Submissions:2025/Wikipedia's Coverage of Palestine/Israel

This submission has been noted and is pending review for WikiConference North America 2025.

Etherpad

Title:

Israel

Type of session:

Lecture (15-30 min)

Session theme(s):

Credibility

Abstract:

Rampant distortions plague Hebrew Wikipedia’s coverage of Israel/Palestine. Analyzing both public-facing articles and back pages, I expose the ways in which Hebrew Wikipedia editors systematically distort content on Palestine/Israel. Editors impose a right-wing nationalist narrative that diametrically contradicts scholarly consensus. Instead of a reliable source summarizing peer-reviewed literature on the history and present of Israel/Palestine, Hebrew Wikipedia has become a platform for justifying Zionism, denying Israeli occupation, and whitewashing the settlement project. Sacrificing fact, Wikipedia misleads its Hebrew-reading audiences.

The methodology for this article builds on my previous study on distortions in English Wikipedia’s coverage of the Holocaust in Poland (Klein & Grabowski, “Wikipedia’s Intentional Distortion of the History of the Holocaust,” Journal of Holocaust Research, 2023). Here, as there, I determine distortion has arisen when Wikipedia’s content veers far from scholarly consensus, when the same false content appears over and over in multiple pages, and when editors attempting to fix the problem encounter constant opposition. Here, as there, the distortions are carried out by editors touting a jingoistic, nationalist narrative. Unlike in English Wikipedia’s distortion of the Holocaust in Poland, however, where distortionists were only a handful of editors, the problem in Hebrew Wikipedia is far broader in scope. It involves dozens of editors and administrators and spans the majority of articles pertaining to Israel/Palestine. Flawed rules in Hebrew Wikipedia – lack of clarity on what counts as a reliable source, a voting system vulnerable to canvassing, and a concentration of too much power in the hands of bureaucrats (a role completely unlike that of Eng Wiki bureaucrats or admins) – have led Hebrew Wikipedia to become rife with manipulations.

Author name(s):

Shira Klein

Wikimedia username(s):

Chapmansh

Affiliated organization(s):

Chapman University

Estimated length of session

15-30 minutes

Will you be presenting remotely?

I will present in-person

Okay to livestream?

Livestreaming is okay

Previously presented?

Yes, in a webinar in summer 2024. I presented in Hebrew.

Special requests: