Sunday, January 03, 2021
Elder of Ziyon
Recently, David Collier published a must-read article about the anti-Israel and anti-Jewish bias in Wikipedia.
It is a significant problem. As he documented, there is practically an army of editors that waters down references to massacres of Jews while exaggerating fictional massacres by Jews.
Another example - pointed out to me by ShabbatX in 2019- is for the pretty terrible Wikipedia entry on "Persecution."
It starts off with reference to the Rome Statute on what falls under the definition of persecution:
Persecution against any identifiable group or collectivity on political, racial, national, ethnic, cultural, religious, gender...or other grounds that are universally recognized as impermissible under international law, in connection with any act referred to in this paragraph [e.g. murder, extermination, enslavement, deportation, imprisonment, torture, sexual violence, apartheid, and other inhumane acts] or any crime within the jurisdiction of the Court
Most of the examples given fall under one of those categories, even if they give most of them short shrift. The section on Jews, for example, is only 103 words long.
But then there is a section on persecution "based on military service" that was written for one reason, Israel. It has no sources and no examples of anything that anyone could credibly call persecution. Yet it is 218 words long:
Persecution on the basis of army service (or the lack of it) operates in Israeli society. In the State of Israel, Jewish citizens who receive an exemption from service in the Israel Defense Forces cannot take up many prestigious career options, especially in the field of security. The root of discrimination on the basis of army service lies in the practice that at age 17, non-Arab citizens (including Druze) are called up to be examined for eligibility to compulsory military service. A record for each potential conscript is made. Those who actually serve in the military are distinguished from those rejected from service by a Discharge Card, which has additional information on it, including the soldier's rank, military profession, and behavior during army service. Potential employers show a particular interest in Discharge Cards, since they constitute a universally available source of information about a potential employee. Employers frequently look down upon citizens rejected from the army, typically believing that "those who are unfit for army service are also unfit for the work environment",[citation needed] and that those who succeeded in the army are also likely to become good employees. Job advertisements in Israel very frequently specify a requirement of "Full Army Service", thus the decisions taken by the draft board regarding a 17-year-old minor may affect entire careers.
The page doesn't mention slavery of Africans as an example of persecution, but Israeli employers preferring people with experience in the army are given one of the larger examples of persecution!
This is only one example of how anti-Israel editors pollute Wikipedia, but it is pretty egregious.
(h/t Ernesto)
UPDATE: Because of this post, another Wikipedia editor removed this section of the article. We will see how long the edit remains or if it will be reverted by the person who added it.
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