A discussion last week on deleting the Wikipedia article “Destruction of Israel in Iranian policy” after Israel began its air campaign against Iran was closed by an admin Sunday with a decision to “merge” the page into one on Iran-Israel relations. The decision came despite a majority of editors being opposed to the page’s removal.
The article was created by editor Rafi Chazion shortly before Israel began its air campaign against Iran and was linked from the article created about the conflict. An editor frequenting the article about the airstrikes who frequently makes edits unfavorable to Israel subsequently proposed deleting the “Destruction of Israeli in Iranian policy” article claiming it was a “POV fork” of the “Legitimacy of the State of Israel” article and violated the site’s neutrality policy. Criticism subsequently appeared on X from the user “WikiBias” noting despite the proposed deletion that Wikipedia contains anti-Israeli pages such as the “Comparisons between Israel and Nazi Germany” article.
Many users supporting deletion or merging had a history of anti-Israel edits, including several whose profile pages advocate “one democratic state in historic Palestine, from the river to the sea.” Opponents of deletion argued sources supported the existence of a policy that went beyond merely questioning Israel’s legitimacy or that the article was more extensive than similar content in other articles. Such arguments stated it was a more in-depth spin-off of proposed merge targets as opposed to a “POV fork” that is essentially a recreation of an existing article from a single viewpoint. Merging would mean significantly reducing the article’s contents and placing it in a section of the target page.
By the end of the discussion, 33 editors argued for either deleting the article or merging its contents into another page with them mostly arguing it belonged in either the “Legitimacy of the State of Israel” article or the “Iran-Israel relations” article. Meanwhile, 44 editors opposed deletion with some suggesting a rename for the article to address neutrality concerns. Others, such as Tim Davenport, did not explicitly vote, but did suggest the article could be edited and renamed to address neutrality issues and remain as an independent article.
Despite only a minority of editors supporting the page being deleted or merged, the discussion was closed in favor of merging the page’s contents to the “Iran-Israel relations” article by admin “Asilvering” who mainly contributes articles relating to historic left-wing activists. In the close decision, Asilvering noted many opposed to deletion merely argued the topic was notable and claimed “consensus” favored a merge. Asilvering did suggest editors could later create a spin-off covering the subject if the length following a merge makes it necessary. The decision did not address the many editors who specifically rebutted the “POV fork” claims and stated its contents was already too extensive to properly cover in other articles.
Criticism of the close quickly appeared on X from the WikiBias account stating “English Wikipedia is eradicating free thought” and that “platform’s bias is screaming out loud. We can no longer ignore it!” Quoting the WikiBias post, the account “Gazawood” asked “Still think Wikipedia isn’t compromised?”
Jewish News Syndicate also published an article by Aaron Bandler regarding the deletion discussion shortly before it ended. Bandler cited Max Abrahms, an associate professor of political science at Northeastern University who studies terrorism and the Middle East, as stating “Wikipedia is waging a disinformation campaign against Israel.” Editor of the Wikipedia criticism blog Wikipedia Flood told Bandler the “consensus” process on Wikipedia was “a numbers game” subject to “the whims” of the closing admin, as subsequently evidenced by the closing admin largely disregarding the majority of editors who opposed removal of the page, something one Jewish editor interviewed by Bandler was concerned would happen.
Concerns about anti-Israeli editing on Wikipedia were a major factor behind then-Acting U.S. Attorney Ed Martin’s letter to the Wikimedia Foundation that owns Wikipedia inquiring about the site’s bias and potential foreign actor involvement. Editors on Wikipedia retaliated against Martin’s page on the site and made denigrating comments about him after learning of the letter. A bipartisan group of Congresspeople also submitted a letter raising concerns about anti-Israeli and anti-Semitic editing on the online encyclopedia.
Such concerns have prompted the Wikimedia Foundation to form a “neutrality working group” chaired by co-founder Jimmy Wales, though the Foundation announcement of the working group defended its editors as having “a strong track record of successfully managing neutrality on contentious subjects” and also ignored concerns about a left-wing bias on the site, which often intersects with an anti-Israeli bias. Co-founder Larry Sanger and Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk are among those who have prominently criticized the site’s bias.
T. D. Adler edited Wikipedia as The Devil’s Advocate. He was banned after privately reporting conflict of interest editing by one of the site’s administrators. Due to previous witch-hunts led by mainstream Wikipedians against their critics, Adler writes under an alias.
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