The map is used in over 4000 Wikipedia articles. That is over 4000 articles using an inaccurate and misleading map that does not comply with the mandatory policies of Wikipedia. I see that one of the contributers was Drork. Drork is an indefinitely blocked user in Wikipedia. Sean.hoyland (talk) 10:25, 11 January 2011 (UTC)

Drork never changed the map himself, it's just you and me. His only contribution was the text above and none of his remarks changed the colours of the map. So we can forget that point.

• There are three colours:
  • bright yellow for the main country,
  • dark grey for other countries,
  • light grey for disputed/occupied
• Legal status of the Gaza Strip: Israel controlling Gaza's airspace and territorial waters, no allowance of the movement of goods in or out by air or sea. Occupied → light grey
• Westbank is – as you said – occupied → light grey
• Status of East Jerusalem: under the law, jurisdiction, and administration of the State of Israel; not recognized by the international community. Disputed/occupied → light grey
• Status of Golan Heights: with en:Golan Heights Law under the law, jurisdiction, and administration of the State of Israel; not recognized by the international community. Disputed/occupied → light grey

It doesn't matter if Israel has this or the UN has that view, this map doesn't show the de jure situation (and which de jure should it be, Israelian or the UN?). De facto Israel controlls wide areas and these areas are shown in light grey, no matter if the UN or you or me like it or not. Wikipedia is for showing the reality. Please show me the mandatory policies of Wikipedia that prohibit to show a de facto situation. And after that we'll see what will happen to Category:Maps of Israel, many maps showing Gaza, West Bank and Golan as integrated parts of Israel. NNW (talk) 12:57, 11 January 2011 (UTC)

I see 2 colors in effect. The yellow and light gray are virtually indistinguishable. The RGB colors are

• Israel
  • R 100%
  • G 100 %
  • B 91 %
• Gaza Strip/West Bank inc.EJ/Golan
  • R 96 %
  • G 96 %
  • B 96 %

If the color contrast between the State of Israel and areas over which they have de facto control could be increased so that they are clearly distinguishable this issue would be resolved as far as I'm concerned. Compare with File:LocationMorocco striped.png where stripes have been used to clearly distinguish between Morocco and occupied Western Sahara (although the map is a bit inaccurate and I'm not advocating that stripes are used for this Israel map and related maps). Wikipedia isn't for showing reality. It's for showing what reliable sources have to say about reality and that is constrained by the mandatory en:WP:V and en:WP:NPOV policies. A map in Wikipedia must be derived from reliable sources. It isn't clear what the reliable sources are for this map of Israel ? It doesn't look like a map I've seen from a reliable source because it doesn't clearly distinguish between Israel and not-Israel. Here is a map from a reliable source, the CIA World Factbook with a map of Israel. Note the color coding to clearly distinguish between Israel and not-Israel. It's true that there are many maps in Wikipedia that do not distinguish between Israel and the Palestinian Territories/Golan in the clear, visually obvious way that reliable sources do. That is unfortunate but fairly easily rectified. I think this issue of clearly distinguishing between different areas is so important and affects so many articles that it probably merits being discussed at en:WP:IPCOLL, the Israel Palestine Collaboration WikiProject. Sean.hoyland (talk) 10:28, 12 January 2011 (UTC)

It's CMYK that gives its colours in %. The RGB colours in this map are

• yellow: 254/254/233
• light grey: 245/245/245
• dark grey: 224/224/224

They follow the cartographers' template for location maps which is available in several languages and is used in several projects, too. Btw the template was created by several hobby and professional cartographers as well. You are the first in two and a half years who isn't able to distinguish the colours although these colours are used in dozens of maps and ten thousands of articles so I think your monitor needs to be calibrated. And the reliable source can be the CIA World Factbook map. It says that Gaza strip, Westbank and Golan are occupied. And there are many more maps showing that. And that's exactly what Israel location map.svg shows, too. They only differ in colours, that's all. CIA has its colour scheme, Wikipedian cartographers chose a different one. NNW (talk) 13:37, 12 January 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for the link to the cartographers' template for location maps. That essentially resolves the color contrast issue for me because it makes the issue of whether or not I personally think the color contrast is insufficient irrelevant because it's a project-wide standard. I wasn't questioning the reliability of the status of the areas as occupied as far as RS are concerned or the positioning of the borders on the map although I think it would be better if explicit sources (like the CIA etc) were listed with the file at some point. It was more that our maps are, at least for me, strikingly different from those generated by reliable sources in terms color contrast between regions with different statuses. I'll have a look at my monitor calibration as you suggested. Thanks for your help. Sean.hoyland (talk) 18:10, 12 January 2011 (UTC)

I agree with this map: [1], Israel has no claim to the occupied territories, there is no reason for why the OT shouldn't be in the same grey color as other lands not part of Israel. --Supreme Deliciousness (talk) 18:20, 28 January 2011 (UTC)

We discussed this once, we won't discuss this twice. NNW (talk) 11:23, 29 January 2011 (UTC)

West Bank is not Israel

Please do not push political views by distributing maps that show territorial coloration that is not in accordance with international law. Neither the West Bank nor the Gaza Strip nor the Golan Heights are part of Israel. And claiming some de-facto situation is merely a propagation of a pro-Israel and anti-Arab/Palestinian POV. Cush (talk) 18:42, 28 October 2012 (UTC)

This map shows the de facto situation. That isn't making any propaganda as this map will be changed whenever the de facto situation changes. This has been discussed ad nauseam. If you don't like it upload another version of this map with a different name but leave this map as it is, see Commons:Overwriting existing files#Controversial or contested changes. NNW (talk) 19:08, 28 October 2012 (UTC)

Map is completely botched

Almost none of the colours listed in the key are actually present in the map. This is incredibly confusing.

But the version from a few minutes earlier in the history does have those colours!!

Make it make sense. MP99 (talk) 14:30, 9 October 2023 (UTC)

Quite easy. Could have been done by everyone. NNW 16:39, 9 October 2023 (UTC)

The map with colours that match the key was uploaded a few mins before, then replaced with this version.

History seems to alternate colours! MP99 (talk) 11:29, 19 October 2023 (UTC)