Backyard bullies on Wikipedia

By Ari Lieberman Issue of Oct. 2, 2009 / 14 Tishrei 5770 In the course of doing research on the Second Lebanon War, I came across a Wikipedia article called “2006 Lebanon War.” Instinct told me to ignore the article and move along but curiosity drew me in. Little did I know at the time that this curiosity, which has gotten me into trouble in the past, would introduce me to the dark side of Wikipedia. Wikipedia describes itself as a “multilingual, Web-based, free-content encyclopedia project based mostly on anonymous contributions.” It is “written collaboratively by an international (and mostly anonymous) group of volunteers.” Anyone with Internet access can write and make changes to Wikipedia articles. Wikipedia claims 65,000,000 monthly visitors as of 2009 and is rapidly gaining acceptance by university students and media alike. The Wikipedia homepage adds that, “anyone is welcome to add information, cross-references, or citations, as long as they do so within Wikipedia’s editing policies and to an appropriate standard. Substandard or disputed information is subject to removal. Users need not worry about accidentally damaging Wikipedia when adding or improving information, as other editors are always around to advise or correct obvious errors, and Wikipedia’s software is carefully designed to allow easy reversal of editorial mistakes.” Innocent enough, I thought. The 2006 Second Lebanon War was one of Israel’s most controversial wars. There were operational as well as political failures, mostly due to inexperienced political leaders who lacked focus and fortitude. However, in the final analysis, the war was a strategic victory for Israel and a defeat for Iran, Syria and its terror proxy, Hezbollah. * Israel killed 600-1,000 Hezbollah guerillas (and captured five) and established a kill ratio of at least 6 to 1 and possibly as much as 10 to 1. * When the war ended, the Israeli Army was in control of every single Hezbollah stronghold in the sub-Litani region. Hezbollah did not conquer a millimeter of Israeli soil. * The Israeli Air Force destroyed Hezbollah’s long-range missile stockpiles in the first hours of the war thus depriving the organization of a valuable strategic asset. * Israeli commandos landed at whim in the heart of Hezbollah’s strongholds of Baalbek and Tyre, killing several dozen Hezbollah operatives and evacuating safely from the combat zone without taking any casualties. * Hezbollah’s entire military infrastructure in South Lebanon was destroyed along with its HQ and other important facilities in South Beirut. * Lebanon itself suffered billions in damage, felt most keenly by Shiites whose close proximity to the theater of operations rendered them most vulnerable. Three years after the war, in which Israel barely suffered a scratch, Lebanon’s Shiites are still picking up the pieces. * Hezbollah’s border provocation against Israel lacked strategic purpose; the resulting war exposed the worst that Hezbollah had to offer. Syria and Iran can no longer use Hezbollah as a deterrent against an Israeli first strike. * The most important achievement was the forcible deployment of some 15,000 Lebanese troops backed by Europeans along the border. It is the first time since the mid-1960s that the Lebanese Army has exercised any meaningful sovereignty in South Lebanon. Gone are the days where Hezbollah guerillas can menacingly march right up to the border and click away with their surveillance cameras and equipment. In short, the war established a new reality and essentially forced an unconditional surrender on Hezbollah. Aside from the usual kooks and crackpots and a few Arab apologists like Roger Cohen and Norman Finkelstein, no one takes seriously the Hezbollah claims of “divine victory.” Even Nasrallah himself came close to admitting defeat when he acknowledged that he badly misjudged Israel’s response and would not have embarked on the kidnapping operation had he known it would lead to war. In light of Wikipedia’s stated editing policy, it did not surprise me to find that its piece on the Second Lebanon War read like a Hezbollah recruiting poster. Israel’s achievements were glossed over or omitted entirely; its failures were stressed and highlighted. The converse was true for Hezbollah. It almost seemed as if by war’s end Hezbollah troops were marching on Tel Aviv. I decided that something had to be done to restore balance and so began my Wikipedia journey and my discovery of its Islamofacist underside. My initial edits were small, well sourced, cross-referenced and dealt with one minor point that occurred before the commencement of hostilities and a few post-war occurrences. My strategy was to start small, to test the waters, and progressively make larger and more substantive edits. Within minutes of my upload, my edits were deleted. Being a novice to Wikipedia, I thought I had made some technical mistake in the upload process so I uploaded again only to have the edits deleted once more. I then saw a message in my Wiki “talk page” — the rough equivalent of an inbox — that said that my edits were being deleted for violating neutrality. The message came from someone identified by an Arabic screen name. Some quick research revealed that he was a Wiki “site administrator” and had a long history of anti-Israel bias on Wikipedia. I would not accept conclusory explanations for his reversions and demanded clear and concise reasons for his actions. He responded that my edits made the Israel Defense Forces sound “too heroic” and “sounded like an army press release.” Concerning the post-war edits, he claimed that since they happened after the war, they were irrelevant. However, his reasoning here contradicted the format of the article itself, which had a specific section dealing with relevant post-war occurrences. The only discernable difference between my post-war edits and those already existing in the article is that my edits were adverse to Hezbollah while those already existing were adverse to Israel. It seemed that any edit that favored Israel, regardless of its veracity, did not sit well with the “site administrator.” I countered, he counter-countered and this back and forth wrangling went on for quite some time, until he finally relented and my edits were allowed to pass, albeit heavily modified. I subsequently made additional, more substantive edits to the “Second Lebanon War” as well as the “Gaza War” (Operation Cast Lead) which drew heated debate and scathing criticisms by what I call the Wikipedia Jihadi Mafia, who swarmed on me like bees to honey, attacking and dissecting every aspect of my proposed changes. Exhausting as it was, I stood my ground and provided well-sourced information for all my edits. Ultimately, most of my edits passed muster and squeezed through, though, again, they were heavily altered and modified. Today, when you go on to Wikipedia’s “Gaza War” site, you can read favorable quotes from defense analysts Tony Cordesman and Colonel Richard Kemp detailing the lengths to which the IDF went to minimize collateral damage. You will also find detractors and critics of the now infamous Goldstone report, which is essentially a 575-page blood libel against the IDF. You will read negative revelations about Marc Garlasco, one of Goldstone’s sources and a former Human Rights Watch military analyst, who was belatedly suspended by HRW on account of his fetish for Nazi memorabilia. I counterbalanced unfavorable bias sources about Israel with opinions by Charles Krauthammer, Michael Totten, and John Keegan. I also listed documented efforts Hezbollah took to conceal their losses in the Second Lebanon War. Islamofacism is alive and well at Wikipedia, but as with all backyard bullies, if you stand your ground and don’t give in, they relent. Ari Lieberman is an attorney and a student of Israeli military history. He lives in Brooklyn.