How Wikipedia Weaponizes Antisemitism—Against Jews

'Weaponization of Antisemitism' as created by the veteran anti-Israel operative 'Onceinawhile'

In this blog I've documented how antisemites weaponize Jew-hate in the pages of Wikipedia, turning "encyclopedia articles" into anti-Israel and often antisemitic screeds. But did you know that Wikipedia has an article devoted to how antisemitism is weaponized?

Of course, this being Wikipedia, the article does not detail how antisemitism is weaponized against Jews by the likes of Hamas, Hezbollah and Iran, but rather by Jews against nice people who aren't antisemites. 

The article, titled "Weaponization of antisemitism," was created last Dec. 31 by the veteran anti-Israel propagandist "Onceinawhile." The article was initially illustrated with a cartoon by Carlos Latuff, notorious for employing "classic antisemitic tropes." 

That was, of course, the point of the article—to exonerate Jew-haters like Latuff, by pointing out that those antisemitic tropes he uses aren't antisemitic tropes at all, but rather "criticism of Israel."  

The article, which now looks like this, has since jettisoned its Latuff cartoon, but the polemical point remains. The lead paragraph of the article currently reads as follows:

The exploitation of accusations of antisemitism, especially to counter anti-Zionism and criticism of Israel,^[1] may be described as weaponization of antisemitism, instrumentalization of antisemitism, or playing the antisemitism card.^[2] Bad-faith accusations against Israel's critics have been called a form of smear tactics.^[3] Some writers have compared them to playing the race card.^[4][5]

The article goes on in that vein, with sourcing that relies heavily on anti-Zionist writers like Noam Chomsky and anti-Israel screeds with titles like "Towers of Ivory and Steel: How Israeli Universities Deny Palestinian Freedom," and "Enforcing Silence: Academic Freedom, Palestine and the Criticism of Israel."  

There are of course, no articles on Wikipedia with titles like "Weaponization of Islamophobia" or "Weaponization of racism."  

"Onceinawhile," the author of the article, has been around for 14 years and is one of the most prolific anti-Israel editors on Wikipedia. Long before pro-Hamas propagandist descended on Wikipedia en masse after Oct. 7, 2023, "Onceinawhile" was gaining recognition for his agenda, which is to minimize, justify and erase antisemitism. 

He was listed as the "No. 5 Anti-Israel Editor" by "Israel Group" researchers in 2019, when he was singled out for downplaying the severity of antisemitic pogroms: "Onceinawhile is one of the primary participants in systematically removing 'pogrom' from Wikipedia and replacing it with other terms, usually 'riots.'"

British investigative journalist David Collier described Onceinawhile's tactics back in December 2020, in the article  "Exclusive - Project Wiki - how Wikipedia is breeding an army of antisemites." 

Collier pointed out that Onceinawhile:

• Edited the Wiki page on the murderous 1945 anti-Jewish riots in Egypt by adding a single sentence – that the Prime Minister of Egypt blamed the Zionists for provoking the attacks.
• Tried and failed to have the page on the expulsion of Egyptian Jews deleted.
• Edited the page on ‘refugees’. This was an interesting edit. The section on Jewish refugees (which this user edited) is all about how politicised the argument is, how Israel wanted the refugees and the possibility of Zionist false flag attacks. The section immediately above it is all about Palestinian refugees – there is no mention of politicisation and the focus is almost exclusively (and errantly) on forced expulsion. The page was eventually cleaned up – but the insertion about politicisation stuck and is visible on other Wiki Jewish refugee pages (see here).
• Created the page about Ben Gurion’s letter to his son in 1937. The page was weighted to imply that Ben Gurion had stated his intention to expel the Arabs. Placing the original page alongside the current version highlights the problem of correcting bias – whilst individual attempts can be made over time to clean up the entry – the pillar of the page, the very bias with which it was created, remains intact. 

More recently, Onceinawhile was featured in Ashley Rindsberg's Pirate Wires investigation, which described how he was among the most productive anti-Israel editors, frequently acting in collaboration with a hard core of other anti-Israel operatives: 

 As of time of publication, Nableezy and Onceinawhile have co-edited 1,418 articles. Nableezy and Iskandar323 1,429 co-edited articles. Onceinawhile and Zero0000 have co-edited 2,119 articles. Zero000 and Nableezy have co-edited 1,754 articles. Onceinawhile and Iskandar323 have 1,594 co-edited. Huldra and Onceinawhile have co-edited articles 2,493 times. Nableezy and Huldra have co-edited 1,764 times.

At the time he probed Onceinawhile four years ago, Collier pointed out that he "has made over 32000 edits on Wikipedia. The mistake would be in thinking this is an exceptional case."

The edit count is now over 50,000, and Onceinawhile has not been impeded one bit by Wikipedia's vaunted processes, which claim to promote a "neutral point of view" that does not exist in articles relating to Jews and Israel.

Indeed, in August 2024, "Onceinawhile" created a Wikipedia article titled "Masada myth," describing how a well-documented historical event, the Siege of Masada, is a lot of hooey dreamed up by those horrible Israelis to justify their illegitimate state.

It goes without saying that "Onceinawhile" is not a party to the Arbitration Committee proceedings that were recently commenced to examine the "Palestine-Israel" subject area.