Journalist Targeted for Character Assassination by Wikipedia

Anat Schwartz was one of three contributors to the New York Times article Screams Without Words, a thoughtful and thorough account of the Hamas use of rape as a weapon of war. It received wide publicity, and its lead writer was the Pulitzer Prize-winner Jeffrey Gettleman.  

Wikipedia's swarms of anti-Israel activist-editors hate Screams Without Words, because it impedes their efforts to whitewash Hamas. Every single reference to Screams Without Words on Wikipedia is designed to discredit it, using anti-Israel sources for that purpose.

As part of their campaign against Screams Without Words, they have used Wikipedia to smear Schwartz.

In addition to creating an article on "Screams" for the sole purpose of attacking it, an article was created on Schwartz for the sole purpose of attacking her. 

The article was created in late February, two months after Screams Without Words appeared, as a translation of an innocuous article in the Hebrew Wikipedia. Schwartz got her article before the Wiki article on "Screams" was created. That's how anxious they were to discredit and punish her. She was clearly viewed as a weak link in the authorship chain.

Here is how the Hebrew version appeared at the time. There is a brief, innocuous reference to Screams Without Words. It has changed little since then.

The English Wikipedia article (here is how it initially appeared) cut short the description of her long career in the Hebrew article. Over half of the English Wikipedia article was an attack on her work on Screams Without Words, saying the "Screams" article

reportedly caused a "furious internal debate" about the strength of its reporting. [5] In February 2024, analysis of Schwartz' social media activity found that she had liked posts calling Palestinians 'human animals' and advocating to "turn Gaza into a slaughterhouse," leading to allegations of bias and violations of editorial policies.[6]

Nowhere does it point out that the Times has stood by the article, calling it "rigorously reported, sourced and edited" and sent an email to The Intercept seeking corrections.  

Footnotes 6&7 in the passage quoted above go to The Intercept, a grossly anti-Israel publication, and Mondoweiss, a blog that is an apologist for Hamas. As a self-published blog, Mondoweiss is not supposed to be used for biographies. But Wikipedia's activist-editors regularly disregard that rule, and fight fiercely against editors seeking to enforce the rules.

Since it was created, the Schwartz article has been made longer and worse. As it appears today, it still relies on Mondoweiss and The Intercept, and now Al Jazeera as well. There is still, after all these months, nothing on how the Times says it stands by the story.

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World Jewish Congress on Wikipedia's Anti-Israel Bias

Logo of the Arabic Wikipedia

On March 19th, the World Jewish Congress released a report on anti-Israel bias on Wikipedia. The statement announcing the report can be found here and the report itself is here.

The statement introducing the report states as follows:

In the aftermath of October 7, the English-language version of Wikipedia contains an anti-Israel bias that perpetuates disinformation and promotes negative stereotypes, according to a World Jewish Congress report issued today on the sidelines of the ongoing session of the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva.

The bias takes myriad forms, appearing in terminology, framing and lack of context, one-sided sources and critical omissions, among other occurrences, in articles on the ongoing Israel-Hamas war, according to the WJC report. 

For instance, biased articles may promote the demonization or delegitimization of Israel; avoid mentioning terrorism and other tangible threats faced by Israel; and lack critical Israeli voices, researchers and facts that may support Israel's rationale for its policies, the report states. 

It points out things that are not generally known, such as that the Arabic-language Wikipedia is actively pro-Hamas and has abandoned the so-called "neutral point of view" policy supposedly required of all Wikimedia Foundation projects. The Foundation has done nothing about it.

In the English Wikipedia, the problems are outlined as follows:

Content Bias: This refers to the presentation of the war and the use of terminology and references regarding Hamas and Israel that may demonstrate bias. 

Deletion Attacks and Tendentious Deletion Attempts: This involves surprise deletion attacks or efforts to remove articles related to Israel. 

Editing Restrictions: Certain procedures, such as limiting editing access for users with less than 500 edits and less of 30 days seniority, may hinder the democratic nature of the site, particularly concerning war-related entries; 

Selective Enforcement: System administrators may exhibit biased behavior by inconsistently applying rules, especially in cases involving Israelis or those not supporting a “so-called” pro-Palestinian stance; 

Anti-Israeli Editors: Users have reported instances of aggressive behavior from editors with anti-Israeli views, leading to attempts to block Israeli contributors; and 

Biased Sources: Wikipedia may frequently rely on sources such as media outlets, journalists, or researchers with clear anti-Zionist perspectives, potentially leading to biased content 

This is a very good outline and covers points that others have observed over the years and which we have raised in this new blog.  

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Remember that comments are open and can be anonymous. Tips, critiques, and suggestions are welcome, and I am receptive to guest blogs as well. They can be anonymous or otherwise. Just email me at WikipediaCritic at proton dot me

Has Iran Been Manipulating Wikipedia?

 A Times of London article in January (behind paywall; replicated here in The Australian) suggests that an Iranian cyber army may have been manipulating Wikipedia on behalf of Iran.

Wikipedia entries have been changed to downgrade Iranian human rights atrocities and other abuses, The Times has learnt.

The alterations raise concerns that the site is being used to ­manipulate information about the hardline Islamic regime. Details have been changed to discredit dissident groups, and government publications have been presented as impartial sources on the free online encyclopaedia.

In one case key details about mass executions by the regime were removed. The involvement of senior officials in the 1988 death commissions, in which thousands of political prisoners were killed, was also deleted. In a separate ruling, supporters of Vahid Beheshti, an Iranian human rights activist who went on hunger strike in the UK, were thwarted when they tried to set up a Wikipedia page. 

Mattie Heaven, Mr Beheshti’s wife, said four attempts were made to set up a page because there was so much online misinformation about her husband, who continues to put pressure on the British government to designate Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps a terrorist organisation. Ms Heaven said the text was repeatedly ­removed so the page could not function. “We believed it was the Iranian cyber army,” she said.

Today, Wikipedia's so-called "Arbitration Committee" was asked by a throwaway account to open a case that would expose the editors involved to possible penalties. 

Look at the editors mentioned.  

• Ali Ahwazi (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
• Mhhossein (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
• Ghazaalch (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
• Iskandar323 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
• MarioGom (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)

With the apparent exception of MarioGom, every single one is an active edit-warrior activist, pushing the Hamas agenda in articles on Israel and the Gaza conflict.

If Iran is behind these accounts, then Iran is behind much of the pro-Hamas editing on Wikipedia.

Arbcom only got the request today and hasn't decided if it will take the case. 

The prognosis does not look good. This request was by a newly created account, and not by an experienced user who might have more clout. Another throwaway account previously raised the issue at a noticeboard on Feb. 6. It was quickly squelched without explanation by User:Bbb23, an administrator. Wikipedia makes up its rules as it goes along, so "Arbcom" can duck or take up the issue using any pretext it chooses.

A veteran Wikipedia user opines as follows:

Arbitration has always been a last resort for the resolution of disputes that cannot be settled in any other way. The filing of Requests for Arbitration by what appear to be new accounts established for the purpose of filing requests for arbitration does not appear to illustrate that all previous methods of dispute resolution, or any methods of dispute resolution, have been exhausted. (The global edit history shows that the filer is a new account, not an account from another language Wikipedia.) The list of previous steps in dispute resolution says that the filing party (the new account) contacted the WMF, which is a different last resort for the resolution of disputes. There is no evidence of discussion at any English Wikipedia forum. The evidence of a problem is that an article has been published by a reliable source, The Times (of London), apparently stating that there is being systematic removal of reports of human rights violations by the Iranian government. I have not read the details of the report because it is paywalled. There has not been an attempt to discuss the report. If there had been a serious attempt to discuss the report, an inquiry similar to the May 2023 case on distortion of coverage of the Jews in Poland in World War Two might be in order. There has not been such an attempt, and such a case is not in order. This filing is frivolous.

ArbCom should decline this case request, and remind the filer that premature filings are considered vexatious, but should be ready to consider an inquiry into distortion of Wikipedia coverage if there has been real inconclusive discussion. Robert McClenon (talk) 16:47, 14 March 2024 (UTC)

First he says the filing is not frivolous ("The evidence of a problem is that an article has been published by a reliable source") and then he says "This filing is frivolous." 

This is the kind of double-talk that editors face when they try to counter the army of pro-Hamas editors. The effort to counter Iranian influence stands a good chance of dying due to sheer indifference.

Postscript: The case was quickly swept under the rug on bureaucratic grounds. An "arbitrator" explained:  "It exceeded the limit of 500 words and did not describe actual prior dispute resolution attempts. Also, concerns have been voiced about your account being a throwaway account used only for filing the request." 

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Remember that comments are open and can be anonymous. Tips, critiques, and suggestions are welcome, and I am receptive to guest blogs as well. They can be anonymous or otherwise. Just email me at WikipediaCritic at proton dot me

Wikipedia Rape Denier: Naama Levy Was 'Having a Period'

A photograph of 19-year-old Naama Levy is one of the iconic images of the brutal Hamas assault on Israel on October 7, 2023. She is shown being dragged into a truck by a Hamas terrorist, her arms tied behind her back, her ankles cut, blood dripping from her crotch.

The photograph of the tormented Naama has come to symbolize the fate of the female hostages, who have been subjected to sexual assault in the Hamas tunnels.

One of the most prolific anti-Israel activists molding content on Wikipedia believes otherwise. A self-identified woman who goes by the handle "Huldra," said as follows in an article discussion page on March 5:

To me, as a cis-woman, it was a proof, eh, an indication that the woman had her period, and had no opportunity to change her tampon/pad.

She goes on to say that "There has just been so many lies told about Oct. 7."

This disgusting, offensive comment is typical of the Oct. 7 atrocity denial that is prevalent on Wikipedia article discussion pages.

"Huldra" was profiled in 2019 as being a tireless anti-Israel editor:

Huldra’s dedicated passion is one that is slowly and dangerously undermining the factual history of Israel on Wikipedia by creating false documentation that shows nearly 400 Arab villages were allegedly depopulated by Jews and Israel. Last, but not least, Huldra is nearly singularly responsible for enacting the 30/500 policy that limits ALL people from editing anywhere in the Arab-Israeli topic area unless they have achieved 30 days and 500 edits on Wikipedia.

There is a brief Wikipedia article on Naama Levy, created on March 8th. It will be interesting to see how it fares if it is subjected to the usual pro-Hamas assault.

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Remember that comments are open and can be anonymous. Tips, critiques, and suggestions are welcome, and I am receptive to guest blogs as well. They can be anonymous or otherwise. Just email me at WikipediaCritic at proton dot me

Wikipedia's Anti-Israel Obsession: An Introduction

Wikipedia displays a pattern of obsessive hostility toward Israel. 

It is a systemic, institutional problem, caused by a large and unrestrained group of anti-Israel, pro-Hamas editors. I call them the "Wikipedia Flood," the online counterpart of the "al-Aqsa Flood," the name Hamas gave to its murderous onslaught on Oct. 7, 2023.

This is a longstanding problem, and it has been exacerbated by the Gaza war.  Anti-Israel bias is so extreme that it frequently veers into antisemitism. 

This is a major problem. Wikipedia is one of the most highly trafficked and influential websites around, with 9.5 billion visits in December 2023 alone. It is a major target of anti-Israel activists, and their work has been a resounding success.

The purpose of this blog is to shed light on Wikipedia's anti-Israel bias on a continuing basis.   

Key issues

▶ Every single article related to the Arab-Israel conflict is distorted to reflect an anti-Israel point of view.

▶ Anti-Israel sources such as Al Jazeera, The Guardian and The Intercept are considered "reliable" and are used to provide the raw material for articles, while pro-Israel sources are downgraded, and some are prohibited. 

▶ Wikipedia processes, its "administrators" and "arbitrators," are unwilling to curb the depredations of pro-Hamas activist "editors."

▶ Activist "editors" create articles whose sole purpose is to disseminate anti-Israel hate.

▶ Pro-Israel editors are banned from articles related to Israel on drummed-up pretexts, or kicked off the website, if they complain about anti-Israel editors.

▶ Article discussion ("talk") pages are cesspools of crude anti-Israel hate. Oct. 7 atrocity denial, especially rape denial, is rife. This creates a hostile atmosphere for Jewish editors.

For the anti-Israel activist "editors" of Wikipedia, the "encyclopedia everyone can edit" is just another form of warfare. Their job is to fill it with anti-Israel polemics and do their best to oust pro-Israel editors on trumped-up charges. 

Thus an article that began as effort to explore the phenomenon of "Holocaust inversion" was twisted over time by anti-Israel and antisemitic editors into a platform for comparing Israelis to Nazis. The editor who created the article was banned from Wikipedia as retribution for his efforts to counter anti-Israel and antisemitic editors, and for exposing a long-running hoax created by Polish nationalist editors. 

Investigative journalist David Collier described the problem as follows in December 2020:

Some pages – such as the sections on Palestinian history – are incoherent and ahistorical garbage. The pages on Jews and antisemitism only help to spread a hatred of Jews. Those who set up the rules for Wikipedia may have anticipated acts of correctable terrorism on their pages – but did not foresee the war of attrition. Nobody was going to come along and attempt to rewrite history in a day. The best strategy is taking the current mindset apart brick by brick. Patiently over a number of years. That is what is happening with Wikipedia. . . . 

Every edit by someone with a Zionist leaning is placed under a microscope, if it gets past the gatekeepers at all – and then immediately contrasted with the placement of an anti-Zionist counter-argument.  

 In 2017, blogger Dani Ishan Behan stated:

Israel-related articles almost uniformly emphasize the Palestinian and Arab narrative while marginalizing the Jewish one. Rudimentary facts about Israel’s history: including Palestinian massacres on Jewish civilians, Arab intransigence being a primary factor in the conflict’s intractability, and even the Jewish people’s origins and indigeneity to the land of Israel are either downplayed or outright erased. 

The reason this can happen is that Wikipedia is rigged. 

Wikipedia has rules that ostensibly prevent this kind of thing from happening, they require neutrality and fairness, and it has been reported that Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales is pro-Israel. But Wales does not run Wikipedia. That is in the hands of largely anonymous volunteers, who let Wikipedia be gamed by anti-Israel editors. 

Even the most well-intentioned volunteer, unpaid "administrators" and "arbitrators" (a kind of super-administrator) are manipulated by pro-Hamas activists who dominate the articles on Israel and the Gaza conflict.

Wikipedia rules protect anti-Israel activists

Here's an example of how the rules are rigged to protect anti-Israel activists whose sole purpose is to turn Wikipedia into a propaganda organ:

The "user pages" of anti-Israel editors, such as the one maintained by the pro-Hamas activist "Nableezy," frequently proclaim their support for terrorism. This contributes to the anti-Israel atmosphere that pervades Wikipedia. Here is a "user box" on Nableezy's "user page." 

? This user supports the right of all individuals and groups to violently resist military aggression and occupation by other parties, but due to an alleged consensus he is disallowed from naming particular individuals or groups which certain administrators find to be unacceptable.

This pro-terrorist 'user box' is explicitly permitted by Wikipedia. 

The rules governing user pages prohibit them from containing "very divisive or offensive material not related to encyclopedia editing."  They also ban advocacy or support of grossly improper behaviors with no project benefit. The latter are defined as "statements or pages that seem to advocate, encourage, or condone these behaviors: vandalism, copyright violation, edit warring, harassment, privacy breach, defamation, and acts of violence."

But "acts of violence" are specifically defined to exempt support for Jew-killers:

("Acts of violence" includes all forms of violence but does not include mere statements of support for controversial groups or regimes that some may interpret as an encouragement of violence.)

Since Wikipedia allows editors to openly proclaim their support for Jew-killing terrorist groups, Jewish editors find themselves rubbing elbows on article talk pages with people like Nableezy who proclaim that they would be happy to see Jews murdered, their children and parents kidnapped, their daughters raped. 

According to one article from 2019, "recent information suggests that Nableezy works for The Electronic Intifada," a virulently anti-Israel website. It goes on to point out that Nableezy is especially active in trying to thin the ranks of the opposition by gaming the Wikipedia enforcement mechanisms. Nableezy has continued in that activity since that article was published in 2019, gaining in power and influence. 

A numbers game

Anti-Israel editors realize that winning the propaganda jihad on Wikipedia is a numbers game, and they see to it that the number of pro-Israel editors remains small. They do that by intimidating and bullying "the opposition" and seeking tenaciously to get them banned from articles on Israel and from the site itself. "Topic bans" of varying length are commonly handed out by administrators, acting at the behest of anti-Israel editors who compile laundry lists of trumped-up grievances. The administrators who oversee such things have broad power to act as they like, making up the rules as they go along.

On Wikipedia, the "community" rules. What "community" means in practice is "whoever shows up for a discussion." Pro-Hamas and anti-Israel editors have the numbers, and they "flood" article discussion pages where required, gathered in requisite quantities by email canvassing campaigns. One of the grievances frequently used to get pro-Israel editors topic-banned is that they act contrary to the phony "consensuses" established by anti-Israel editors.

Gaming "consensus" rules is especially problematic in determining which sources can and cannot be used, and how they are used in articles. "Reliable source" discussion pages and an alphabetized list of "perennial sources" show how anti-Israel sources are invariably usable, while pro-Israel sources are downgraded, thanks to the efforts of anti-Israel and far-left editors.

Al Jazeera and Amnesty International are fine. Fox News is not OK for "politics," so its reports on Israel are not usable for sourcing. The Nation is fine. Jacobin is fine. Jewish Virtual Library is not NGO Monitor is not. 

There is nothing on Wikipedia to stop aggressive, pro-Hamas editors from gaming Wikipedia's processes. When whistleblowers attempt to call them on their tactics, the whistleblowers themselves are punished. This is known on Wikipedia as "boomerang." 

David Collier describes as a "war of attrition" in which the far more numerous anti-Israel editors invariably come out on top.

Not a new subject

Wikipedia's systemic anti-Israel bias is not new. Here is a rundown of the literature on the subject.

In November 2019, a website called "The Israel Group" profiled anti-Israel editors. It was written about in the Washington Free Beacon: "Wikipedia's Anti-Israel Editors Unmasked" The website subsequently went dark. Its most recent web page, archived by the Wayback Machine in December 2021, can be found here.

The editors profiled there were as follows, in the order that was provided as of the most recent archived page, with the worst at the top: 

The "five worst" as of 2019: Brendan McKay aka User:Zero0000, User:Nableezy, User:Huldra, Peter Nicholas Dale aka User:Nishidani, User:Onceinawhile

"Dishonorable Mentions": User:Sean.hoyland, User:Malik Shabazz/MShabazz (has since left Wikipedia), User:Snooganssnoogans  (now known as User:Thenightaway, and largely avoids editing on Israel),

Although the article is dated, it provides a good resource on the tactics employed by anti-Israel editors. Since that website appeared, the cast of characters has grown considerably larger.

In addition to the David Collier and Dani Ishai Behan articles cited above, in 2008, the media watchdog HonestReporting published an article titled "Exposed – Anti-Israeli Subversion on Wikipedia," which cited this article describing manipulation of Wikipedia by the antisemitic website Electronic Intifada.

Lastly, CAMERA– Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting and Analysis– writes about Wikipedia periodically.

One place you won't find meaningful examination of Wikipedia's anti-Israel bias are Wikipedia criticism websites, "Wikipediocracy," "Wikipedia Sucks" and "Wikipedia Review," which are dominated by anti-Israel editors. 

What can be done?

Behan concludes his 2017 Times of Israel blog as follows:

So what can be done about this? The answer is simple: everybody who cares about the truth must create an account, learn the site’s rules, and push back vigorously against those who would defame or delegitimize the Jewish people on the world’s largest online encyclopedia. Do not be intimidated by the task at hand, for there is too much at stake.

He is absolutely correct. 

Our advice:

Register an account at Wikipedia and play by the rules. The pro-Hamas editors will not. But even so, you will have an impact. The more editors push back against anti-Israel bias, the more likely they can have impact. 

Don't let anti-Israel editors provoke you into breaking the rules. They will goad you, insult you, when they see you as a threat. Ignore them.

Be patient. Stay away from subjects that are subject to "Arbitration Committee" restrictions on the "Israel-Palestine area," which were crafted by anti-Israel editors to restrict editing in those areas to registered accounts more than thirty days old with 500 and more edits.

Be sure to edit a wide variety of subjects. Edit articles about your interests, whatever they may be. The less controversial and less political the better. Editors who edit only to counter anti-Israel bias are far more likely to be singled out for punishment by the easily manipulated administrators.

Even if you cannot directly edit because your account is not old enough, you can request edits even if you do not log in to an account. But it is better to register an account, start editing and wait a month.

About us

We have no affiliation with any persons or organizations cited above, or any of the persons we cite in the review of literature above. We are paid by no one, this is not how we make our living, so our contributions here may be sporadic, and may be discontinued or interrupted at any time. We are neither a volunteer with nor affiliated with any organization outside Wikipedia.

Comments are open and can be anonymous. Tips, critiques, and suggestions are welcome, and I am receptive to guest blogs as well. Theycan  be anonymous or otherwise. Just email me at WikipediaCritic at proton dot me