When It Comes to anti-Zionist Poison, Wikipedia is 'The Encyclopedia NOBODY Can Edit'

 

Don't you dare remove that foul lie from the Wikipedia Zionism article.

It's not a revelation to point out that when it comes to Zionism, Wikipedia is as chilly as a Mt. Everest base camp. But it's actually worse than most people realize. Worse than even I realized, and I broke the story of how the Wikipedia Zionism article had been turned into anti-Zionist propaganda by the "Wikipedia Flood" of Israel-hating editors.

On Sept. 13, an administrator added to the article a "hidden note" decreeing that a sloppily worded, poorly sourced nugget of anti-Zionist propaganda—Zionists wanted to create a Jewish state in Palestine with as much land, as many Jews, and as few Palestinian Arabs as possible—was henceforth baked into the first paragraph of the article.  

That sentence, which accuses Israel's founders of ethnic cleansing in Wikipedia's voice, unattributed, is there to stay. And if you don't like it you can pound sand or, even less productively, you can argue it out on the "talk" page of the article, which is tightly controlled by anti-Zionist editors.

The wording of that untouchable sentence has been widely derided as making a mockery of history. 

In his excellent Jewish Journal article on the Zionism article, journalist Aaron Bandler pointed out that this sentence was described as "false" by Middle East historian Asaf Romirowsky, who heads Scholars for Peace in the Middle East and the Association for Study in the Middle East and North Africa. 

And in my blog item I pointed out:

The sourcing of that and other anti-Zionist statements includes a long roster of anti-Zionists. The sourcing of the statement cited above include anti-Israel extremists such as Columbia University professor Rashid Khalidi, infamous for his support of terrorism, all quoted at length in a footnote. 

Prof. Romirowsky elaborated in the Jewish Journal article that before Israel was established, “the Jewish community was willing to accept whatever proposal was offered to them, even the desolate land itself, just the idea of having a homeland.”

Pretty bad, huh? Well don't try to fix it. When it comes to articles in what Wikipedia calls the "Palestine-Israel area," editors must have 500 edits and at least thirty days under their belts before they can edit. But not even that helps when it comes to that false statement. As a practical matter, for that sentence Wikipedia is the "encyclopedia nobody can edit." 

The "hidden note" in the lead of the Zionism article

In an action that received little attention outside Wikipedia, on Sept. 13, a volunteer administrator, ScottishFinnishRadish, inserted a "hidden note," invisible to the public but viewable by editors seeking to edit the article, essentially acknowledging the Wikipedia Flood's ownership of that passage. 

His (or her?) hidden note reads:

The following text is the result of consensus on the talk page. Changes to the text have been challenged and any further edits to the sentence should be discussed on the talk page and consensus obtained to change. 

Since "consensus" is the Holy Grail of Wikipedia, anyone trying to change it without "talking it out" on the stacked-deck "talk page" will find that, at a minimum, he or she is wasting his or her time, and risks getting tossed out of Wikipedia or otherwise flogged. 

That was precisely the fate of an editor who raised the issue on the "talk page" a few days ago. He is being shot down in flames, and the "hidden note" has of course been cited. Like all discussions in this topic area, this one is going on and on and on.

What makes all this even more Orwellian is that the hidden note was not the work of one of the anonymous anti-Israel operatives of what I call the "Wikipedia Flood," who work 24/7, successfully, to turn Wikipedia into an anti-Israel propaganda machine.

Ironically ScottishFinnishRadish is actually one of the better administrators willing to venture into this topic area, and is unpopular with some of the very worst Flood editors for failing to do their bidding to their satisfaction. As far as Wikipedia administrators go, he is one of the "good guys."  

But his job is to enforce the rules, and ScottishFinnishRadish knows perfectly well that on Wikipedia, the Flood calls the shots.

Postscript: Note the comment that came in concerning SFR after I posted this. The commenter makes a good point. I may have been too charitable in calling them "one of the 'good guys.'"

Anti-Zionist Wikipedia Editors Decree: The 'Zionism' Article Is 'Neutral'

The 'neutrality is disputed' tag was removed 25 minutes later. Note the anti-Zionist phraseology.

The Wikipedia article on Zionism has prompted widespread outrage for portraying the movement for Jewish self-determination as a "settler colonialist" project. I've written four posts, beginning with this one, documenting how the article was peppered with anti-Zionist propaganda, and the media has been all over the story.

Certainly to say that this widely reviled article's neutrality is not disputed would be delusional. But in the fantasy land of Wikipedia, in which every article related to Israel is controlled by a "flood" of Israel-haters and antisemites, reality doesn't matter. 

Proof of that can be found in a fight underway in the "talk" or discussion page of the Zionism article. An effort to "tag" the article for possible—I repeat, only possible—lack of neutrality, in violation of a core Wikipedia policy, has been repeatedly thwarted by anti-Zionist editors. Working with an anti-Israel administrator, and organized offsite, the anti-Zionist editors have crushed efforts to remove bias from the article.

The article was first tagged Sept. 29 as part of a broader dispute over the neutrality of the article, especially its lead section. A more recent effort by another editor to tag the article was stymied by the same coterie of editors. As usual, that was followed by talk. Lots of talk, day after day of browbeating and bullying by anti-Israel editors, aimed not to find "consensus" but to wear down the "enemy."

A permalink to the talk page in its current state, showing the various "discussions," can be found here.

The fact that so much energy would be devoted to preventing the insertion of a routine, commonplace "maintenance" tag is emblematic of the power and fanaticism of anti-Israeli editors. 

Such tags have a simple purpose: to alert editors to possible article issues, in this case, lack of neutrality. To quote the instructions for use of the neutrality tag, it is placed on articles that are "reasonably believed to lack a neutral point of view." It is extremely common, and is present on some 7,300 articles, as the instructions point out. 

But when editors hostile to the subject of an article control that article, questioning its neutrality is never "reasonable." Doing so can be lethal when an administrator is part of the mob, as is the case here.

The following post by "Stephan rosie," a new recruit to the anti-Zionist "Wikipedia Flood" who has already compiled an impressive block record, summed up the mentality at work here. 

All zionism sub-ideologies agree on the core principles of zionism itself, such as the colonization of a land that is inhabited by other pre-dominantly non-jewish population to establish a jewish majority. This is the essence of the zionist project regardless of which kind of zionism sub-ideology you are talking about as stated in reliable sources. the article lead is talking about the core principle of zionism as a whole regardless of the minor differences as between political zionism vs socialist zionism, such differences is to be detailed in the article body, not the lead. Stephan rostie (talk) 08:00, 17 September 2024 (UTC)

Note that "Zionism" is spelled in the lower case to showcase his contempt.

To aid the effort to keep that tag off the page, the anti-Israel editor "Valereee," an administrator who cheerfully puts her "tools" at the disposal of her fellow anti-Zionists, weighed into the fray by quoting an essay she selected to support her comrades in the fight against the neutrality tag. 

A few hours later, taking off her "editor" hat and putting on her "administrator" hat, she restricted editing of the Zionism article. It was not the first nor last time she has acted as an administrator in articles on Israel, despite her record of anti-Israel editing.

How can Wikipedia tolerate that? Well, theoretically it doesn't. The rules state that administrators are free to contribute to any article or subject area, but they can't do that and use her "tools" to enforce the rules in that area. But as I've stated many times before, the rules don't apply to the Wikipedia Flood and its allies, especially administrators.

Even though Valereee created and largely wrote an anti-Israel article on the politicization of food in the Middle East, she insisted that she was "uninvolved" in the subject area. Backed by the Wikipedia Flood and by her fellow administrators (who tend to back each other up no matter what), she successfully argued that she should continue to wear both hats in articles relating to Israel, her anti-Israel editing notwithstanding. 

With anti-Zionist editors calling the shots, it's not surprising that they view the Zionism article as "neutral" and any effort to doubt its neutrality as heresy. And with anti-Zionist administrators like "Valleree" on their side, correcting the site's pervasive anti-Israel hate can be deeply inadvisable if you want to keep your editing privileges. 

As I pointed out a few weeks ago, in a post describing a bizarre action by the anti-Israel administrator "Doug Weller," Wikipedia administrators don't have to play by the rules. They set the rules as they go along. So if an anti-Israel administrator like "Vallerree" or "Doug Weller" bars you from articles on Israel or tosses you off Wikipedia altogether, there's not much you can do about it. Administrator actions can be and are reversed—but only for members of the Wikipedia Flood.

Anti-Zionist Wikipedia Editors Fight to Control 'Zionism' Article

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."  

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.