Arab Wikipedia accuses Israel of genocide, claims rape of Israeli women an 'Israeli propaganda lie'

Ever since the Hamas terrorist organization's surprise invasion and brutal attack on Israel's southern border communities, and Israel's military response to defend itself,  Wikipedia’s Arabic website has displayed a banner accusing Israel of committing “genocide” in the Gaza Strip.

The banner is featured on every Arabic-language Wikipedia page and states: “In solidarity with the right of the Palestinian people, no to genocide in Gaza, no to killing civilians. No to targeting hospitals and schools. No to deception and double standards. Stop the war and spread a just and comprehensive peace.”

The Wikipedia logo on the page is wrapped in a ribbon with the Palestinian flag on one side and the image of a keffiyeh – a symbol of Palestinian nationalism and solidarity – on the other.  

According to the U.S. magazine National Review, several of the phrases in the banner link to pages that continue the accusations against the Jewish state, referring to Israel’s military campaign to eliminate Hamas in Gaza as “pogroms.”

“Each phrase… ‘genocide in Gaza,’ ‘killing civilians,’ ‘targeting hospitals and schools,’ and ‘mislead and double standards,’ leads to its own Arabic-language article…" National Review wrote in its January article.

"The link referencing civilian deaths leads to a page that translates to ‘Pogroms during the Palestinian-Israeli War 2023,’ which makes no distinction between Hamas terrorists and civilians and claims Israel bombed the Al-Ahli Hospital in Gaza, which, of course, it did not,” the National Review wrote.

Wikipedia states on its website that it is a "free-content online encyclopedia written and maintained by a community of volunteers, known as Wikipedians, through open collaboration and the use of the wiki-based editing system MediaWiki."

The site claims to follow the principle of neutrality.

“All encyclopedic content on Wikipedia must be written from a neutral point of view (NPOV), which means representing fairly, proportionately, and, as far as possible, without editorial bias, all the significant views that have been published by reliable sources on a topic."

"NPOV is a fundamental principle of Wikipedia and of other Wikimedia projects. It is also one of Wikipedia's three core content policies; the other two are ‘Verifiability’ and ‘No original research.”

“There is not even a pretense of objectivity there. It is pure incitement against Israel aimed at the Arabic-speaking audience,” Jewish blogger Elder of Ziyon noted regarding Wikipedia's banner.

According to the blogger, Arab Wikipedia fails to acknowledge the massacre carried out by Palestinian terrorists on Oct. 7, targeting Israeli and foreign civilian men, women, children, and the elderly.

“The main Arabic Wikipedia page on the October 7 massacre does not mention any Israeli civilians being slaughtered; the only mention of any civilians killed is in the statistics sidebar but not in the article itself, while it mentions many Gaza civilians being killed. The only mention of the word ‘terrorism’ is for Israel. It only mentions the sexual assault of Israeli women as being an Israeli propaganda lie,” Elder wrote.

A Hebrew Wikipedia administrator with the username 'Bharel' left Wikipedia over the issue of the banner.

“I have stopped contributions and donations to [Wikimedia Foundation, the group that runs Wikipedia],” he wrote on his user page.

"They actively support [Arabic Wikipedia] displaying a banner on their homepage against alleged 'Israeli propaganda' and 'genocide', thereby breaking the agreement with us contributors for building a neutral encyclopedia. Your donations and contributions are [used] to promote politics and sway public opinion. When will you be the next target?”