Wikipedia's Latest Blood Libel Underlines the Need for Action

 

Not a tragic accident but a 'massacre' and a 'genocide'

Whenever Israel commits a tragic blunder, such as the killing of 15 people in ambulances in Gaza, you can expect two things: the IDF will investigate and promptly release its findings, and Hamas will call it a "massacre" that is part of a plot to commit "genocide" against all Palestinians.

No make that three things. Wikipedia will adopt the Hamas narrative. 

Thus Wikipedia has an article titled "Rafah paramedic massacre," which it describes as "Part of the March 2025 Israeli attacks on the Gaza Strip during the Gaza war and the Gaza genocide." In the lead paragraph, the word "massacre" is footnoted to this article in the virulently anti-Israel British organ The Guardian. 

There is nothing especially atypical about this latest effort by Wikipedia to smear Israel using  incendiary language that is prohibited by the site's policy, which ostensibly is designed to promote "neutrality." As this blog has pointed out numerous times in the past, site policies such as "NPOV," the "neutral point of view" policy, are routinely disregarded as far as Israel is concerned. 

"Impartial tone"? Forget about it. 

"Contentious labels"? Perfectly OK. 

"Non-judgmental article titles"? You've got to be kidding.

This article, which is almost ridiculously slanted against Israel from its Hamas-fed title on down, is a vivid demonstration of how the recent "Palestine-Israel" arbitration case did not put a dent into the "Wikipedia flood" of anti-Israel editors and their campaign to use Wikipedia to vilify Israel. What it shows is that the "flood" is exceptionally large, and has an immense talent pool to draw on when a few of its members are sidelined.

The creator of this article was a Wikipedian who was totally uninvolved in the arbcom case, User:Skitash. He has been around since 2022 and has produced a large volume of edits, but has kept his head down and has avoided controversy as far as I can see. He has received some off-wiki criticism for removing Kurdish as an official language of Iraq and for "vandalizing all the pages of Moroccan cities by removing their Tamazight name. Tamazight being the native language of North Africa." He has engaged in the same tendentious behavior by removing Amazigh names. 

Wikipedia jurist 'CaptainEek'

Islamists and pan-Arabists hate references to indigenous cultures (such as Jews). Therefore, this editor's contributions suggest a Moroccan focus and perhaps a Moroccan location. He or she also is one of the many Wikipedia editors who proudly sport the "user box" saying they support the "right of return" (Israel's destruction.

In fairness, it should be pointed out that Skitash did not write this article alone. It was a group effort, consisting of a number of anti-Israel  Wikipedia editors, not a single one of whom sought to tone down the pro-Hamas slant of the article, which originally did not have "massacre" in its title. The article was given that title by User:Rafe87, who edits aggressively to push the pro-Hamas point of view and has even been sanctioned. Like "Skitash," "Rafe87" was also not on arbcom's radar screen in the recent case.

These editors' agenda has not caught the attention of Wikipedia, but you can bet that the off-wiki criticism (including this blog) will do so. One member of the largely anonymous "Arbitration Committee," called "CaptainEek," has gained support for the view that editing an article in a manner consistent with off-site criticism is verboten, even though it does not violate Wikipedia policy. But violating Wikipedia policy? That is OK with her.

Even if Rafe87, Skitash and dozens of other pro-Hamas editors were to be punished for their behavior, as a few more visible editors were recently sanctioned by arbcom, it would make little difference. Wikipedia is structurally anti-Israel, is flooded with pro-Hamas operatives, and under U.S. law it is unaccountable and invulnerable to outside pressure. Not much can be done about that. But the tax exemption of the Wikipedia parent company is another matter.

Since Wikipedia clearly does not serve the public interest, one area that should be explored is removal of the Wikimedia Foundation's tax-exempt status.

The Trump Administration is expected to act against Harvard's tax exemption. Whether that's valid or not is for others to decide. But look at this article, this rubbish, this Hamas propaganda and ask yourself: Why does the U.S. taxpayer support a website that produce this drivel in not one but thousands of articles?