Wikipedia 'Talk' Pages Are Rigged Against Israel

The Jewish Journal has come out with an excellent article describing in copious detail how Wikipedia editors threw the "rule book" out the window, disregarding all of their so-called "policies," in naming an article on allegations of "genocide" by Israel.  It describes how anti-Israel editors make a mockery of fairness and common sense, applying a blatant double standard in articles relating to Israel.

It describes the institutional antisemitism that besets Wikipedia. While not stated explicitly, the Jewish Journal article proves an essential point: 

Talk pages on Wikipedia that relate to Israel, all the forums and so forth that make determinations, are strictly pro forma. They are ritualistic. They serve no purpose other than to ratify the point of view of mobs of anti-Israel editors. They are not forums for open discussion and debate, but are bureaucratic procedures that are used to ratify predetermined outcomes.

Strength of argument, reason, and so on, are supposed to determine outcome but they do not. The process is rigged. The outcome is determined by the numbers of anti-Israel editors who can be brought to bear in discussions, not by the strength of arguments. 

They "flood" discussions, coordinating their efforts through off-Wikipedia communications. Some are full-time anti-Israel propaganda operatives. One of them, the infamous anti-Israel enforcer Nableezy, advocates for terrorism on his "user page" and is believed to be an employee of the pro-Hamas Electronic Intifada online organ.

Pro-Israel editors who are suckered into "talk page" discussions find themselves involved in endless, circular, repetitious bad-faith arguments by pro-Hamas operatives who are there to push their "POV" and are not subject to persuasion. They have the numbers to win, they know it, and they relish baiting "the enemy." 

One of the lies you see on Wikipedia is that discussions are not "votes." That is bullshit. It is a numbers game. Anti-Israel editors swarm discussions, to harangue and bully and harass and berate. They win on numbers. In the rare instances when they don't win on numbers, they start all over again a short time later, even though that's against the rules. But the rules are not enforced against them on Wikipedia. Or they swarm "appeals" processes and flood the talk pages of administrators who act against their wishes. They just push and push until they get their way.

Everything I've described above is the reason the ADL was shafted in the "reliable sources" discussion boards. The ADL has responded by ignoring Wikipedia's processes and gone straight to the ruling Wikimedia Foundation. The Foundation has told the ADL to drop dead. In response, the ADL needs to inflict pain. It needs to act against the WMF's nonprofit status and its funding. It needs to make Wikipedia's reputation toxic, because it is toxic. 

As I mentioned in a previous blog, pro-Israel editors need to start a flood of their own. But meanwhile the WMF needs to feel pain. If they feel enough pain, they will act to protect their jobs and their bloated salaries.

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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

The Only Way to Fight the Wikipedia Flood

You can fight the flood.

The "Wikipedia Flood" of pro-Hamas editors claimed an important target recently, the Anti-Defamation League of the Bnai Brith. I won't belabor the point as it has been amply publicized, but I do want to amplify some points I've made in the past about how to fight the Flood. There is only one way, and the ADL situation shows why that is so.

The ADL responded for a time with fire and brimstone, appearing on MSNBC and other news outlets. The US Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organization sent a letter to the Wikimedia Foundation expressing "concern and dismay with Wikipedia’s attack on ADL’s reliability on the topic of antisemitism and other issues of central concern to the Jewish community."

The Wikimedia Foundation responded by telling the ADL and the Foundation to drop dead. It did so politely, by hiding behind Wikipedia policies that it knows perfectly well are fictitious:

 In a response to an inquiry from the Jewish Telegraphic Agency, the foundation did not address the content of the letter, but appeared to reject its very premise. 

“Unfortunately, this letter represents a misunderstanding of the situation and how Wikipedia works,” Maggie Dennis, vice president of community resilience and sustainability at the Wikimedia Foundation, said in an email. ”Firstly, it’s important to note that the letter was addressed to the Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees; neither the Board or the Foundation make content decisions on Wikipedia. A community of volunteers makes these decisions subject to Wikipedia’s terms of use.”

Note what I put in boldface. What the Foundation failed to point out, because it would upend its entire argument, is that "community" on pages concerning the Arab-Israel conflict can be defined as "the quantity the anti-Israel editors who can be rounded up at any given time."

So how to counter this? There are ways other than what I'm about to suggest, such as pressure on the Foundation, cutting off donations, lawsuits, so on, but the simplest and most effective way is to do what the anti-Israel editors. Create a flood. Pro-Israel editors need to volunteer for Wikipedia and contribute. It's that simple. 

This will require work. Remember that to contribute in the subject area one must be "extended confirmed." That means that you mut have at least 500 edits and an account age of 30 days or more.

So create an account and edit, following these principles:

• Don't pad your edits. While any edit you perform counts toward the 500, don't "game the system" by editing in trivial fashion (like changing a comma to a semicolon over and over again). Become a genuine contributor. Edit in areas outside what they call "Israel/Palestine" subject matter. Edit on anything that interests you outside that area. Your hobbies, your areas of academic interest, anything. These should be genuine contributions, showing interest in areas other than I/P.  

• Learn the ropes. Wikipedia has multiple, conflicting rules and processes. Learn them. 

• Don't rush to edit on I/P.  Don't start editing on the Gaza War when you have 501 contributions and 30.5 days on Wikipedia. Take your time. Remember that new editors in the topic area are put under a microscope. Hostile anti-Israel editors and administrators will scour your contributions and ban you for "gaming the system" if you suddenly switch form writing about calculus to Hamas atrocities. 

• Don't stop editing on non-I/P subjects. If you do, you will be treated with suspicion and hostility as a "special purpose account" and it will be said that you are not there to "improve the project." "Project" is Wikipedia-speak for "Wikipedia."

• Be an asset. Improve articles in non-I/P areas. Introduce sources that were not previously used.

That should get you started. Now, once you've established yourself as a constructive new editor, this is how you should enter the I/P maelstrom after you have a lot more than 500 edits and 30 days under your belt, and after you've been making great contributions in other areas:

• Do it gingerly. Concentrate on one article or discussion. Don't wade into fifteen articles and discussions. Take it slow.

• Be nice. Remember what I said about learning the ropes? By now you have. Remember to be civil even if it hurts. If other editors are not civil there is nothing you can do about it. Don't be provoked. Remember to be civil everywhere. In discussions, edit summaries. Remember that anything you do that isn't civil (or is civil for that matter) can will be used against you by the pro-Hamas crowd.

• Don't complain. If you're not treated properly, don't go rushing to "Arbitration enforcement" and other such "drama boards" that theoretically are supposed to deal with editor misbehavior. They can be turned against you due to what is known as the "boomerang," which happens on a whim sometimes, if the Flood can pile on and accuse you of being a bad actor.

• Keep a record of misconduct by others. When others are uncivil or otherwise violate Wikipedia rules, be sure you have a record of it so you can use it against them.

• Don't even think of sockpuppeting. Wikipedia is alert to editors creating phony accounts. Create one. Create more and you will be discovered. Don't think you can get away with it.

• Don't be overtly partisan. Watch your language. Act neutral. Pretend that you don't have strong feelings. Don't give vent to your feelings about Hamas, Sinwar, etc.  If you do, you will be topic-banned. Anti-Israel editors will be warned for making such comments. You will be sanctioned. 

•  Be conscious of the double standard. Pro-Israel editors are treated far more harshly than anti-Israel editors in any given set of circumstances. That's why it is important to obey the rules scrupulously and keep a record of misconduct by others. 

• Don't be dragged into long, repetitive discussions. Anti-Israel editors do that to wear out the other side. Make your point and do something else. That is what experienced editors do. Newbies get sucked into ridiculous, circular arguments.

Now this doesn't mean that you should be a "boy scout." You can bet the pro-Hamas editors aren't. They are almost certainly coordinating their efforts privately via email. You should too.  

This is known as "canvassing," which is contrary to Wikipedia rules, so be sure that you do so with people you know personally in "real life." Do not communicate with other editors using the Wikipedia email system. While the contents of your emails supposedly can't be read, a record is kept of who you are emailing through the system. That is none of their business.

This is not an exhaustive list of dos and don'ts, but it should be enough to get you started. I will be adding to this from time to time. Feel free to comment with questions and suggestions of your own.

Lastly I have a suggestion for the ADL. You have formidable research capabilities. Use them to help pro-Israel editors stem the Wikipedia Flood. Have your researchers produce sources for use in contentious articles and make them publicly available.

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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

It's Not Just Israel

This blog is devoted to Wikipedia's war against Israel, but Israel is not the only victim of rampant "POV-pushing" that is theoretically outlawed by Wiki rules, but which runs rampant. Wikipedia co-founder Larry Sanger addressed the issue in 2021 in an interview on Lockdown entitled "Wikipedia co-founder: I no longer trust the website I created."

On Wikipedia’s Left-wing bias:

You can’t cite the Daily Mail at all. You can’t cite Fox News on socio-political issues either. It’s banned. So what does that mean? It means that if a controversy does not appear in the mainstream centre-Left media, then it’s not going to appear on Wikipedia.

Exactly. Sources! That's what it's all about. Al Jazeera is used copiously throughout Wikipedia even though it is Qatari state media and a Hamas mouthpiece.

How Wikipedia entries are distorted: 

There are companies like Wiki PR, where paid writers and editors will go in and change articles. Maybe there’s some way to make such a system work, but not if the players who are involved and who are being paid are not identified by name — they actually are supposed to be identified by name and say ‘we represent this firm’ if they are officially registered with some sort of Wikipedia editing firm. But they don’t have to do that.

There's a similar but worse problem with Israel. Paid anti-Israel hacks are supplemented by an army of anti-Israel volunteers and a hostile "administration." Due to anonymity, it is impossible to distinguish between dedicated amateurs and professional propagandists. All we can do is surmise.

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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

'Calls For the Destruction of Israel'

Some of the most brazen anti-Israel Wikipedia activists have their underwear in a twist over the article entitled "Calls for the destruction of Israel." 

It's hilarious unless you realize that these people run Wikipedia: anti-Israel demagogues who are intent on twisting every article against Israel, and removing those that put Israel's enemies in a negative light. Naturally they hate it.

An effort to delete this article failed in January. Now the article is tagged for "neutrality" and a discussion is underway on how it fails to fall in line with the anti-Israel slant of the rest of Wikipedia.  Oh no! The article failed to use Journal of Palestine Studies! or Jewish Currents or any number of other anti-Israel cesspools.

A typical comment from the anti-Israel activist "Nishidani": 

Well, it's a piece of sloppy hackwork, worst of all, overlapping with the other two articles without contributing anythingt but confusion. Whatever is salvageable (I.e. whatever survives direct scrutiny of the sources paraphrased) should be moved to Legitimacy or anti-Zionism. 

The pro-Hamas brigade has arrived! Expect the article to get a going-over by the usual suspects. Watch this space.

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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