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Wikipedia and the Israeli–Palestinian conflict
 See here for a more detailed and updated map. The Israeli–Palestinian conflict has been covered extensively on Wikipedia.[2] This coverage has often been criticized for perceived bias. External groups have initiated editing campaigns, and the Gaza war intensified editing in the topic-area. Wikipedia coverage on the conflict differs significantly between the encyclopedia's language-versions. History After the Second Intifada ended, according to journalist Omer Benjakob, "two warring camps" emerged between pro-Israel and pro-Palestine Wikipedia editors. In September 2006, WikiProject Israel was established to improve coverage of Israel-related topics. WikiProject Palestine was created two months later. In 2008, the WikiProject Israel Palestine Collaboration was set up to reconcile editing efforts, with the project page stating, "In a subject plagued by conflicting historical narratives, we are working to make Wikipedia the conflict's most balanced reference point. Help us build bridges and break down barriers in the world's most intractable conflict."[3] In 2008, leaked emails from the pro-Israel watchdog Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting in America (CAMERA) that purported to reveal an organised influence campaign on Wikipedia were published by The Electronic Intifada, a pro-Palestinian organisation.[4][3] The leaked emails resulted in at least five editors receiving lifetime bans on Wikipedia.[3] In 2008, after disputes reached a fever pitch over the Second Intifada and other articles about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, Wikipedia's Arbitration Committee decided on a set of rules of conduct for editors when editing articles related to the conflict. Editors are required to have made over 500 edits for at least 30 days to edit articles related to the conflict, can only make one revert per day across the entire field, and can be banned from editing related articles. The ruling was reaffirmed and expanded in 2009 and 2015.[3] In August 2010, two Israeli right-wing groups, the Yesha Council and My Israel, ran a course about Zionist editing on Wikipedia.[5][6] Yesha Council director Naftali Bennett said, "We don't want to change Wikipedia or turn it into a propaganda arm. We just want to show the other side. People think that Israelis are mean, evil people who only want to hurt Arabs all day."[5] In response, Abed A-Nassar, the chairman of the Association of Palestinian Journalists, called on Palestinian institutions to make Wikipedia articles more pro-Palestinian and counter what he called Israel's "public relations war".[7][6] In 2013, Haaretz reported the indefinite block of an editor who had concealed the fact that he was an employee of right-wing media group NGO Monitor. The editor was reported to have edited English Wikipedia articles on the Israeli–Palestinian conflict "in an allegedly biased manner".[8][9] In December 2017, after American president Donald Trump announced that the U.S. would be recognising Jerusalem as Israel's capital, Wikipedia followed suit, which sparked a debate between editors. As of that time, the English and Hebrew articles said that Jerusalem was Israel's capital, while the Arabic article said that Israel claimed it as its capital, but it was located in occupied Palestine.[10] In November 2020, Haaretz reported that the "West Bank bantustans" article comparing Israel's control of the West Bank to the Black-only enclaves in apartheid-era South Africa indicated a possible shift for Wikipedia's consensus on likening Israel to an apartheid regime. Editors noted the fact that the article survived a deletion proposal indicated that events such as the Trump peace plan and Benjamin Netanyahu's pledge to annex parts of the West Bank undermined Israel's talking point that it supported a two-state solution and strived to establish a Palestinian state.[11] Haaretz journalist Omer Benjakob said in 2020:[11]
In February 2021, the Hebrew Wikipedia renamed its version of the article on the Israeli occupation of the West Bank, changing "occupation" to "rule".[12] Israel–Hamas war The Israel–Hamas war was extensively covered on Wikipedia and other related projects in various languages. This included articles about the 2023 Hamas-led attack on Israel starting from October 7, 2023, as well as the subsequent Israeli blockade of the Gaza Strip and the Israeli invasion in the following weeks.[13] Articles related to the war experienced edit warring due to the diversity of narratives from both sides of the conflict.[14][15] For example, in the first week of the war, a Hebrew Wikipedia editor added to articles about former Israeli security officials, but not Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and allied politicians, in ways that arguably pointed to these officials' responsibility for Israel's failure to prevent the October 7 attack.[15] On December 4, 2023, the Wikimedia Foundation issued a statement titled "Wikimedia updates on the crisis in Gaza Strip and Israel", and another statement the next day calling for "an end to measures preventing access to the internet in the Gaza Strip".[16]  On December 23, 2023, the Arabic Wikipedia changed its logo to the colors of the Palestinian flag and suspended editing articles for one day to protest the ongoing attacks against the Palestinian people and the bias of many Western governments, especially the United States, towards one side of the conflict and the adoption of double standards. The step was taken to express solidarity and rejection of misinformation, according to what was published on the Arabic Wikipedia's main page, which added a logo expressing that.[17][18] This solidarity was widely welcomed by a large number of Arab users and supporters of the Palestinian cause, while it was criticized by some Israeli users for breaking Wikipedia's rules on neutrality.[19] In June 2024, an edit war involving the English Wikipedia articles for the 2024 Nuseirat rescue operation and the Nuseirat refugee camp massacre occurred, resulting in editing access to the articles being restricted.[20][21] Further discussion resulted in merging the two articles into one, titled Nuseirat rescue and massacre.[22] In July 2024, the English Wikipedia article on "Allegations of genocide in the 2023 Israeli attack on Gaza" was renamed to "Gaza genocide" following two months of debate.[23][24] The article was added to the "List of genocides" article that November.[25] In September 2024, Jewish Insider reported that a group of editors from the coalition "Tech for Palestine" had been using third-party tools, such as Discord, to coordinate efforts in what they described as the "information battle for truth, peace and justice" on the "Wikipedia front". Their activities included compiling lists of pages they planned to edit, requesting specific changes, and sharing instructional "how-to" videos. One of their resources emphasized that "Wikipedia is not just an online encyclopedia. It's a battleground for narratives."[26] According to Jewish Insider, the group was partially responsible for the decision to deprecate the Anti-Defamation League as a non-reliable source on topics regarding the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The Jewish Journal of Greater Los Angeles has suggested that despite the site being politically neutral, editors often attempt to inject their own bias while making changes to articles.[27] In December 2024, a Wikipedia arbitration committee for "Palestine-Israel cases" banned two pro-Palestine editors indefinitely and restricted three others for "canvassing", or notifying fellow editors about a discussion pertaining to a specific edit "with the intention of influencing the outcome of a discussion a particular way". The committee accused the editors of "encouraging other users to game the extended confirmed restriction and engage in disruptive editing".[28] Commentary and responseBenjakob noted in 2021 that articles on the conflict are very different between the English, Hebrew and Arabic Wikipedias, and that the conflict is one of the three most regulated areas on English Wikipedia.[12] In 2023, Stephen Harrison of Slate wrote, "It shouldn't come as a surprise that Wikipedia is a better place to learn about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict than X, TikTok, and other social media platforms are."[13] Historian Shira Klein, comparing coverage of the Israel–Hamas war on English and Hebrew Wikipedia in 2024, said that "where the distortions lie, are in the Hebrew Wikipedia."[29] The World Jewish Congress (WJC) stated in a March 2024 report that "the state of the articles dealing with the conflict is alarming in its lack of neutrality." The WJC also stated that Wikipedia's comparisons between Israel and Nazi Germany article "normalizes the unacceptable comparison" due to terms such as "occupation" and "military actions". The WJC also reported that "deletion attacks" occurred on Wikipedia, which resulted in the simultaneous deletion nominations of the articles for the Netiv HaAsara, Nir Yitzhak and Holit massacres, as well as Inbal Rabin-Lieberman.[30] A columnist in The Forward called the WJC's cited examples of bias against Israel "less than convincing".[31] A June 2024 Jerusalem Post opinion piece said that the English version of the Israel–Hamas war article was arguably more neutral than the Arabic and Hebrew versions.[32] Another, written in September, said that the titling of the Gaza Genocide article should "by any reasonable measure, hammer a final nail into the coffin of Wikipedia's credibility as a reliable source of information about Israel and Jews."[33] Ynetnews said in August 2024 that "Since the war began, Wikipedia has become a battleground for information warfare, with significant power struggles between pro-Palestinian and pro-Israeli editors. According to Israeli editors, many entries are written from anti-Israel perspectives by editors using the platform to echo Palestinian messages."[34] Israel Hayom said in September 2024 that "... Wikipedia is often subject to scrutiny, especially when it comes to contentious issues like the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. With millions of readers relying on the site for information, changes to entries like these can have significant implications for public understanding of historical events and modern geopolitical debates."[35] According to an October 2024 report from the media company Pirate Wires by Ashley Rindsberg, there is a "coordinated operation" by a group of Wikipedia editors that has "systematically altered thousands of articles to tilt public opinion against Israel."[36][37] The conservative think tank Heritage Foundation plans to doxx editors on the site who have added text they deem to be antisemitic. The nonprofit sent out a pitch deck to Jewish organizations with tactics on exposing editors' identities that they plan to use.[38][39] From WikipediaWikipedia co-founder Jimmy Wales has said the topic is debated often but the site strives to be neutral.[40][41] As of 2023, English Wikipedia articles on the Israeli–Palestinian conflict have "extended confirmed protection", meaning that only registered editor accounts with a certain age and number of edits can edit them.[13] The WJC commented that this "leaves many Israelis unable to edit articles about which they have great knowledge."[30] Reliability of the Anti-Defamation LeagueIn June 2024, the English Wikipedia community declared the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) a generally unreliable source about the conflict.[42][43][44] An English Wikipedia administrator who evaluated the community's consensus for this discussion cited the existence of substantial evidence of the ADL acting as a "pro-Israeli advocacy group" that has published unretracted misinformation "to the point that it taints their reputation for accuracy and fact checking regarding the Israeli-Palestinian conflict", as well as a "habit on the ADL's part of conflating criticism of the Israeli government's actions with antisemitism".[45] Later that month, the English Wikipedia community concluded the ADL's lack of reliability extended to "the intersection of antisemitism and the [Israeli-Palestinian] conflict, such as labeling pro-Palestinian activists as antisemitic", but "the ADL can roughly be taken as reliable on the topic of antisemitism when Israel and Zionism are not concerned".[45] The ADL criticized the decision, saying that it was part of a "campaign to delegitimize the ADL."[42][44] James Loeffler of Johns Hopkins University, a professor of modern Jewish history, commented that the Wikipedia editors were "heavily influenced by the ADL leadership's comments", which took "a much more aggressive stance than most academic researchers in blurring the distinction between anti-Zionism and antisemitism".[44] ADL CEO Jonathan Greenblatt said that the ADL would do all it could to persuade Wikipedia's leadership they were misunderstanding the situation.[45] See also
References
Further reading
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