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Report, The EI, 21 April 2008
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| (EI illustration) |
A
pro-Israel pressure group is orchestrating a secret, long-term campaign to
infiltrate the popular online encyclopedia Wikipedia to rewrite Palestinian
history, pass off crude propaganda as fact, and take over Wikipedia
administrative structures to ensure these changes go either undetected or
unchallenged.
A series of emails by members and associates of the
pro-Israel group CAMERA (Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting in
America), provided to The EI, indicate the group is
engaged in what one activist termed a "war" on Wikipedia. A 13 March
action alert signed by Gilead Ini, a "Senior Research Analyst" at CAMERA, calls
for "volunteers who can work as 'editors' to ensure" that Israel-related
articles on Wikipedia are "free of bias and error, and include necessary facts
and context." However, subsequent communications indicate that the group not
only wanted to keep the effort secret from the media, the public, and Wikipedia
administrators, but that the material they intended to introduce included
discredited claims that could smear Palestinians and Muslims and conceal
Israel's true history.With over two million articles in English on every
topic imaginable, Wikipedia has become a primary reference source for Internet
users around the world and a model for collaboratively produced projects.
Openness and good faith are among Wikipedia's core principles. Any person in the
world can write or edit articles, but Wikipedia has strict guidelines and
procedures for accountability intended to ensure quality control and prevent
vandalism, plagiarism or distortion. It is because of these safeguards that
articles on key elements of the Palestine-Israel conflict have generally
remained well-referenced, useful and objective. The CAMERA plan detailed in the
e-mails obtained by EI appears intended to circumvent these controls.
In
the past, CAMERA has gained notoriety for its tactic of accusing virtually
anyone who does not toe a right-wing pro-Israel line of bias. The group has even
accused editors and reporters of the Israeli daily Haaretz of being
"extreme" and participating in "radical anti-Israel activity." Jeffrey Dvorkin,
the former ombudsman of National Public Radio (NPR), frequently criticized by
CAMERA for an alleged pro-Palestinian bias, wrote on the web publication Salon
in February 2008 that "as a consequence of its campaign against NPR, CAMERA
acted as the enabler for some seriously disturbed people," citing persistent
telephone threats he received in the wake of CAMERA campaigns.
Need
for stealth and secrecy
Throughout the documents EI obtained, CAMERA
operatives stress the need for stealth and secrecy. In his initial action alert,
Ini requests that recipients "not forward it to members of the news media." In a
17 March follow-up email sent to volunteers, Ini explains that he wants to make
the orchestrated effort appear to be the work of unaffiliated individuals. Thus
he advises that "There is no need to advertise the fact that we have these group
discussions."
Anticipating possible objections to CAMERA's scheme, Ini
conjectures that "Anti-Israel editors will seize on anything to try to discredit
people who attempt to challenge their problematic assertions, and will be all
too happy to pretend, and announce, that a 'Zionist' cabal (the same one that
controls the banks and Hollywood?) is trying to hijack Wikipedia."
But
stealth and misrepresentation are presented as the keys to success. Ini suggests
that after volunteers sign up as editors for Wikipedia they should "avoid
editing Israel-related articles for a short period of time." This strategy is
intended to "avoid the appearance of being one-topic editors," thus attracting
unwanted attention.
Ini counsels that volunteers "might also want to
avoid, for obvious reasons, picking a user name that marks you as pro-Israel, or
that lets people know your real name." To further conceal the identity of
CAMERA-organized editors, Ini warns, "don't forget to always log in before
making [edits]. If you make changes while not logged in, Wikipedia will record
your computer's IP address" -- a number that allows identification of the
location of a computer connected to the Internet.
A veteran Wikipedia
editor, known as "Zeq," who according to the emails is colluding with CAMERA,
also provided advice to CAMERA volunteers on how they could disguise their
agenda. In a 20 March email often in misspelled English, Zeq writes, "You don't
want to be precived [sic] as a 'CAMERA' defender' on wikipedia [sic] that is for
sure." One strategy to avoid that is to "edit articles at random, make friends
not enemies -- we will need them later on. This is a marathon not a
sprint."
Zeq also identifies, in a 25 March email, another Wikipedia
editor, "Jayjg," whom he views as an effective and independent pro-Israel
advocate. Zeq instructs CAMERA operatives to work with and learn from Jayjg, but
not to reveal the existence of their group even to him fearing "it would place
him in a bind" since "[h]e is very loyal to the wikipedia [sic] system" and
might object to CAMERA's underhanded tactics.
"Uninvolved
administrators"
The emphasis on secrecy is apparently not only to aid
the undetected editing of articles, but also to facilitate CAMERA's takeover of
key administrator positions in Wikipedia.
For Zeq a key goal is to have
CAMERA operatives elected as administrators -- senior editors who can override
the decisions of others when controversies arise. When disputes arise about
hotly contested topics, such as Israel and Palestine, often only an "uninvolved
administrator" -- one who is considered neutral because he or she has not edited
or written articles on the topic -- can arbitrate.
Hence, Zeq advises in
a 21 March email that "One or more of you who want to take this route should
stay away from any Israel realted [sic] articles for one month until they [sic]
interact in a positive way with 100 wikipedia [sic] editors who would be used
later to vote you as an administrator."
Once these CAMERA operatives have
successfully infiltrated as "neutral" editors, they could then exercise their
privileges to assert their own political agenda.
In addition, Zeq
suggests making deliberately provocative edits to Palestine-related articles. He
hopes that editors he assumes are Palestinian will delete these changes, and
then CAMERA operatives could report them to administrators so they could be
sanctioned and have their editing privileges suspended.
Passing
propaganda as fact
Gilead Ini's 17 March email provides specific
advice on how to pass off pro-Israel propaganda or opinion as fact meeting
Wikipedia's strict guidelines:
"So, for example, imagine that you get rid of or modify a
problematic sentence in an article alleging that 'Palestinian [sic] become
suicide bombers to respond to Israel's oppressive policies.' You should, in
parallel leave a comment on that article's discussion page (either after or
before making the change). Avoid defending the edit by arguing that 'Israel's
policies aren't 'oppression,' they are defensive. And anyway Palestinians
obviously become suicide bombers for other reasons for example hate education!'
Instead, describe how this sentence violates Wikipedia's policies and
guidelines. One of the core principles is that assertions should adhere to a
Neutral Point of View, usually abbreviated NPOV. (The opposite of NPOV is POV,
or Point of View, which is basically another way of saying subjective statement,
or opinion.) So it would be best to note on the discussion page that 'This
sentence violates Wikipedia's NPOV policy, since the description of Israel's
policies as 'oppressive' is an opinion. In addition, it is often noted by Middle
East experts that one of the reasons Palestinians decide to become suicide
bombers is hate education and glorification of martyrdom in Palestinian society
...'"
In fact, there have been numerous studies debunking claims
about Palestinian "hate education," or "glorification of martyrdom" causing
suicide bombings (such as Dying to Win by University of Chicago political
scientist Robert Pape) though this claim remains a favorite canard of pro-Israel
activists seeking to distract attention from the effects of Israel's occupation
and other well-documented and systematic human rights abuses in fueling
violence.
Zeq specifically names articles targeted for this kind of
treatment including those on the 1948 Palestinian Exodus, Causes of the 1948
Palestinian exodus, Hamas, Hizballah, Arab citizens of Israel, anti-Zionism,
al-Nakba, the Palestinian people, and the Palestinian right of
return.
Interestingly the CAMERA editors also target the article on the
early Islamic period concept of Dhimmi, a protected status for
non-Muslims which historically allowed Jews to thrive in Muslim-ruled lands
while other Jews were being persecuted in Christian Europe. Pro-Israel activists
have often tried to portray the concept of Dhimmi as akin to the
Nuremberg laws in order to denigrate Muslim culture and justify ahistorical
Zionist claims that Jews could never live safely in majority Muslim
countries.
Also among the emails is a discussion about how to alter the
article on the massacre of Palestinian civilians in the village of Deir Yassin
by Zionist militiamen on 9 April 1948. Unable to debunk the facts of the
massacre outright, the CAMERA activists hunt for quotes from "reputable
historians" who can cast doubt on it. Their strategy is not dissimilar from
those who attempt to present evolution, or global climate change as
"controversial" regardless of the weight of the scientific evidence, simply
because the facts do not accord with their belief system.
Zeq has already
made extensive edits to the Wikipedia article on Rachel Corrie, the American
peace activist murdered by an Israeli soldier in the occupied Gaza Strip on 16
March 2003. As a result of these and other edits Zeq has himself been a
controversial figure among Wikipedia editors, suggesting his own stealth tactics
may not be working.
"We will go to war"
Zeq, however,
counsels CAMERA operatives to be patient and lie low until they build up their
strength. "We will go to war after we have build our army, equiped it trained
[sic]," he wrote on 9 April. "So please if you want to win this war help us
build ou[r] army. let's not just rush in and achieve nothing, or abit more than
nothing [sic]."
Update 22 April 2008
A plan by the pro-Israel pressure group CAMERA to skew
the online encyclopedia Wikipedia in a pro-Israel direction appears to have
collapsed after it was exposed by EI.
On 21 April, EI published emails
and action alerts posted by CAMERA staff and collaborators on a closed listserv
instructing would-be editors how to game the Wikipedia system so they could
impose their hard-line pro-Israel agenda undetected.
Following EI's
report, Gilead Ini a CAMERA staffer and Wikipedia editor informed members of the
group that, "Because member of this group [sic] affiliated with the anti-Israel
propaganda cite [sic] Electronic Intifada decided to share the content of our
discussions, I will be temporarily or permanently closing access to the group,
in hopes that members' personal contact information will not be made
public."
Meanwhile, Wikipedia administrators issued a ban on Zeq, the
editor who was helping CAMERA to groom new editors to subvert Wikipedia's
quality control process. Zeq has been prohibited from editing Israel-Palestine
related articles and administrators were debating further action. Based on the
evidence in the emails released by EI, Wikipedia administrators accused Zeq of
violating fundamental Wikipedia principles and guidelines. In response, Zeq
alleged that the accusations were merely the result of a "conspiracy" which he
termed "The (e-mail) protocols of the elder of CAMERA [sic]." Zeq even alleged
that The EI itself "may have created the story or created the group or spoofed
e-mails."
Today EI publishes additional emails that further expose the
CAMERA plan. These emails also reveal that while Zeq is willing to accuse others
of prejudice he may hold some himself. In one email he commends an editor whom
he considers to be "anti-Islamic." And, in an echo of the kind of anti-Semitic
thinking that CAMERA sees everywhere, Zeq alleges that "the other side" -- an
apparent reference to Palestinians and Muslims -- "is orgenized well, they
control wkipedia [sic]."
Information obtained by EI indicates that while
Gilead Ini claimed that more than 50 volunteers had come forward to participate
in CAMERA's plan, and the group had set its sights on creating dozens of new
editors and administrators over a long period of time, fewer than a dozen were
active at the time EI exposed the scheme. Because the effort was apparently in
its early stages, only a handful had become active as Wikipedia editors.
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