Wikipedia has banned eight volunteer editors from making changes to articles on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, following a ruling by the online encyclopedia's Arbitration Committee—a quasi-judicial panel whose decisions are binding.
Six of the banned editors come from the pro-Palestinian camp, identified by their usernames: Selfstudier, Nableezy, Nishidani, Levivich, Iskandar323, and Makeandtoss. Two editors from the pro-Israel side were also banned: BilledMammal and AndreJustAndre.
The rulings focused on user misconduct rather than content disputes, citing violations including personal insults and misrepresentation of sources. This follows the committee's standard practice of adjudicating conduct rather than editorial disagreements, according to the Jewish News Syndicate.
The scale of potential manipulation is staggering. A report by Pirate Wires found that approximately 40 editors conducted a coordinated campaign to delegitimize Israel and present radical Islamist groups favorably, with efforts intensifying after Hamas's October 7, 2023, massacre. One banned editor removed mention of Hamas's 1988 charter—which calls for Israel's destruction—from the terrorist group's article just six weeks after the massacre.
The editors also allegedly attempted to promote Iranian government interests by altering articles documenting human rights violations by officials in the Islamic Republic. A separate coordinated effort by a group called Tech for Palestine to alter more than a hundred articles was halted after being uncovered earlier this year.
