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Wikipedia: Israel Maintains Illegal Occupation, Brutal Apartheid


By Joel Leyden
Israel News Agency

Jerusalem ---- August 3 ..... Wikipedia, the so-called free encyclopedia that anyone can edit, is again attacking Israel with libel and slander equal only to racist comments made by Iran, Syria, Islamic Jihad, al-Qaeda and Hamas.

Wikipedia, which has been thrown out of almost every university and every major news organization as a credible source, states that the residents of city of Tayibe (Taibeh or Tayiba) live under "illegal Israel occupation and brutal apartheid control." What Wikipedia does not state is that the residents of Tayibe frequent my home town of Ra'anana, Israel every chance they get.

They come to the Rananeem Shopping Mall and window shop, buy clothes, eat fast food and their kids play with mine at the children's air-conditioned indoor playground. There is no hostility, no verbal or non-verbal expression of aggression. These are truly peaceful people who accept, enjoy and respect Israel. They have only compliments for Israel democracy, commerce for which they live off and enjoy modern, Western style shopping in Ra'anana and nearby Netanya, Israel.

The only incitement from Taibeh that I have ever witnessed comes only from Wikipedia!

At the same time, Wikipedia is denying that "Jewish Networking" does not exist. As a few, good hearted Jews and loyal Zionists attempt to place Jewish geography into Wikipedia they get knocked down by resident Wikipedia administrator Capo Jew - user Jpgordon aka Josh Gordon. Anything which is Jewish or of Israel is handled with contempt by Islamic terrorists (Wikipedia refers to al-Qaeda as "militants"), anti-Semites or extreme left wing Jews and Israelis at Wikipedia.

And according to Wikipedia, Palestine is a state. Would someone please be kind enough to show me Palestine currency and postage stamps?

For more: search Google News for "Wikipedia"

This is payback for WP deleting the "Israel News Agency" article several months ago.

Wrong
The Israel News Agency was critical of Wikipedia before Wikipedia management (after three community "keeps") deleted the INA as an article.
We see it as a huge timesuck - pleased not to be associated with the largest garbage can on the Net.

F.Y.I. this was just entered into the INA story:

Editor's Note:
The following paragraph was deleted from the above mentioned Wikipedia article two hours after this news story appeared on Google News and FreeRepublic.com.

Until the 1950's and 60's, the majority of the inhabitants of the city were Christian Arabs, however many of the original Christian inhabitants immigrated to America and Canada to seek a better economic life rather then remain under illegal Israeli occupation and brutal apartheid control.

The Israel News Agency thanks whoever removed this libel against the good people of Israel and Tayibe from the Internet. But what we continue to question is how many hours, days, weeks and months had this libel of incitement appeared as fact on Wikipedia?
Why did it take an international news agency (Wikipedia describes the INA as a blog - pretty strong blog, eh) to have this lie removed?
What action will Wikipedia take against the user who posted it?
And finally, how long will it take for this libel to be re-entered on Wikipedia?

I just read this from another thread. Sorry that I came in late for it.

Another one of my more contentious beliefs is that most of the Wikipedia élite have either connections to "informal" hasbara groups or stronger ones to the Israeli government.

I have worked as a media consultant to the Israel Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Spokesperson for the IDF and ..... much more that I can not write here. What I can say is that I wish that there were "connections" between the Wikipedia élite and the Israeli government. It just ain't there.
That the INA and other Jewish / Israeli sites were removed as articles from Wikipedia should reinforce this fact

Which article was this, I can't see?

Joel, I took a look at your site. Specifically this page where you write:



Are you seriously insinuating that SlimVirgin is an anti-Semite, and that JpGordon is acting in the manner of a Jewish Gestapo collaborator? If so, then there can be no help for you, I'm afraid.

What's the matter with people when they go onto the internet? Someone is either a neo-nazi, an anti-Semite, a homophobe, a sexist, a LaRouchie blah blah blah. Based on ever more minor, benign online episodes. Do you go around talking like this in real life?

Kato Hi,

In real life I spend much time working on the Internet, much time helping divorced fathers to see their children, much time defending and contributing to the state of Israel and much time with family and friends. I am not doing the talking in the article you quote above - rather you are reading logs taken directly from Wikipedia and the Wikithugs who created them.

At this point in my life I think of what we can all do to create bridges of peace rather than recycling hatred and incitement. But I remain a political conservative when confronted with terrorism on a daily basis here in Israel.

Wikipedia is popular not because it states fact, but rather because it plays to the crowds with controlled debates, corrupted votes, unmoderated insults, libel and gossip. Wikipedia has become an Internet ego driven Hollywood - a sad form of interactive entertainment. And yes, from all I have read and seen JpGordon is acting in the manner of a Jewish Gestapo collaborator. He is either retired or handicapped living in the American West but either way he spends his life working for Wikipedia. He knows not reality in Israel. His arrogance hurts people. Slimvirgin hurts people. Woggly hurts people. Jimbo Wales hurts people and gets paid for it!

Just ask former USA Today editor John Seigenthaler if he has been hurt.
He will respond: "When I was a child, my mother lectured me on the evils of "gossip." She held a feather pillow and said, "If I tear this open, the feathers will fly to the four winds, and I could never get them back in the pillow. That's how it is when you spread mean things about people." For me, that pillow is a metaphor for Wikipedia."

Not that I think this topic gotten heated or anything (yet), but from what I gather, Joel is saying that Wikipedia has an Anti-Israeli bias?

A moderator had to close a thread regarding Israeli, Zionism, Neoconservatives and whatnot as it became heated and off-topic. As long as the thread sticks to Anti-Israeli bias (or lack thereof) on Wikipedia, I think this thread will remain open. (This is just a friendly note of caution, not a threat or warning or anything like that, as I just don't want to see every thread regarding Israel, Judaism, and Palestine getting locked every time over people getting very angry).

It looks like the Tayibe article as it stands currently is ok, although it does mention the loss of land by Palestinians (a source is provided to back this up).

There's a whole mass of deletions against various Apartheid subjects on WP, namely involving Jayjg. Most of the Apartheid deletion discussions are here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Art...g/2007_August_1

Here's the template with the links to some Allegations of Apartheid:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Template:Alle...ns_of_apartheid

And Allegations of Israeli Apartheid:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allegations_o...raeli_apartheid

Comparing everything to Apartheid doesn't seem right. Why not just focus on the unique situation regarding Israel and the Palestinians rather than trying to compare Israel (or any country) to Apartheid South Africa?

I think we also have to keep in mind that there are POV pushers on WP on every possible side regarding Israeli/Palestinian issues. I can't tell if one side is more powerful than the other or if both are equal in strength. Unless Jimbo Wales, the Wikimedia Foundation, or several prominent members of the WP Community have admitted it, there is no concerted effort by the WP Community to take Israel's or the Palestinian Territories's side.

Slightly off-topic: I'm curious, Joel, have you come across Palestinian publications that have either praised/condemned Wikipedia? It would be interesting to see if Palestinians think WP is pro-Israeli or not.

Sorry but this looks like crap and smoke to distract from the fact that there is most definitely a vastly pro Israeli bias amongst a group of administrators who are very close to the founder of Wikipedia Jimmy Wales. The reason the Allegations of Israeli Apartheid article exists is that very respected noteworthy people have made that comparison such as Jimmy Carter, Desmond Tutu and Mandela- people who all know quite a bit about Apartheid. Why has Jayjg's identity been so avidly guarded by himself and Mr Wales- while he seems to have encouraged all other Arbcom members to reveal their identity he allowed Jayjg to remain anonymous- why?

Claims that Wikipedia is biased with an anti-Israel slant serves as valuable cover to SlimVirgin and Jayjg. This bizarre characterization allows them to claim they "can't please everyone" and permits them to be equally dismissive toward legitimate claims of a pro-Zionist bias. I do not know if Leyden is sincere or acting in collusion with this notorious aspect of the cabal, and I don't really care. The effect is same either way.

As long as Wikipedia refers to Hamas, Islamic Jihad and al-Qaeda as "militants" and not as terrorists who murder innocent civilians on buses, in restaurants and shopping malls, most Palestinians will have no problem with Wikipedia.

The only real purpose that Wikipedia serves is that of an information sponge for the CIA / NSA and military INTEL. Since when has the US State Department been advertising and encouraging the use of non-governmental Web sites? http://usinfo.state.gov/dhr/Archive/2006/May/23-771310.html

Just don't do it at the expense of Israeli civilians!

Now we know why Wikipedia has been so successful.
Brought to you by the same people who brought you the Internet

I was using it as a soap-sponge to wash my car just this afternoon, but it kept leaving smears all over my new paint job!

Anyway, Joel, this whole getting-everybody-riled-up-over-the-middle-east thing is all well and good if you enjoy, uh, getting everybody riled up over the Middle East, but I thought we'd agreed - only post links to your press releases, not the whole text?

You're still getting picked up by our RSS feed, by the way - here's the topic for this one. Congratulations! Hmm, but which one should be merged into the other, I wonder...?

That's just the rules, Joel. Using the word "Terrorist", especially without attribution is not the convention. The IRA, the epitome of a terrorist organisation, who also killed innocent civilians in shopping malls and bars, are referred to as an "Irish Republican, left wing[3] paramilitary organisation". This is not a pro-Palestinian bias thing.



As far as we know, Palestinian sympathisers are more pissed off about WP than Joel here. The Wikipedia and Zionism thread on this forum is just one example.

We're talking about organisations decribed as terrorist by many Governments, including the American, British and I think Canadian. It's rather an excess of NPOV not to recognise this.

Another example of Guy failing to even attempt to look at the hypocrisy of the west. Let's not forget about the Irgun- one mans terrorist is one mans freedom fighter etc. I see terrorists are now in the Northern Irish Assembly BTW.

Articles can state that a group have been described as a terrorist group and attribute it to a source. But simply because a government of group of governments describe a group as a terrorist, doesn't mean that they can be labelled as such without attribution. And there are numerous grey areas. The Contras article, for instance, makes no reference in the lead to terrorism and merely calls them "armed opponents". Yet the Contras committed all kinds of violent acts, terrorising civilians for political gain, and several governments labelled them a terrorist group. Yet the American, British and Canadian governments did not acknowledge them as such. Reagan used the famous "freedom fighters" tagline if we recall. The use of the term "terrorist" is all too political, often vague and has rightly been marked on WP as a "word to avoid".

Yes, total hypocrisy by the West. The BBC and the Guardian described the Irgun as terrorists yet not Hamas. Well spotted, Jorge! And yes, the British Government called the Irgin terrorists.

Yes, by the same logic articles can state that Sir Isaac Newton has been described as a scientist and attribute it to a source. Let's not take NPOV to ludicrous extremes.

Guy, the Irgun made direct attacks on British soldiers and politicians so it's not surprising they described them as terrorists is it. Of course they also called the IRA terrorists and now representatives of that organization are in government in Northern Ireland. Let's hope Israel can grow up and grow away from its racist foundations and accept that non Jewish people have an equal right to live in that land and they do not have an inherent right to it just because some of their forebears lived there 2000 years ago (if we all followed that logic of course the world would be in chaos and indeed the area around Israel is indeed now in chaos).

It doesn't exactly help the cause of Wikipedia critics when they criticize Wikipedia for diametrically opposite reasons... they're rabidly pro-Israel, they're rabidly anti-Israel... just makes people think that perhaps they're actually reasonably objective on the subject and just end up ticking off rabid partisans on both sides.

I quite agree. Attack Britons = terrorists. Attack funny foreigners = not terrorists.

Incidentally, Arabs can be citizens of Israel in good stead and hold top positions, even acting president. They have also had a female prime minister and a female acting president. Try that in Saudi Arabia. Isn't it good that at least one country in that part of the world is a stable democracy with equal rights for women and minorities?

Good point, but how to get people to understand and accept the idea that both biases exist, and that this is just as damaging to Wikipedia's public image (if not the community itself)... that's the challenge.

Any given Wikipedia article is basically a piece of territory. People are, in varying degrees, going to fight over it, and the fighting is going to make people angry - and if they aren't already driven to extreme viewpoints from the get-go, the fighting in itself is likely to drive them there just as effectively. So you get this ongoing polarization effect, which leads to page protections and bannings, etc.

Here, we're not fighting over a single piece of territory, we're just (in this case) conducting a (somewhat) linear argument. But it actually looks worse to the outsider, because there's no need for the arguers to compromise over any of the wording. And we also tolerate a higher level of incivility, mostly because the lack of "territories" tends to keep hostilities confined to only the specific individuals who wade in deliberately.

It's an interesting problem... I know there are other forums where nasty arguments break out over just this very subject, but I'd almost have to say the majority tend to tolerate just one side and suppress the other. The idea is to keep the core members happy, but whenever we've done that, the opposite has occurred.

Of course, we could always move this to the Tar Pit, if only to hide our own warts. It would serve Joel right anyway - this is all following the exact pattern of the situation that caused Selina to (wrongly, I'm afraid) ban Jorge and Lir six months ago.

Somey I think you misunderstood Dans post- he was saying (I think) similar to what I Glassbeadgame have said that giving credance to Leyden's nonsense just lets it seem as if there is not really a problem on Wikipedia. That is just not true - go to any article on the Palestinians or Israel or any individual who has shown support for the Palestinians and you will see a vast organized effort to bias those articles to a pro Israeli perspective all seemingly with the full knowledge and support of Jimbo Wales who has always completely ignored any protests about pro Israeli bias yet makes it his personal mission to fix the "bias" on the Che Guevara article.

Any system that manages to annoy both Joel Leyden and Jorge must be doing something not too disastrously wrong.

No. That's a different logic, Guy. How many Contras had "terrorist" on their passport? I'd like to believe that Sir Isaac Newton was more accepting of the title "scientist" (or mathematician), than Nelson Mandela was accepting of the title "terrorist". Even though Mandela was orchestrating violent attacks on South African civilian instillations before he was imprisoned for "terrorist activities".

WP editors have argued endlessly over the term "terrorist", and have rightfully deemed it a "word to avoid", prefering militant, paramilitary or other. Or at least they've avoided it without attribution. This is because enough people have spent enough years in the real world debating the ancient/tedious argument of "terrorist/freedom fighter" and have opted to follow most encyclopedic sources by deeming the term too subjective. Which is what we'd hope for if we had any kind of broad understanding.

You're welcome to label Nelson Mandela or the Contras "terrorists", and argue that to fail to do so is taking NPOV to its ludicrous extremes, but I don't think you'll get any support from me.

George Bush is the #1 terrorist

Newton would have said he was a philosopher, not a scientist. Shall we alter Wikipedia to deny that he was a scientist?

Guy in case you hadn't noticed Israel ethnically cleansed "Arabs" from Israel beginning in the 1940s. Therefore I treat your claim (i) that Israel is a democracy and (ii) that Arabs are treated "equally" with derision. Sorry, but I just don't consider a country that terrorizes, murders imprisons and ethnically cleanses people who disagree with them to be a democracy.

No, I hadn't noticed. Yes, a lot of things happened in 1948, including mass expulsions of Jews from Arab lands. What ethnic cleansing happened since? Which Arab country would allow a Jew to be acting president?

That Israel had 'ethnically cleansed "Arabs' is a pretty amazing statement given that Israel has 12 Arabs presently serving in her democratic Parliament (Knesset).
It is inciteful and misleading statements such as this which led me to point out the lies on Wikipedia about the good people of both Israel and the Arab village of Tayibe. Focus on Wikipedia's role as an agent of incitement and hate, rather than discussing Israeli Arab politics here.

Well if you hadn't noticed you weren't really looking very hard. I think you'll find there are millions of Palestinian refugees now living in Jordan, Lebanon and further afield. They are refugees because their lands and homes were taken from them by force by mostly European and American Jews in the 1940s, 1967 and still today with many members of their families being murdered and imprisoned. Palestinians were not responsible for the Holocaust- why should they had have to suffer like that just for existing- just for daring to live in an area that the British said was to become a Jewish homeland? If America declared that England was to be handed over to some other people and then those people came and murdered my friends and relatives, started taking their homes and farms and declaring that was now part of the new country what would happen? English people would rebel and attack those people and never accept that this new country existed. That is what the Palestinians are doing and it is entirely understandable.

Boo hoo. Everyone, not just Israel, treats the Palestinians like shit because they're so pathetic, or as Eban said "never miss an opportunity to miss an opportunity."

But as Joel so rightly says, WR is not the place to discuss this.

I'm locking this thread too. Please Jorge, pretty please, stop hijacking these threads.