ADL accuses 30 Wikipedia editors of organized anti-Israel bias

The Anti-Defamation League (ADL), a Jewish-American watchdog that combats antisemitism, reported on Tuesday that at least 30 Wikipedia editors colluded in promoting anti-Israel bias on the influential online site.

The ADL report noted that the 30 anti-Israel Wikipedia editors “coordinate to change pages related to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, downplaying Palestinian antisemitism, violence, and calls to destroy Israel while promoting criticism of Israel.” 

ADL CEO Jonathan Greenblatt warned that Wikipedia’s anti-Israel bias is undermining the site’s overall credibility as a source of objective information. 

“Most readers assume Wikipedia is a reliable online encyclopedia, but in reality, it has become a biased platform manipulated by agenda-driven editors on many topics,” Greenblatt stated. 

“Recent Wikipedia efforts toward neutrality are nothing but a Band-Aid on a problem that’s getting worse, with persistent antisemitic and anti-Israel bias still far too present.”

The ADL report revealed that these Wikipedia editors made twice as many edits in the past decade, compared to edits on other topics. In addition, the anti-Israel editors reportedly communicated with each other about 18 times more often than editors focused on other topics.

The frequent Wikipedia edits have reportedly increased since the Hamas invasion and massacre in Israel on Oct. 7, 2023.

The report revealed that the anti-Israel editors refer to Zionism, the Jewish national liberation movement, as a “colonialist” land-grabbing movement.

At the same time, Wikipedia editors downplay Hamas’ goal of destroying the Jewish people and the well-documented atrocities committed by Hamas terrorists against Israeli civilians, including women, children and the elderly.

The ADL report also highlighted that Wikipedia’s Arabic language entries tended to glorify the terrorist organization Hamas and embrace a pro-Hamas narrative, a flagrant violent of Wikipedia’s rules on neutrality. 

Daniel Kelley, interim head of the ADL’s Center for Technology and Society, urged Wikipedia to address the growing anti-Israel and antisemitic content on the popular website. 

“It’s clear that Wikipedia needs to do far more to address the very active antisemitic and anti-Israel bias and coordination,” Kelly assessed. 

“And until then, other platforms that rely on Wikipedia as a source – from Google Search to large language models like ChatGPT – must deprioritize unvetted Wikipedia content on issues related to Jews, Israel and the Middle East conflict so that they do not perpetuate this bias,” he added. 

Last June, Wikipedia editors labeled ADL as “generally unreliable” on Israel and Middle East issues. 

“ADL no longer appears to adhere to a serious, mainstream and intellectually cogent definition of antisemitism, but has instead given into the shameless politicization of the very subject that it was originally esteemed for being reliable on,” Wikipedia editor Iskandar323 claimed.

ADL responded by describing the allegations made by Wikipedia editors as a "campaign to delegitimize" it. The organization emphasized that it had “provided point-by-point refutations, grounded in factual citations, to every claim made, but apparently, facts no longer matter.”

However, it appears that Wikipedia is increasingly aware of the anti-Israel and anti-Jewish bias among some of its editors. 

In January, Wikipedia revealed that six editors who are accused of anti-Israel bias could be banned indefinitely.