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| Fix the anti-Zionist slant? No way. Reinforce it? Sure! |
Ever since my blog item appeared on the Wikipedia Zionism article, there have been complaints on social media about how the article had been transformed into an anti-Zionist polemic. These were picked up by the Jewish-American press, and today it caught the attention of the Israeli media.
Author Hen Mazzig observed on X that the article's disparagement of Ashkenazi Jewish links to the Holy Land mirrors the discredited Khazar theory of Jewish origins. The Zionism article, he said, "isn't just inaccurate, it's downright antisemitic." Wikipedia, he said, "has become a hate site." Congressman Ritchie Torres said on X that "Wikipedia caricatures Zionism" and engaged in a "warped telling of history" by branding Zionists as "colonizers."
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| The 'Khazar' theory |
Wikipedia advertises itself as the "encyclopedia anyone can edit." That is how it sells itself to the donors and NGOs that pour money into its coffers, providing top people at the Wikimedia Foundation with enormous salaries (see Schedule J, here). So naturally, once they became aware of the terrible state the Zionism article was in, a number of people—established editors and newcomers alike—tried to rid the article of its anti-Zionist and antisemitic slant.
The result is an exhibition of the control that pro-Hamas editors over the Zionism article and others, how Wikipedia's processes are rigged in their favor, and how nearly impossible it is to dislodge them.
Much of the activity is taking place on the "talk" or discussion page of the article, which now appears like this.
First a long-established editor weighed in with an explanation of how the lead paragraph gave excessive weight to "a particular interpretation of Zionism as a specific form, namely the 19th century through 1930s versions of Zionism," ignoring its future evolution,
Ignoring their points entirely, their argument was dismissed in a one-sentence reply ("I disagree. The thing in itself as described by the best academic sources is the way to go") by the anti-Zionist editor Dan Murphy, an ex-reporter whose peculiar claim to fame (a disgusting, mocking tweet on the ISIS beheading of hostage Steve Sotloff) I described in a previous blog post.
And on it went, on and on and on. It was the beginning of a 4700-word back-and-forth that is still underway at this writing, involving multiple editors. That's not 4700 words over a period of weeks or months. That's 4700 words over one single day. This discussion began only yesterday and it has already stretched into such astonishing length.
That is typical of discussions when the Wikipedia Flood of pro-Hamas editors are involved. They just go on and on and won't let up, pouring on the verbiage in wearisome and repetitive quantities. As I described in a blog post last month, Wikipedia talk pages under the control of anti-Israel editors use such methods to wear down their opponents, using the sheer numbers that they can bring to bear.
The reaction to the Zionism article's sorry state brought out another asset in the pro-Hamas editors' arsenal: the "extended confirm" rule.
Anti-Zionist editors' control of the articles is enhanced by that rule, which requires that in the "Israel/Palestine" subject area you must have thirty days on Wikipedia and 500 edits in order to edit an article or even discuss the subject on the "talk" page.
What this means, in a practical sense, that the "encyclopedia anyone can edit" is actually an encyclopedia that, in relevant subject ares, is dominated by a handful of pro-Hamas operatives, with the aid of feckless, biased and passive site administrators.
Yes, you can make an "edit request" if you don't meet the "extended confirm" requirement. See how two such requests were handled. They are in the illustration at the top of the page.
First came a request to change anti-Zionist language in the lead paragraph back to where it was before it became anti-Zionist. That was shot down easily. It was "under discussion above" by editors who met the "extended-confirm" rule. That nicety was happily pointed out by one of the anti-Zionist editors.
Then cane a request to reinforce the anti-Zionist language in the lead with a footnote from a book about "settler colonialism." Of course! Consider it done.
The Wikipedia Flood does not like scrutiny. Within the past few hours, the anti-Zionist ex-reporter Murphy complained about the social media and press attention the article had been getting, in a section he sneeringly titled "Bat Signal."
Murphy's word choice, which he borrowed from the Batman comics, gives an idea of the arrogance and condescension many Wikipedia editors display toward the outside world. They are both hypersensitive to and dismissive of external attention, even though everything they do is visible to the outside world.
Pro-Hamas editors like Murphy do their article-slanting in the open. Every single word that they write is a matter of public record for all to see. This entire blog is an accumulation of what they do and write on one of the world's most trafficked and influential websites.
So when the pro-Hamas editor "Selfstudier" makes use of an antisemitic slur ("pound of flesh") on a discussion page, it's right there in plain view for everyone to see. One does not require any special access. You just simply have to go on the web and read.
Yet they just can't stand it when anyone holds up a mirror to what they do.
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