Wikipedia Editors Vote to Accuse Israel of Genocide During Ongoing Hamas War in Gaza

Editors of the free online encyclopedia Wikipedia have renamed an entry that now outwardly accuses Israel of committing genocide in the Gaza Strip during the country’s ongoing war against Hamas terrorists responsible for the Oct. 7 massacre in southern Israel.

After months of debating the matter, editors decided that the Wikipedia article “Allegations of genocide in the 2023 Israeli attack on Gaza” should be renamed “Gaza genocide,” Ynet reported. The Wikipedia entry cites academics, historians, scholars, legal experts, and others who support the false accusation. Among the experts repeatedly cited is Francesca Albanese, the United Nations’ notoriously controversial special rapporteur on the human rights situation in the Palestinian territories. Albanese has an extensive history of using her role at the UN to denigrate Israel and seemingly rationalize Hamas’ attacks on the Jewish state.

A month after the deadly Oct. 7 Hamas terrorist attacks in Israel, Albanese said she believes that Israel does not have the right to defend itself against Hamas. In early June, she criticized Israel for rescuing four hostages who were abducted by Hamas terrorists on Oct. 7 and held captive in the Gaza Strip. Both the US and Israel have called for her to be removed from her position, and UN Watch executive director Hillel Neuer said in June that she is “the first UN special rapporteur in history to be condemned by France, Germany, and the US for antisemitism.” A spokesperson for the US State Department told Fox News that Albanese’s “allegations of genocide are unfounded.” 

“Various observers, including United Nations Special Rapporteur Francesca Albanese, have cited statements by senior Israeli officials that may indicate an ‘intent to destroy’ (in whole or in part) Gaza’s population, a necessary condition for the legal threshold of genocide to be met,” the Wikipedia article states. “A majority of mostly US-based Middle East scholars believe Israel’s actions in Gaza are intended to make it uninhabitable for Palestinians, and 75 percent of them say Israel’s actions in Gaza constitute either ‘major war crimes akin to genocide’ or ‘genocide.’”

The Wikipedia entry also cites international organizations and news websites as sources, including the prominent anti-Israel group Jewish Voice for Peace and Turkey’s anti-Zionist, state-run news agency Anadolu. Gaza’s Ministry of Health (MOH), which is run by Hamas, is the source for the casualty statistics mentioned in the article.

It has previously been reported that the MOH makes no distinction in its casualty figures between civilians and Hamas terrorists, and experts have cast doubt on the reliability of casualty figures coming from Gazan health authorities. The MOH admitted in April that it had “incomplete data” for 11,371 Palestinian fatalities it claimed to have documented at the time.

The Wikipedia entry additionally features alleged statements from members of the Israeli government that have been misinterpreted, misrepresented, or not said at all, and still used to support claims of an Israeli “genocide” in Gaza. The page further mentions other notable figures who have falsely accused Israel of genocide, including Jewish Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT), US Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-MI), climate activist Greta Thunberg, rapper Macklemore, and Nobel Peace Prize laureate Malala Yousafzai.

Wikipedia editors who are opposed to the article’s title change said it violates Wikipedia’s policy on neutral titles and accused the online encyclopedia of being biased against Israel, Ynet reported. They suggested adding words like “allegations” in the new title and argued that Wikipedia kept the word in another title — “Allegations of genocide in the 2023 Hamas attack on Israel” — but removed the term when it came to accusing Israel of genocide.

In June, Wikipedia editors voted that the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) is a “generally unreliable” source for information about antisemitism and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Dozens of Jewish organizations signed an open letter lambasting Wikipedia for the decision.