Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Palestine-Israel articles 5/Evidence

Main case page (Talk) — Preliminary statements (Talk) — Evidence (Talk) — Workshop (Talk) — Proposed decision (Talk)

Target dates: Opened 30 November 2024 • Evidence closes 21 December 2024 • Workshop closes 28 December 2024 • Proposed decision to be posted by 11 January 2025

Scope: The interaction of named parties in the WP:PIA topic area and examination of the WP:AE process that led to two referrals to WP:ARCA

Case clerks: HouseBlaster (Talk) & SilverLocust (Talk) Drafting arbitrators: Aoidh (Talk) & HJ Mitchell (Talk) & CaptainEek (Talk)

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Evidence presented by Zero0000

About me

I have been an editor since 2002 and an administrator since 2003. I have had no sanctions, blocks or formal warnings for 15 years.
I specialise in historical topics and mostly stay away from contested current events. Since the start of the Israel-Gaza war in October 2023, less than 1% of my article edits and 2% of my talk page edits have concerned that war.
Why am I a party? Red-tailed Hawk added me to one ARCA case because I had found a typo at AE and was thanked for it, even though I had not commented on the case and nobody commented on me. Barkeep added me to another ARCA case because ScottishFinnishRadish had suggested a sanction due to a single revert (not 1RR) in an article I have only edited twice since 2022. I do not believe that this is enough to make me a party. Zero^talk 10:26, 30 November 2024 (UTC)

A historical overview of ARBPIA

I have worked in ARBPIA for 22 years.
In the early days things were far more dispute-ridden than now, with endless disputes. The maturing of key articles, the raising of sourcing standards (for which I claim much credit) and then 1RR and ECR led to a major improvement.
A sea-change occurred when Hamas invaded Israel in 2023. See data here. The number of distinct main-space editors in the first year after October 2023 jumped by almost 70%, while the number of main-space edits increased over 3 times. However, despite the fact that 2/3 of the editors were non-EC, and despite the fact that there is a war on, multiple statistics indicate improvement:

• The fraction of edits which were reverts dropped to its lowest value in at least 4 years.
• The fraction of edits which were reverted dropped to its lowest value in at least 4 years.
• The fraction of reverts by EC-editors which were themselves reverted (a crude measure of edit-war frequency) dropped below 1% for the first time in at least 4 years (39% reduction).
• The average number of talk page edits for each article edit was the highest for at least four years.

None of these statistics support the claims by some that the topic is in crisis. Zero^talk 11:51, 30 November 2024 (UTC)

Other comments

FOARP's massacre list illustrates how this case is severely distorted by having an unbalanced list of parties. Although one could guess from the list that the non-pro-Israel group is dominating the use of "massacre" in titles, the hard data shows the exact opposite. In the current war, dead Palestinians outnumber dead Israels by more than 30:1, but articles about dead Israelis with "massacre" in the title outnumber those about dead Palestinians by 8:2. The reason for this apparent bias could use examination. Zero^talk 14:22, 10 December 2024 (UTC)

ScottishFinnishRadish lists criticism of an administrative action as an example of "battleground". On the contrary, it is the absolute right of every Wikipedian to critique admin actions. Zero^talk 14:22, 10 December 2024 (UTC)

Boomerang for AndreJustAndre. Is writing blatant untruths on this page cause for sanction? It should be. Andre has repeatedly made false accusations.

• Andre claimed that I had dismissed sources "simply because they are Israeli historians". Actually I have never done that even once in my entire Wikicareer. It was Andre who introduced their nationality and I didn't even mention it.
• Then Andre modified "Israeli" to "pro-Israel", but I hadn't mentioned that either.
• Andre then introduced Jewish refugees, but I hadn't mentioned that either and the sources don't say that the people concerned (Jews in 19th century Libya) were refugees or became refugees. Even if they were, attempting to assign an "anti-pro-Israel" motive to me because refugees were an Israeli issue 50 years later is pure sophistry.

As I stated clearly on the talk page, a better source was needed because the one given (Gilbert) had only 11 unsourced words and a detailed source trumps passing mentions. A good source (De Felice) confirmed my concerns, but Andre denied it and added another author who had essentially the same 11 words without source. I called that author (RI) "polemic" because that's what he is famous for; the Anti-Defamation League called his work "hateful rhetoric" and there is more like that. I suspected that RI had just copied from Gilbert and more recently posted confirmation.

Since Andre quoted me on "pogroms that never happened", I'll mention this contribution to article quality. There are a huge number of published factual errors and avoiding them by using only the best specialist sources takes effort. I plan to continue my well-known personal discipline of not citing academic historians at either extreme of the political spectrum. As examples, I don't cite either Efraim Karsh or Ilan Pappe, who are polar opposites regarding Israel. Zero^talk 14:22, 10 December 2024 (UTC)

• Then Andre quoted only the first part of "Charges of antisemitism are always opinions, even when they are opinions that every reasonable person would agree with."[1] That's because I regard antisemitism as the state of mind behind an action and nobody has perfect access to the state of mind of another. Too subtle for everyday use, perhaps, but not fringe. Zero^talk 14:22, 10 December 2024 (UTC)

• Will this ever end? Andre now claims that removing one author from a bibliography with 200+ items means that I approve of another book in the list (which, incidentally, I looked at for the first time today)!! Zero^talk 14:22, 10 December 2024 (UTC)

One thing that ArbCom can do

Even though all ARBPIA articles come under ECR, 1/3 of edits there are made by non-EC editors. About 1/3 of those are reverted and some fraction of the others cause disruption. This nuisance could be eliminated by EC-protection, but the admins at RPP usually refuse to apply it if they can't see "ongoing disruption". As a result, the problem continues. I propose that the committee consider mechanisms to have more ARBPIA articles EC-protected. Zero^talk 14:33, 10 December 2024 (UTC)

Evidence presented by Selfstudier

A party -

Due to this AE case, together with this related AE case, being referred to Arbcom. Admin, @ScottishFinnishRadish: (SFR) made comments in the first case that I contested. Admin @Theleekycauldron: (Tlc) subsequently suggested I be warned for tag team editing (amended to edit warring), that I also contested. Then at the referral of those cases, admin @Barkeep: (BK) said "the discussion [at the AE case] ballooned to potential misconduct by multiple other editors. For me the editors whose conduct needs examining would be BilledMammal, Iskandar323, Nableezy, and Selfstudier" presumably referring to one or both of the admin comments above.

Origin -

This farrago originates with editing at Zionism producing an earlier AE case, closed by SFR on 11 July with "A bunch of socks/compromised accounts blocked. Further action related to anything here will need a separate report" and which is where the idea of an ARC(A) was first raised by SFR. Myself and others also considered the idea of filing for an ARC at that time. A number of the parties here were involved in that case including myself, Nableezy, BilledMammal, IOHANNVSVERVS, Levivich, Zero0000, Iskandar323, SFR, and tlc, This case highlighted the underlying tensions and the impact of socking in the topic area. With hindsight, matters perhaps ought to have been referred to Arbcom (by whatever method) at this juncture.

Conduct -

I do not consider that my conduct rises to a level that justifies sanctions, if a sanction for edit warring was justified, then that could have been done at the AE case in question or even outside of it for that matter. SFR asserted that their comments were not intended to lead to any sanction. I do not know if BK had anything else in mind when making their statement at referral. Nevertheless I am available for questioning in this regard, should anyone wish to pursue that.

Solutions -

Although I think the situation has become, willy nilly, rather overblown, I have some thoughts on how matters might be improved and may present them later in workshop. Selfstudier (talk) 12:49, 30 November 2024 (UTC)

Genocide of indigenous peoples/SFR evidence (22 diffs) - Summary Selfstudier (talk) 17:22, 2 December 2024 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Requests_for_comment/Gaza_Health_Ministry_qualifier/SFR evidence - RFC was proposed here, immediately endorsed by myself as well as by Levivich and SFR was asked to open it. Selfstudier (talk) 16:25, 6 December 2024 (UTC)

Evidence presented by ScottishFinnishRadish

Long-term edit warring, and edit warring to game STATUSQUO/ONUS is common. Stonewalling and multiple attempts at dispute resolution exhaust the community's will to engage

Genocide of indigenous peoples

1. Israel/Palestine added 31 March 24.
2. Immediately challenged 31 March 24.
3. Now it's an edit war 31 March 24.
4. Expanded section 31 March 24.
5. Removed again 23 May 24.
6. Restored again 23 May 24.
7. Removed again 24 May 24
8. RFC started 24 May 24.
9. Restored again 27 May 24.
10. Removed again 27 May 24.
11. Restored 27 May 24.
12. Removed 27 May 24.
13. Restored 27 May 24.
14. Full protected 27 May 24.
15. RFC closed as no consensus 21 June 24.
16. Removed per no-consensus 23 June 24.
17. Restored per no consensus 23 June 24.
18. Removed 23 June 24.
19. Restored 23 June 24.
20. I'm tired of listing these individually [2][3][4][5][6][7][8][9][10][11][12].
21. New RFC less than 2 months after previous 6 August 24.
22. RFC closed with roughly half the !votes of the earlier RFC 25 September 24

Very long term multi-party edit war that included trying to retain content in in order to set the status quo to leading to arguing after a no consensus close that since the immediately challenged material was in at the start it gets to stay in. Clear battleground, gaming STATUSQUO, violating ONUS, and with behavior that was complained about by other parties on other occassions, e.g. opening an RFC shortly after another RFC was closed. The community has limited energy to continuously engage with dispute resolution in this topic area, so frequent RFCs tend to draw diminishing returns until only invested editors remain. This leaves us with a LOCALCONSENSUS of the most invested editors.

1948 Arab-Israeli War diff formatting stolen from Barkeep's post at Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Enforcement/Archive343#Nableezy

1. 01:54, October 21, 2024 IOHANNVSVERVS removes
2. 02:00, October 21, 2024 Andrevan restores
3. 02:12, 21 October 2024 IOHANNVSVERVS opens talk page discussion
4. 13:48, October 26, 2024 Nableezy removes
5. 14:18, October 26, 2024 Alaexis restores
6. 03:45, October 27, 2024 Zero0000 removes
7. 04:19, October 27, 2024 Andrevan restores
8. 12:23, October 27, 2024 Makeandtoss removes
9. 21:17, October 27, 2024 Snowstormfigorion restores
10. 21:40, 27 October 2024 Andrean opens RFC

List of genocides It took an admin to step in and perform the difficult task of opening an RFC, which didn't end the edit war. Same issue as above where it is clear editors are trying to edit war to change the status quo.

1. 4 July 24
2. 8 July 24
3. 8 July 24
4. 8 July 24
5. 8 July 24
6. 18 July 24
7. 19 July 24
8. 19 July 24, I had to open an RFC, rather than any of the experienced editors involved
9. 23 July 24
10. 24 July 24
11. 25 July 24
12. 25 July 24, me hatting a tangent explicitly about gaming status quo through edit warring
13. 26 July 24
14. 26 July 24, reverted by me as an Arbitration enforcement action.

POV forks are created and maintained, stonewalling contributes

Articles are created as quickly as possible in the topic area as an affirmative consensus is needed to change the title once the article is created. This has led to POV forks. In this situation we have two articles created ~8 hours apart, one calling the event a rescue operation, the other calling it a massacre. Two months ago there was a consensus to merge. There were some edits made to merge, and the merge tags were removed, then reverted back. The other article was redirected and reverted as well, saying there needed to be discussion on the merge. After nearly two months this is the entirety of that discussion, and there has been no movement on eliminating the POV fork. Currently there are two articles on the same event, one calling it a rescue and massacre, the other just calling it a massacre. This had been remedied, but it was reverted with no specific reasons. Included below is the textdiff of the pertinent sections of the forks to demonstrate the similarity of coverage between articles. We're now six months into having this fork. This also gets at the issue of people rushing to create articles to provide framing from their POV.

textdiff of the merged POV forks

− Nuseirat rescue and massacre + Nuseirat refugee camp massacre − According to reports, "at least one of the vehicles" containing the three male captives broke down and the Israeli military called in support, "attacking from the air, from the sea and on the ground with massive force." At 11:27 a.m., a strike occurred near the building from which the three male hostages were rescued. Subsequently, the building was demolished by another strike. Shortly before noon, another strike demolished the building where Noa Argamani had been held captive. Eyal Shahtout, a resident of a neighboring building, informed The New York Times that his home was hit, resulting in many of his family members being buried under the debris. 18 of his family members were killed, including his wife, four children, and two grandchildren. The Israeli military did not provide an explanation for why the home was targeted. To the south of the hostage sites, a market was also struck. At 11:45 a.m., plumes of smoke were visible in downtown Nuseirat. Scores of local people, including children, were killed. According to a statement from Doctors without Borders, which works nearby at the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in Deir al-Balah, "there have been back-to-back mass casualties as densely populated areas are bombed. It’s way beyond what anyone could deal with in a functional hospital, let alone with the scarce resources we have here." The Al-Awda Hospital in Nuseirat was also overwhelmed with casualties, "including many children laid out in the corridors". The strikes destroyed "apartment buildings throughout" [the] "camp, according to witnesses and video footage". The UN human rights office said that both Israeli forces and Palestinian armed groups may have committed war crimes, citing potential "violations of rules of proportionality, distinction and precaution" in the case of the former and "holding hostages in densely populated areas" for the latter. + According to the IDF, after the Israeli forces had recovered the hostages, at least one of their vehicles broke down. The Israeli military then called in support, "attacking from the air, from the sea and on the ground with massive force." A witness in the camp reported a "crazy bombardment" occurred suddenly. Footage showed Palestinians in the market area diving for cover as missiles flew in and gunfire erupted, and a witness who had been in the marketplace stated that about 150 rockets fell at and around the market place in less than 10 minutes. According to witnesses and video footage, the strikes destroyed apartment buildings and even entire residential blocks throughout the camp. Per a resident and paramedic in the camp, the assault felt like a "horror movie" and that Israeli drones and warplanes fired randomly throughout the night at peoples' homes and those who tried to flee the area. One witness stated, "Anyone who was moving in the street was killed". Videos showed corpses with entrails spilling out lying on blood-stained streets, although Reuters was unable to immediately verify the footage. An Israeli drone commander reported that after an initial attack "to drive civilians away", Israel considered anyone who did not flee to be a "terrorist", even if they were unarmed. Many individual testimonies of eyewitnesses who survived the intense fire-fight have been collected, according to Mondoweiss. In the aftermath, one woman stated, "We don’t know where the children are. We lost them, and now we are being displaced for a third time with no idea where to go." Witnesses described being able to hear people buried under the rubble, but being unable to help rescue them. − The death toll resulting from the operation has been disputed. The Gaza Health Ministry stated on the same day as the operation that the number of victims "has risen to 210 martyrs and more than 400 wounded." Later that day the number was updated to 274 Palestinians killed during the operation with around 700 wounded. Tanya Haj-Hassan, a paediatric intensive care doctor with Doctors Without Borders, stated that Al-Aqsa hospital, where 109 Palestinians including 23 children and 11 women and over 100 wounded victims were transported, was a "complete bloodbath." Another 100 people killed in the attacks were taken to al-Awda hospital. It is not known how many combatants are included in these counts. According to the IDF, Hamas pays Palestinian families to hold the hostages in their houses, which may account for the high casualties. In addition, a large firefight occurred as IDF special forces were attempting to extract the hostages, reportedly coming under fire from dozens of militants with RPGs and machine guns when their vehicle became stuck. The IDF then called in airstrikes to cover their evacuation. The IDF estimates the number of casualties from the operation was “under 100.” According to Hamas spokesman Abu Obaida, the operation resulted in the deaths of several other Israeli hostages, which IDF spokesman Peter Lerner dismissed.The day after the operation, Hamas's armed wing uploaded a video to its Telegram channel appearing to show corpses of three hostages that were reportedly killed during the rescue operation. The faces of the corpses were obscured to prevent identification. A pedestrian bridge in Petah Tikva renamed in honor of Arnon Zamora who fell in the line of duty while rescuing four hostages held against their will in Nuseirat On the Israeli side, the operation resulted in the death of Yamam officer Chief Inspector Arnon Zamora. The rescue operation was renamed in his honor as "Operation Arnon", and a pedestrian bridge in Petah Tikva has been renamed "Operation Arnon Bridge". + Trucks and ambulances rushed wounded people to Al-Aqsa Hospital for treatment. Prior to the operation, the hospital had already been overwhelmed with civilian casualties. A Doctors Without Borders (MSF) representative described the situation at Al-Aqsa as a "nightmare." An MSF paediatric intensive care doctor at Al-Asqa stated the emergency department was a "complete bloodbath… it looks like a slaughterhouse". The same doctor stated only one generator at the hospital was functioning, meaning ventilators, lights, and the internet were not working. Another MSF doctor stated, "We had the gamut of war wounds, trauma wounds, from amputations... to [traumatic brain injuries], fractures and, obviously, big burns". Two weeks after the incident, many of the wounded remained in the hospital. Severely injured patients requiring advanced surgeries were unable to leave Gaza to receive them, due to Gaza's borders being closed. The total number of casualties are disputed, with Israeli and Palestinian totals differing drastically. The Gaza Health Ministry and local health officials stated at least 274 Palestinians were killed and 698 were wounded due to the Israeli rescue operation. Israeli military spokesperson Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari stated that Israel was aware of "under 100" Palestinians who had been killed in the operation. Neither the Health Ministry nor IDF clarified how many casualties were civilians. The Gazan Health Ministry reported that 64 children and 57 women were killed. According to Hamas, several Israeli hostages were killed in the Israeli attack. The group stated in a video clip that three hostages were killed during the operation, including an American. The Israeli military denied that any hostages were killed during the operation. − Allegations of the United States military constructed floating pier in Gaza being used in the IDF operation, were seen after a video showing an IDF helicopter taking off from the beach with the pier in the background began to circulate online on 8 June. Two United States officials responded to the claims, stating that the pier was only used for humanitarian aid and the helicopter was used to return the hostages into Israel and had landed south of the pier but not within the cordoned off area. The U.S. had promised aid groups the pier would be a no-go area for Israeli forces and the UN has put aid operations at the pier on hold while it investigates and decides whether the Israeli usage, real or apparent, of the pier facilities and the perception of that by Palestinians, mitigates against continued engagement at the pier. Oxfam and other aid organizations said they are waiting for answers from the U.S. government. + In the immediate aftermath of the operation, the United States was accused of allowing its humanitarian pier to be used by the IDF. This accusation arose after video footage showed an IDF helicopter taking off from a beach with the humanitarian-aid pier in the background. Two U.S. officials denied this. In a statement, the Pentagon spokesperson stated that Israeli helicopters used an area "near" the pier. Martin Griffiths, the UN humanitarian aid coordinator, stated that if the allegations were true, "they are very concerning, because they would put at risk any future humanitarian engagement in that operation". Both Israeli and American officials confirmed that U.S. intelligence assisted the Israeli military for its rescue.

Involved editors shut down good faith formal discussions and edit war over it

Gaza genocide RM [13][14][15][16][17][18]

Gaza genocide RM part deux [19] - [20] - There was an explicit consensus against a moratorium on move requests.

Israel–Hamas war RFC [21] - closed with the edit summary no discussion has taken place about these points, violating WP:RFCBEFORE. Questions in the RFC were Should the figures be attributed? Should the number of militants that Israel has stated they have killed be included? Should we describe the number of women and children killed as:... Should we describe those killed who are under the age of 18 as... This editor opened a discussion about including the number of militants the IDF says they killed, took part in a discussion about including the number of women killed in the lead, opened a discussion about including the proportion of women and children killed in the lead.

[22] - reclosed as no RFCBEFORE

WP:BATTLEGROUND

Along with the constant tag-team edit warring, involved actions that amount to stonewalling, and actual stonewalling there are constant assumptions of bad faith and aspersions. It's bad on article talk pages, but extends to AE/ARCA. Because of the BATTLEGROUND, editors show up to take pot shots at each other whenever an opportunity presents itself. You'll notice that people of all POVs accuse those with other POVs of doing the same thing their POV's side is being accused of. That's because it's true. It's the definition of battleground editing. See the above involved closure evidence for both sides doing the same thing and then doing that spiderman meme where both spidermans point at each other. It's also why the party list is a problem in this case, the problem behavior is incredibly widespread. Because it is difficult to take action against many of the editors, and because many admins are hesitant to sanction we're left with BATTLEGROUND being acceptable behavior, rather than you must edit carefully and constructively, refrain from disrupting the encyclopedia, and: adhere to the purposes of Wikipedia; comply with all applicable policies and guidelines; follow editorial and behavioural best practice.

• I think there is a strong case that Levivich should be prohibited from bringing users to AE until a case on those issues is held at ArbCom. They are wasting administrator and other user time at this point.
• But Levivich's participation in this topic area at this point and especially in AE regarding this topic area is no longer beneficial or constructive - and it's been that way for quite some time.
• People who apparently support Israel's current military actions keep forcing us to vote over and over and over regarding the same topic, with very brief breaks in-between, until they get their desired result
• Will point out the obvious hypocrisy by BilledMammal for forgetting that opening an RM a week or so after move review closed with your team losing is anything other than POV-pushing in the process.
• Effectively, these editors are saying that discussions that propose a change in favour of their POV are allowed, while discussions against their POV are not - and they are using tag-teaming unilateral involved closures and AE to try to enforce this.
• The most efficient way to handle it is to look at the RS, figure out which side is following the RS, and then checkuser the other side.
• Yes, I already saw your feeble excuse.
• I very rarely edit in this topic area and only looked into this table due to past experience with Billed Mammal and Kentucky Rain24 working in concert... This is also how I learned that 18% of BilledMammal's edits to mainspace have been reverted, which might be worth looking into.

This is just a small sample from a single AE report and the ARCA that preceded this case. It's so commonplace that it doesn't even elicit a shrug when it happens.

Wikipedia:Requests_for_comment/Gaza_Health_Ministry_qualifier

• 15 July 24 - I created an RFC because of numerous arguments across many pages, no involved editors escalated to higher tier DR
• 19 July 24 - removing a personal attack.
• 22 July 24 - moved to subpage
• 22 July 24 - requesting editors disengage, immediate pushback because someone else asked to disengage made more comments.
• The RFC continued constructively after that request, except..
• 15 August 24 - Series of edits showing further battleground and arguing unrelated to the outcome of the RFC.

Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Gaza Health Ministry qualifier#Responses to FortunateSons vote, moved down - includes 82 comments and ~4500 words from 7 editors about a single !vote out of 55. Includes gems like this constructive exchange, calling Germany's newspaper's behavior facist and pitiful (that editor later reported another for calling sources antisemitic propaganda), and a tangent hatted here.

Evidence presented by Nableezy

Editor behavior at Use of human shields by Hamas

An article was spun out of Human shield#Israeli–Palestinian conflict focused solely on accusations against one party. When I first arrived at that article, it was in this state. I found the article, and the lead especially, to be both distorting the overall balance of sources and just poorly written. After beginning a discussion on the talk page (here), AndreJustAndre replied to an editor both "refrain from personalizing the dispute" and making the outrageous attack that they "clearly sympathize more with Hamas' POV". That in response to attempting to follow sources like Amnesty International. I rewrote the lead entirely (here), and another editor added material that was indeed reliably sourced but was also false. I attempted to show that it was false on the talk page, Andre's response was it's false according to you, and nobody else. The editor who previously inserted the material engaged in good faith with my argument, and analyzed the source themself and came to the same conclusion, that we were stating something in the lead that simply was not true (see their analysis here and them removing the material from the article here.) A week later, BilledMammal blanket reverted all the changes that had been made, saying simply new lead not an improvement. They never engaged on the talk page, despite my raising the issue in the section I had opened. In sum, AndreJustAndre made a series of pedantic claims without engaging in the substance of the argument, and a personal attack about another editor supposedly "sympathiz[ing] more with Hamas' POV", though to their credit they did not directly place false material in to the aticle. BilledMammal completely ignored the discussion and issues raised to make a revert that reinserted both POV issues and false statements into the lead of the article. Im sure somebody will claim my rewrite introduced POV issues, but I feel confident in my editing on this topic in that I yes removed things that did not belong but I also am the one who added material that conflicts with the supposed POV of "sympathiz[ing] with Hamas' POV". Eg here or here.

Socks of banned users

Socks of banned users continue to have an outsized influence on the topic, both in raising the temperature and in content discussions. For example, two Icewhiz socks are responsible for 30% of the content at 2024 Hezbollah headquarters strike and one is responsible for 60% of Palestinian suicide attacks. The 2021 RFC that temporarily deprecated Counterpunch had participation by 5 IW socks and a NoCal100 sock. A series of compromised accounts lobbied for sanctions against a long time IW target here. Yes, we are all responsible for our reactions to provocations, but I cant seriously believe that anybody cant see that over and over editors who never actually face any sanctions because they just make a new account and start up again are antagonizing editors and attempting to bait them into a response that will generate a sanction. You can look at the archives of both the NoCal100 and Icewhiz SPIs to see the series of editors that have started fires and then tried to have somebody banned for getting too hot under the collar.

RM evidence

Regarding the claim of POV warrior behaviour by FOARP, I think that is an incredibly tendentious reading of the pattern. Seeking an equitable standard is not POV pushing. When the standard being used for "massacre" is based on the number of Israelis killed, and that standard is followed repeatedly when Israelis are killed, I voted to maintain that same standard for the killings of Palestinians. When later that standard was rejected for Palestinians, despite repeatedly being used when Israelis were killed, I sought to follow the standard imposed for Palestinians killed for articles on the killings of Israelis. FOARP's evidence demonstrates one thing, that we have one standard for calling something a massacre when Israelis are killed and another for when Palestinians are killed. And that editors are perfectly fine with that standard, so much so that an editor who wants a uniform standard is called a POV warrior. I reject that claim outright, and further the POV pushing is coming from those seeking to impose two separate standards. When 20 Israelis are killed, oh of course it is a massacre. When 100 Palestinians are killed, dear no, can't have that.

Response to evidence by Eladkarmel

I admit there have been times I have responded in a way I wish I had not, and I apologized for the grammar is garbage line, and I withdrew the comment to the admin on pretending to give a shit. I was sanctioned for my tone last year and Ive attempted to moderate that since. Im not sure what else I can do other than to say I will continue to do my best to not fall in to similar behavior in the future. But I do think that evidence demonstrates another issue here, that users back up sockpuppets when they agree with them. There isnt a single user who questioned the block of CarmenEsparzaAmoux or attempted to deflect from the fact that they were a sock of a blocked user. But in this very submission we have Elad arguing that multiple socks of banned users should not have been blocked. The same is true at SPI, where ABHammad repeatedly attempts to distract from the purpose of an SPI investigation, eg here or here. NoCal100 SPIs are routinely disrupted by involved users backing up an editor they agree with, for example this one needed a CU to hat off-topic bickering. Sockpuppetry is bad and we should all be opposed to it, but that does not seem to be the practice when it comes to at least those two banned users and their socks.

Zionism, race and genetics move

As Tryptofish recommended people read that move request, what I found striking are comments by AndreJustAndre like this one challenging a source partially because it is by a Palestinian, and when challenged on that doubling down saying that a sources ethnicity is relevant because because she's a Palestinian nationalist with an anti-Israel POV. Comments that would never fly if made about Jewish authors are commonplace when the target is Palestinian.

Evidence presented by FOARP

Some of the parties repeatedly take opposing positions on whether an article should be titled "massacre", seemingly dependent on which "side" the term favours

In identified I-P RM discussion involving the term "massacre", the !votes of the parties were:

Netiv HaAsara attack → Netiv HaAsara massacre RM (10 Oct 2023 - I)

• Iskandar323 - oppose

Nahal Oz massacre → Nahal Oz attack RM (6 November 2023 - I)

• Iskandar323 - support
• Selfstudier - support

Nirim massacre → Nirim attack RM (14 Nov 2023 - I)

• Iskandar323 - support(nom)

Nir Yitzhak massacre → Nir Yitzhak attack (10 Jan 2024 - I)

• Iskandar323 - support

Holit massacre → Holit attack RM (10 Jan 2024 - I):

• Iskandar323 - support
• Nableezy - support
• Selfstudier - support

Kissufim massacre → Kissufim attack RM (8 March 2024 - I)

• Iskandar323 - support

Engineer's Building strike and massacre → Engineer's Building airstrike RM (7 April 2024 - P)

• BilledMammal - support
• Iskandar323 - oppose
• Nableezy - oppose

Nir Oz massacre → Nir Oz attack RM (1 June 2024 - I)

• BilledMammal - support
• Iskandar323 - support
• Nableezy - support
• Selfstudier - support

Nuseirat refugee camp massacre → Killing of civilians during Nuseirat raid and rescue RM (12 June 2024 - P)

• Selfstudier - arguing oppose

Al-Tabaeen school attack → Al-Tabaeen school massacre RM (10 Aug 2024 - P):

• Iskandar323 - support
• Ïvana - support
• Selfstudier - support
• Makeandtoss - support

2024 Nuseirat rescue operation → Nuseirat rescue and killings RM (12 Oct 2024 - P)

• BilledMammal - comment opposing "massacre"
• Ivana - support "massacre"
• Selfstudier - support "massacre"
• Makeandtoss - support "massacre"

Tel al-Sultan attack → ? RM (3 Nov 2024 - P)

• Ïvana - support massacre
• Selfstudier - arguing "massacre"
• IOHANNVSVERVS - arguing "massacre"
• Makeandtoss - support massacre

This shows a pattern of POV-warriorism. Whether or not the article will be a "massacre" depends on whether it's an "I" article or a "P" article. There's only one instance of a party voting against "their" camp (Billedmammal in Nir Oz).

For Iskandar323, in Netiv HaAsara it mattered whether reliable EN-language sources used the "Massacre”. In Hollit they condemned "arguments [based] on independent reasoning over the nature of the event, not the sourcing". But in Kissufim/Engineer's Building they engaged in independent reasoning. In Al-Tabaeen they're citing Mondoweiss/Middle East Monitor. The pattern that emerges is POVwarriorism, the only thing consistent is the party to the I-P conflict they favour.

For Nableezy, in the Holit it’s based on WP:COMMONNAME, but in Engineer's Building it's based on the number killed. In Nir Oz saying "This system in which arguments that are at odds with each other are accepted depending solely on the ethnicity of the victims is horseshit". Again, this is the editing of a POVwarrior seeking to WP:RIGHTGREATWRONGS.

For Selfstudier, in Nahal Oz it's about the sources. In Nir Oz they say "If it were down to me I would do away with "massacre" terminology altogether... The exception should be only when the weight of sourcing actually names it as massacre", but then in Nuseirat/Tel al-Sultan they abandon that "weight"/"naming" standard and !vote based on statements by officials and the fact that the "M" word is being used by sources at all. They're facially civil, but still POV pushing, engaging in WP:BATTLEGROUND behaviour in order to "score points". (talk) 12:48, 4 December 2024 (UTC)

Evidence presented by Butterscotch Beluga

Stonewalling, edit warring, & general long-term issues - Zionism talk page

I'm not a party to this case, however I believe the Zionism talk page should be given particular attention as a potential microcosm of the topic at hand.

Note: This only covers talk page issues & only those that stuck out to me personally. Listed users are those who are parties to this case or were blocked as socks, other users participated in all listed disputes.

June

• "Colonial project?" - A several month long thread involving 10 parties to this case along with 6 blocked socks.

(Selfstudier, האופה, Iskandar323, Zero0000, Levivich, Nableezy, IOHANNVSVERVS, Makeandtoss, Nishidani, & AndreJustAndre) + (Kentucky Rain24, Galamore, 916crdshn, ABHammad, & O.maximov + האופה)

July

• "Apropos this revert and accompanying threat" - an edit war involving 7 parties to this case along with 5 blocked socks.

(Selfstudier, Iskandar323, Zero0000, Nableezy, IOHANNVSVERVS, Nishidani, & Makeandtoss) + (Galamore, O.maximov, Kentucky Rain24, ABHammad, & Icebear244 - [23])

August

• "Revert" - A revert by a blocked sock (O.maximov), causing discussion for ~3 days involving 5 party members.

(Selfstudier, Levivich, Nableezy, Nishidani, & IOHANNVSVERVS)

September

• "Language in the lead - Consensus??" - ~6 days & 4 party members + 1 blocked sock

(Selfstudier, Levivich, Nishidani, & AndreJustAndre) + (ABHammad)

• "NPOV balance issue in lead" - ~14 days & 4 party members

(Selfstudier, Levivich, Nishidani, & AndreJustAndre)

• "Best sources" - ~13 days & 4 party members

(Selfstudier, Levivich, Nishidani, & AndreJustAndre)

October

• "The rest of Line 1?" - ~3 days & 6 party members

(Selfstudier, Zero0000, Nableezy, Levivich, Nishidani, & AndreJustAndre)

• "Is zionism "considered" settler colonialism, or is it "criticized" as such?" ~3 days & 5 party members

(Selfstudier, Zero0000,, Levivich, Nishidani, & AndreJustAndre)

• "The lead?" - ~11 days & 4 party members + 1 blocked sock

(Selfstudier, Levivich, Nishidani, & AndreJustAndre) + (ABHammad)

• "NPOV tag dispute" - ~12 days & 4 party members

(Selfstudier, Levivich, Nishidani, & AndreJustAndre)

• "Scope" - On & off for ~a month & 5 party members

(Selfstudier, Zero0000,, Levivich, Nishidani, & AndreJustAndre)

• "WP:SYNTH in lead" - On & off for ~a month & 5 party members

(Selfstudier, Zero0000, Nableezy, Levivich, & AndreJustAndre)

Current - There are several ongoing sections on the talk page as well

I hope this compilation can be at all useful. - Butterscotch Beluga (talk) 23:53, 2 December 2024 (UTC)

Edit: Updated to include recently blocked socks. - Butterscotch Beluga (talk) 19:43, 13 December 2024 (UTC)

Edit 2: Updated again include Nishidani. - Butterscotch Beluga (talk) 21:50, 15 December 2024 (UTC)

Evidence presented by Aquillion

POV forks

Numerous POV forks and articles with obvious POV problems have been created:

• Calls for the destruction of Israel, created here; AFD, RM
• Denial of the 7 October Hamas-led attack on Israel, created here, no-consensus deletion discussions here and here
• Israeli humanitarian aid to Gaza (since deleted)
• Use of human shields by Hamas, created here; AFD, RM1, RM2
• Kissufim massacre, created here. RM

External coverage

These are what I found going over Google News for coverage of Wikipedia + Zionism, Israel or Palestine, looking for articles that seemed to either be describing or pushing for factional editing on Wikipedia. Note that none of these links are endorsements (some of these are clearly not RSes, and a few are even deprecated); they're intended to show the sorts of things editors who end up on these pages are often reading. I've included some more out-there ones because people are almost certainly reading these and then coming to Wikipedia and because the fact that such sources may be directing people here is significant. Also note that these lean towards representing one side over the other; that's just what I found and I'd presume it represents English-language bias more than anything else.

• The Guardian: [24]
• AISH: [25], discussed on-wiki here.
• JNS: [26][27]
• Jerusalem Post: [28](opinion), [29][30]
• Jewish Insider: [31]
• Haaretz: [32]
• Informed Comment: [33]
• Almayadeen: [34]
• Times of Israel: [35] (blog)
• Algemeiner: [36]
• Jewish Journal: [37]
• Mintpress: [38]
• PirateWires: [39] - was the source for many of the above; discussed repeatedly on Wikipedia, [40][41][42][43][44] (note the last was an IceWhiz sock)

Also see the {{Press}} and high-traffic templates on Zionism and Israel-Hamas War.

Problems with new / inexperienced users

While discussion naturally focuses on the most active users, significant disruption in the topic-area comes from editors who have only recently passed the 50/300 threshold, or ones with few edits in the topic area otherwise; and many of the edits reverted under ECR were non-constructive or had serious problems.

Edit-warring

• [45][46][47]
• [48][49][50]
• [51][52]
• [53][54][55]

Personal attacks / unconstructive WP:FORUM stuff

• [56]
• [57]
• [58]
• [59]
• [60]
• [61]

Sock / Meat issues

• Icebear244: Blocked as a compromised account; had suddenly resumed editing in a wildly divergent style after years of inactivity. (Possible IceWhiz sock; was never taken to SPI, presumably due to obviousness of the compromise.)

The topic area has several highly active recurring sockmasters or networks of socks:

• Icewhiz
• NoCal100
• AndresHerutJaim
• Irtapil

Evidence presented by Eladkarmel

Until recently, I was very active on English Wikipedia, but the distortions, bullying, endless personal attacks, constant scrutiny of every edit and every word, and nitpicking led me to take a step back and focus on Hebrew Wikipedia (where I recently became a "Patroller").

Evidence

I experienced attacks on Wikipedia and witnessed attacks on other Israeli editors.

• Nableezy in edit summary: grammar is trash
• Nableezy: "you just added that bullshit"
• Nableezy: "Maybe you can get somebody to write the report for you in impeccable English again"

Even admins are treated with disrespect. Which erodes trust in the system.

• Nableezy: "if you want to pretend to give a shit about the things that matter here"
• Selfstudier: "please find another rabbit to hunt"

I was accused of sockpuppetry and saw that many editors, both new and veteran, who added content supporting Israeli perspectives were similarly accused.

• SPI against me and Atbannett In general, I recommend delving deeper into this page. Look at the people who were suspected of being Tombah and review their edits in other languages – there's absolutely no chance it's him!
• Another case
• Makeandtoss wants to block someone solely for being a librarian at the National Library of Israel. here
• Generally, over the past six months, there has been a wave of complaints against new Israeli users. Some of them I have also seen active on Hebrew Wikipedia, including user:Galamore, user:מתיאל, user:OdNahlawi, User:Owenglyndur, User:Dovidroth, and many are now topic banned. The complaints were varied: sometimes copyright violations, sometimes sockpuppetry, and others. The result – there are hardly any Israeli editors left in the space. Hebrew Wikipedia is one of the most developed Wikipedias relative to the number of native speakers. There are excellent editors. Is it possible that when they transition to English Wikipedia, they suddenly become bad or violators? To me, that seems highly unlikely.

There are also aggressive remarks often coming from just one side of the debate, making people like me who are identified as Israeli, or generally don't agree with what some very dominant editors here believe, feel unwelcome here:

• Nableezy with inflamatory comments: 1, 2, 3
• M.Bitton it's not like the Zionists don't have a very long history of lying
• RolandR: "I do wish for the end of Zionism and the dismantling of Israel's colonial settler society"
• Nishidani: "religio-fascist landgrabbers"
• Nishidani: "lebensraum"
• Trillettrollet Zionism is the cult of death
• Levivich last gasps of Zionism
• Valjean rabid Zionists
• Selfstudier another 7 october branding, turn October 7 into a brand

It's time to address this issue and stop giving undue consideration to the seniority of editors, especially if they are obsessive and create a hostile atmosphere in the space. Even if this requires tough decisions, it’s worth it. Eladkarmel (talk) 14:13, 4 December 2024 (UTC)

Response to Nableezy

Your statement "arguing that multiple socks of banned users should not have been blocked" is false. In no way do I support sockpuppetry. I'm saying that Israelis are overtargeted and discriminated against, even in the SPI process. People were accused in the past, including myself, for violating things, without real evidence. I find it deeply problematic that almost every Israeli here faces intimidation, accusations, and gets banned.

I'm against sockpuppetry just as much as I am against assuming bad faith by asking every new pro-israeli editor: Have you used any other account on Wikipedia?

Evidence presented by Andre🚐

Response to Nableezy

The diff is from a year ago. Subsequently I served a topic ban; I did not appeal, and served the whole duration and more before returning. I admit that the statement from 2023 is inartful at best. What I meant was that the editor was taking a sympathetic stance toward a POV of one of the actors in the conflict relative to a question of substance of content. I did not intend to accuse them of being a "sympathizer," and can see how that might be inflammatory, raising the temperature. Since returning from the ban, I have tried not to raise the temperature.

See also this, here. From Oct 2023.

Nableezy fails to grasp that others might disagree rationally

Nableezy assumes bad faith and believes that others interpreting things differently must be invalid/problematic:

• Accused me of gaming, disruptive and TE. There is no evidence; I simply started an RFC as was prompted by SFR. [62][63][64]

• Nothing exists in parity with both "sides" here, because the people arguing here are not each arguing from the opposing viewpoints. One group is, across a range of articles, pushing nationalist, revisionist in some cases, denialist in others, talking points. Nobody is even attempting to push the opposing nationalist viewpoints. Nobody. And thats part of what makes His Adminship SFR's peculiar understanding of what is battlegrounding so silly. He seems to think calling tendentious, mendacious bullshit out for being tendentious, mendacious bullshit is "battlegrounding". He thinks that means my interest is "beating" whoever...

  [65]

• lol yall wild. Nish, if this is enough to say fuck this place for good I get it, feel similarly tbh.

  [66]
• [67]
• [68]
• [69]
• [70]
• [71]
• [72]

Zero0000 replaces reliable source with cn tag

See [73][74], Zero0000 argues that Gilbert, a famous historian is unreliable, due to his own research or opinions, and that Yegar and Israeli are polemicists simply because they are Israeli historians, stating:

There is lots and lots of arrant rubbish copied from polemic book to polemic book, and it is our job to weed it out, not to force it into articles on the excuse "so-and-so is a reliable source" or because lots of polemic authors have repeated it. I can show you lists of pogroms that never happened and more

• Perhaps "Israeli historians" is not accurate and I should write "pro-Israeli historians," but the material has sufficient WEIGHT. Zero0000 also claims that Karsh another reputable Israeli and pro-Israeli historian, is FRINGE. What is fringe about him?

• I fail to see the relevance of the pogroms to removing Gilbert due to original research and replacing with a cn tag, and rejecting all of the additional sources writing about the same thing as polemical due to their politics. I do not see how the ADL, a source unreliable for antisemitism, relates to whether Gilbert is acceptably enough true, or whether removing the source is merited. We agreed Felice was the best source, and he largely supported Gilbert, so how is it reasonable to remove altogether, and replace with a cn tag? Had I not restored and did a search for sources, that material could be removed by now, even though Felice supports the description except for slightly different dating.

• Yes, the topic is 19th century, but it pertains to antisemitism in the Arab world and Jewish refugees, the topic on the 1948 dispute. "Pro-Israel" applies to Karsh, if you don't think it applies to Yegar/Israeli, pro-Jewish then, or anti-Arab? I'm not engaging in "deception," I'm saying that on the basis of their credentials, they are reliable for facts, yet have a political position on antisemitism and the Jewish people in the Arab world. "Pro-Israel" may not be the description, but is not "deception." This is related, and doesn't explain how we got "list of pogroms that didn't happen" which is inappropriate, since these events did happen.
• Zero accuses me of lying instead of interrogating a disagreement of interpretation or a misunderstanding. That is endemic to the topic area, and inappropriate/problematic for several reasons. The 19th c. burning of synagogues is related to the refugee crisis and settlement from North Africa in Israel. Zero states elsewhere they believe any usage of antisemitism is an opinion, and should never be stated as fact in Wikivoice.[75] Someone with such a strong belief that differs greatly from the mainstream should only be editing controversial pages with extreme care.

Considering Alam, etc but not Dershowitz

See [76], [77]. Levivich considers Alam, a non-expert economist, and law school deans reliable sources on Zionism and history of democracy respectively, despite not being historians of Middle East, Zionism, Judaism, Arab World, the Arab-Israeli Conflict (or American history in the parallel conversation). Yet, he rejects the use of similarly but reverse-polarized activist academic author Dershowitz out of hand with the statement, "Oh hell no."

• I consider neither a best source on Zionism.
• See also [78] (Zero0000), yet Alam was on the list
• [79] anyone who cites Karsh must be a sock (Levivich)
• [80] Removed sources clearly about Zionism because they "focus on Israel."
• [81] [82] [83]
• [84]
• Alam is a non-expert and fringe. His view: "resistance to the colonizer must be violent."[85]

1948 Palestinian expulsion and flight

Despite a move review inconclusive, and an RM inconclusive, another RM was filed despite nothing having changed, resulting in a different result (WP:CCC). Later, relitigation is complained of.

Response to Bluethricecreamman

See talk, SPI, here. A good faith newbie making improvements got bitten, I tried to help and give advice, which is not against any rule or guideline. This event reflects more poorly on the people biting the newbie.

• At the time, editor was permitted to edit ARBECR and was not violating it. Later, he got combative, and stopped heeding my advice, but plenty of unproductive back-and-forth with other users contributed to his meltdown. I eventually no longer could help as my comments show. I discouraged the antics, and he took feedback at first.

[86][87][88][89][90][91][92]trims; updated Andre🚐 01:01, 16 December 2024 (UTC)

Evidence presented by Chess

Ivana operated an offsite influence campaign

In addition to private evidence, three news articles have acknowledged Ivana's role in an offwiki group that promoted pro-Palestinian points of view on Wikipedia. [93][94][95]

Following of BilledMammal

BilledMammal, was granted rollback permissions on November 8, 2024 and used them to mass-revert a sockpuppet.[96] Makeandtoss followed BM to WP:RFPP and argued that the permission was wrongly granted, despite WP:ROLLBACKUSE explicitly allowing mass-reversion of edits made by banned users in violation of their ban. AN thread Chess (talk) (please mention me on reply) 03:37, 9 December 2024 (UTC)

Evidence presented by Crossroads

The little I have waded into this topic has been strange and off-putting. At Talk:Zionism I commented what I felt was a helpful critique of the lead and its phrasing and gaps in coverage. [97] Selfstudier curtly dismissed it. [98] Levivich dismissed it by saying that I should have to read all the sources cited first before commenting, [99] a standard they did not see need for when themselves commenting on an unrelated topic and its lead. [100]

See also this diff by Levivich, [101] where they invent a bizarre parable equating Israeli Jews to future "Martian Ukrainians" claiming a right to Crimea and calling it fucking crazy. They then assert that peace and reconciliation in the Israel/Palestine conflict will not occur until the diaspora demands it, [102] thus holding Jews in general responsible for the policies of the State of Israel. Scholarship has identified this as a form of antisemitism. [103] Also, the agency and responsibility of groups such as Hamas are entirely erased in this prescription. Crossroads ^-talk- 00:59, 7 December 2024 (UTC)

Evidence presented by Sean.hoyland

Preamble

I'm not planning to submit anecdotal evidence about interactions with or between specific editors in the topic area for a couple of reasons.

• There are tens of thousands making hundreds of thousands of edits involving countless interactions. Only selecting specific interactions with specific editors that I've noticed is not useful in my view, unless they can help find solutions that might be worth trying that can be applied to all editors who want to edit in the topic area and all pages.
• As one of the (checks notes)...top 30 pro-Hamas editors who hijacked the Israel-Palestine narrative in Wikipedia...there is a risk that my anecdotal evidence would be sampled from only one of the cohorts that make up the PIA editing community. Obviously, this can happen when you have a narrative to hijack. Sean.hoyland (talk) 09:20, 9 December 2024 (UTC)

A bit of context

I would like to provide a bit of context to try to show how much of the topic area's activities this case covers and does not cover. This is for the 2023-10-07 to 2024-10-06 period based on Zero0000's slightly expanded definition of the topic area used for the statistics they presented.

Named parties made...

• ...about 25,000 edits to articles in the topic area, roughly 10% of the edits to article space in that period.
• ...about 29,000 edits to article talk pages in the topic area, roughly 28% of the talk page edits.

Unnamed parties

• Non-extendedconfirmed actors made over 32,000 edits to articles and over 21,000 edits to article talk pages during the same period.
• Accounts blocked for sockpuppetry made over 18,000 edits to articles and almost 3000 edits to talk pages during the same period.

Sean.hoyland (talk) 09:20, 9 December 2024 (UTC)

Deception rates - PIA vs Wikipedia in general

I tried to compare ban evasion rates in the PIA topic area vs Wikipedia in general (based on 1 million randomly sampled articles) for the 2018 to present period using 2 metrics.

• Percentage of revisions by blocked ban evading actors
• Percentage of blocked ban evading actors

The results suggest a couple of things.

• The probability that an account active in PIA is a sock is only a little bit higher than for Wikipedia in general.
• The probability that a revision in PIA is by a sock is significantly higher than for Wikipedia in general.

Caveats

• Socks in PIA are generally not SPAs, they make on average less than 20% of their revisions in the topic area.
• There will always be many undetected socks not included in the stats.

So, it seems the impact of socks on articles in the topic area is significantly higher than for Wikipedia in general. Sean.hoyland (talk) 11:28, 21 December 2024 (UTC)

Observations

Regarding Boksi's statement about "a phenomena in an incredibly huge scale that shows articles in a way that is biased against Israel". The approximation currently being used to describe the "topic area" contains 5659 articles. Boksi's statement is therefore limited to a small subset of things they have noticed. Also, regarding people staying away from the topic area. Data has already been presented that suggests that the topic area is more attractive to editors than Wikipedia in general. Sean.hoyland (talk) 15:01, 20 December 2024 (UTC)

Evidence presented by Simonm223

Definition of antisemitism has become a major flashpoint

• This is largely the original start of this conflict.
• On December 7 Chess created this thread on RS/N
• Chess mentions that the issue of their definition of antisemitism was also brought up during reliability discussions of Times of Israel and Jewish chronicle.
• The outcomes of these cases represent three entirely different possibilities. The RfC for ToI was closed with "generally reliable" the recent discussion of Jewish Chronicle went to archive with no clear consensus. The RfC on ADL was very heated and closed with quite an intricate closing statement that can be summed up that the ADL is unreliable for Israel / Palestine issues.
• My belief is that WP:GREL is causing more harm than good in the Israel / Palestine article set as almost no news sources are consistently reliable on this war.
• Chess has asserted that The arguing about whether the ADL wrongly labelled Palestinian protestors as antisemitic added the vast majority of the wordcount, but didn't contribute much to the discussion. which is a statement I would vehemently agree with despite our different views on GREL as a standard.
• I am, however, concerned that introducing sources that propose pro-Palestinian activists are de-facto or broadly antisemitic such as here, the content I removed here (could not find the edit where it was originally included), arguably here and many other places represent serious issues both for WP:DUE and WP:AGF. The sense that people who support Palestinian resistance are engaging in an antisemitic activity is, in my opinion, a major contributor to the battleground mentality that SFR mentions above. Simonm223 (talk) 16:51, 10 December 2024 (UTC)

  Additional examples that recently came up at AE of accusations of antisemitism against editors:

  [104], [105], [106], [107]. Simonm223 (talk) 14:46, 16 December 2024 (UTC)

Evidence by Barkeep49

Below is a list of every AE report closed in 2024 (as of the date of this posting). This word counter was used; in my spot checking it is accurate for sections but is off for the discussion as a whole (up to 15% more words); it is consistently enough off that reports can still be compared to each other but should not be mixed with counts for editors/admins. x means a person participated in that discussion. The number after a / is the number of words by that editor/the uninvolved admins. # of participants does not count filer/person report is filed about/sanctioning admin; it does count someone sanctioned who was not one of those things.

	Wikieditor19920	Nableezy appeal	dovidroth	CanterburyUK	Eastern but not so Middle	Sakiv	Makeandtoss	Irtapil
AE Outcome	Indefed	Tban reduced	Appeal declined	Indeffed	Indeffed	Appeal declined	Warning	Tban
BilledMammal							x (filer) / 936	x (filer) / 905
Iskandar323
Ïvana
Levivich		x / 538
Nableezy		x / 1710
Selfstudier								x / 15
האופה
AndreJustAndre
IOHANNVSVERVS			x / 173
Alaexis
Zero0000		x / 296	x / 146			x / 80	x / 119
Makeandtoss							x / 1121
Snowstormfigorion
Nishidani
# of participants	1	14	7	0	0	2	3	2
# of uninvolved admins	3 / 233	7 / 875	4 + 1 arb / 257	7 / 992	1 / 30	3 / 125	3 / 736	4 / 743
# of days open	<1	6	4	7	<1	5	2	7
Approx. # of words	~781	~9175	~2554	~2496	~455	~966	~3231	~3194

	Nishidani	Sameboat	Salmoonlight	Bakbik1234 appeal	Kashmiri	Nicoljaus	Crampcomes	Christsos
AE Outcome	Nishidani warned; Drsmoo topic banned	DR and EW reminder	Salmon tban; Participants reminded: gaming and aspersions	Appeal declined	1 wk tban	Indef	1 wk block 6 mo tban	ECR warning
BilledMammal		x (filer) / 752	x (filer) / 715		x (filer) / 183	x / 117	x / 98	x / 298
Iskandar323
Ïvana
Levivich	x / 485
Nableezy	x / 979	x / 475	x / 538
Selfstudier	x / 69					x (filer) / 172	x / 23
האופה
AndreJustAndre
IOHANNVSVERVS	x / 581
Alaexis
Zero0000	x / 74	x / 241	x / 31
Makeandtoss			x / 244
Snowstormfigorion
Nishidani	x / 717
# of participants	14	5	8	2	0	1	2	1
# of uninvolved admins	8 / 1874	2 / 212	3 / 1299	2 / 221	1 / 130	1 / 45	2 / 228	2 / 255
# of days open	6	5	9	2	1	2	1	10
Approx. # of words	~8291	~2687	~4721	~621	~478	~404	~1061	~586

	Entropyandvodka	76.53.254.138	Dylanvt	Melvintickle16	AtikaAtikawa	Makeandtoss and M.Bitton	Galamore	אקעגן appeal
AE Outcome	1RR warning	2 wk block	1rr warning	indef (regular admin)	1 wk block	M&t final warning trouts to others	Cautioned	Sanction expired Subsequent 1 wk block
BilledMammal	x (filer) / 452		x (filer) / 182			x (filer) / 974	x / 302
Iskandar323
Ïvana
Levivich
Nableezy						x / 583
Selfstudier					x / 43	x / 572	x / 24	x / 177
האופה
AndreJustAndre
IOHANNVSVERVS
Alaexis
Zero0000						x / 129	x / 9
Makeandtoss						x / 1972
Snowstormfigorion
Nishidani
# of participants	0	0	1	1	3	10	3	4
# of uninvolved admins	2 / 252	2 / 138	1 / 483	0	2 / 120	6 + 1 arb / 3548	3 / 834	2 / 233
# of days open	10	1	3	<1	10	28	25	9
Approx. # of words	~1407	~725	~1008	~583	~1512	~9615	~1922	~1225

	JDiala	Skitash	Dylanvt	KronosAlight	Monopoly31121993(2)	Peleio Aquiles	Trilletrollet	Waterlover3
AE Outcome	Tban	Skitash and Stephan rostie reminded	Warning	Warning	Tban	Tban	Warning	indef (regular admin)
BilledMammal	x / 172	x / 89	x (filer) / 875	x / 252			x / 486
Iskandar323					x / 117		x / 301
Ïvana
Levivich								x / 253
Nableezy
Selfstudier	x / 33	x / 40	x / 123	x / 66	x (filer) / 147	x / 131		x / 48
האופה
AndreJustAndre
IOHANNVSVERVS
Alaexis
Zero0000
Makeandtoss	x / 82
Snowstormfigorion
Nishidani
# of participants	15	2	2	2	3	3		4
# of uninvolved admins	2 / 384	1 / 156	4 / 1667	4 / 440	4 / 933	3 / 608	2 / 434	4 / 933
# of days open	7	4	16	13	5	4	3	1
Approx. # of words	~3407	~741	~5046	~1845	~2960	~2013	~2768	~1720

	Nishidani	Amayorov	JoeJShmo	Tobyw87	JoeJShmo appeal	ABHammad	GreekParadise	Astropulse
AE Outcome	Socks blocked; Separate report needed	No action	tban: 6 mo + 1000 edits	Tban	Appeal declined	0RR	1 wk pblock	1 wk pblock
BilledMammal	x / 486				x / 218			x (filer) / 246
Iskandar323	x / 204					x / 981
Ïvana
Levivich	x / 1149					x (filer) / 1791
Nableezy	x / 778		x / 43			x / 85
Selfstudier			x / 28		x / 106	x / 346
האופה
AndreJustAndre
IOHANNVSVERVS	x / 30 (204)	x (filer) / 324
Alaexis
Zero0000	x / 177
Makeandtoss
Snowstormfigorion
Nishidani	x / 2199
# of participants	21 (+1 sock)	0	3	1	5	10	0	3
# of uninvolved admins	13 / 3922	1 / 181	4 / 378	2 / 95	4 / 270	3 / 780	1 / 28	1 / 123
# of days open	7	3	6	3	10	9	2	2
Approx. # of words	~13,124	820	~2156	~978	~2787	~5493	~314	~1401

	Ytyerushalmi	Givengo1	Oleg Yunakov	Emdosis appeal	Astropulse appeal	Bajaria	O.maximov	3E1I5S8B9RF7
AE Outcome	1 wk pblock	Sockpuppet	No action	Moot	Declined	2d block	Warning	Warning
BilledMammal			x / 114	x / 191				x / 274
Iskandar323
Ïvana
Levivich							x (filer) / 2011	x (filer) / 829
Nableezy							x / 258
Selfstudier	x / 36			x / 71				x / 259
האופה
AndreJustAndre
IOHANNVSVERVS
Alaexis
Zero0000				x / 288
Makeandtoss
Snowstormfigorion
# of participants	1	1	2	3	1	1	6	5
# of uninvolved admins	3 / 381	2 / 211	2 / 156	3 / 198	4 / 1047	1 / 38	3 / 1465	3 / 360
# of days open	10	<1	9	16	7	2	12	9
Approx. # of words	~1127	~792	~1377	~1206	~2345	~860	~5915	~3080

	האופה	Bluethricecreamman	Bajaria - 2	PeleYoetz	Silvertide goldwaves	Zatinya	IOHANNVSVERVS	The Mountain of Eden appeal
AE Outcome	Referred to AC		1w block	Referred to AC	tban	Pages deleted; Zatinya warned	Warning	Moot/declined
BilledMammal	x / 793	x (filer) / 302
Iskandar323	x / 367
Ïvana
Levivich	x (filer) / 1012			x (filer) / 719			x / 343
Nableezy	x / 821 (1248)
Selfstudier	x / 1171			x / 140				x / 86
האופה
AndreJustAndre							x / 90
IOHANNVSVERVS	x / 27						x / 444
Alaexis
Zero0000	x / 13				x / 164
Makeandtoss
Snowstormfigorion
# of participants	11	3	0	2	2	0	4	3
# of uninvolved admins	4 / 4035	2 / 174	1 / 24	4 / 309	3 / 165	1 / 40	4 / 936	3 / 868
# of days open	6	11	3	13	6	1	2	11
Approx. # of words	~8849	~1128	~464	~1502	~1018	~1637	~2879	~2751

	BumbleBeeBelle	Ecpiandy appeal	The Mountain of Eden	Gonzafer001	EnfantDeLaVille	IntrepidContributor	Genabab	Raskolnikov.Rev
AE Outcome	ECR clarified	Declined	2w pblock	Moot / declined	Warning	Warnings for: WikiFouf, IntrepidContributor, Selfstudier , Levivich, Berchanhimez, Bluethricecreamman	Warning	Withdrawn
BilledMammal						x / 922
Iskandar323
Ïvana
Levivich						x (filer) / 2159
Nableezy
Selfstudier						x / 251
האופה
AndreJustAndre								x
IOHANNVSVERVS
Alaexis
Zero0000
Makeandtoss
Snowstormfigorion
# of participants	0	0	1	0	2	13 (includes some who were warned)	4	1
# of uninvolved admins	2 / 157	3 / 291	2 / 186	2 / 102	2 / 270	5 / 4802	3 / 462	0
# of days open	3	10	<1	4	5	30	8	2
Approx. # of words	~497	~730	858	~488	~1400	~12,934	~2380	~1359

	LivinAWestLife	IdanST appeal	Pyramids09	CoolAndUniqueUsername	Nableezy	Snowstormfigorion appeal	CarmenEsparzaAmoux	Nableezy
AE Outcome	1d block	Declined	1w pblock	No action	AC referral	Declined	Moot (at ARC)	AC referral
BilledMammal					x / 455		x (filed) / 938	x (filer) / 1297
Iskandar323
Ïvana				x / 38
Levivich
Nableezy			x (filer) / 221		x / 1488			x / 1573
Selfstudier			x / 53	x / 89	x / 298			x / 86
האופה
AndreJustAndre					x (filer) / 2087
IOHANNVSVERVS
Alaexis
Zero0000					x / 279			x / 371
Makeandtoss					x / 186
Snowstormfigorion
Nishidani
# of participants	0	3	2	4	10	0	1	5
# of uninvolved admins	1 / 42	3 / 585	3 / 480	3 / 654	4 / 2073	2 / 270	1 / 77	6 / 1730
# of days open	<1	8	6	1	10	3	1	1
Approx. # of words	~393	~2393	~1055	~1652	~7933	~1021	~1287	~5883

	Gianluigi02	Iskandar323	Butterscotch Beluga	Nableezy	Carthradge	Ecrusized appeal	Selfstudier	IdanST appeal
AE Outcome	1w pblock	For ArbCom	Did not game	Withdrawn	Stale	Declined	Post evidence at PIA5	Declined
BilledMammal	x (filed) / 201	x (filed) / 1483		x / 330
Iskandar323
Ïvana
Levivich				x / 181
Nableezy				x / 633
Selfstudier							x / 296
האופה
AndreJustAndre				x / 76
IOHANNVSVERVS				x / 125
Alaexis
Zero0000		x / 453		x / 69
Makeandtoss
Snowstormfigorion
Nishidani
# of participants	0	6	0	14	0	1	2	0
# of uninvolved admins	1 / 28	4 / 1319	4 / 401	2 / 824	0	2 / 148	2 / 135	3 / 238
# of days open	2	6	2	1	<1	7	3	2
Approx. # of words	~372	~4481	~1213	~4536	~479	~1458	~1082	~674

	Mk8mlyb	Tattipedia	Entropyandvodka
AE Outcome	Tban	1wk block	No action
BilledMammal
Iskandar323
Ïvana
Levivich
Nableezy
Selfstudier
האופה
AndreJustAndre
IOHANNVSVERVS
Alaexis
Zero0000	x / 77
Makeandtoss
Snowstormfigorion
Nishidani
# of participants	3	0	0
# of uninvolved admins	7 / 862	2 / 130	4 / 217
# of days open	3	2	4
Approx. # of words	~2871	~476	~816

2024 AE cases by topic area

Scope	# of cases	AVERAGE of Days	MEDIAN of Days	MAX of Days
AA	7	7.29	7	11
AE	4	4.25	3	9
AP	13	8.08	8	19
ATC	1	19.00	19	19
BLP	7	7.00	6	16
CAM	5	2.20	3	4
COVID	1	12.00	12	12
EE	9	5.11	3	14
Falun	2	7.00	7	12
Gender	18	4.44	4	24
GMO	1	1.00	1	1
Info	1	10.00	10	10
IPA	14	6.50	3	22
MOS	1	19.00	19	19
n/a	3	0.00	0	0
PIA	81	6.02	5	30
PS	10	6.50	2.5	26
SRI	3	7.67	6	12
Troubles	2	10.00	10	11
Yasuke	1	2.00	2	2
Totals	173	6.09	5	30

Evidence provided by David A

Some hopefully useful general information and considerations for this case.

1) As stated in the talk section here, on the "pro-Israeli government" "side" there are apparently professional sockmasters who have used hundreds of disruptive sockpuppet accounts, and who have all available tools for avoiding being detected, and can possibly even crack account passwords. [108] [109] [110] [111]

2) BilledMammal's extensive work here in Wikipedia to catalogue the activity of editors who disagree with him regarding the Israel-Palestine conflict seemed to be very unnaturally thorough in terms of absolutely enormous required manual workload for something supposedly not handled via advanced customised artificial intelligence software. [112]

3) BilledMammal has previously participated in several attempts to delegitimise and thereby remove all references from Al Jazeera from Wikipedia, which is the main news organisation that reports war crimes by the Israeli government. [113] [114] [115]

This information may also be of interest: [116]

4) BilledMammal's list was quickly found and published by a journalist in heavy support of the current actions of the Israeli government. [117]

5) Said information was very quickly retweeted by Elon Musk in front of 52.7 million people, while attacking Wikipedia. [118]

6) As seen in the following articles, Elon Musk has apparently become a close ally of Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu. [119] [120] [121]

7) Right after Donald Trump won the United States election 2024, as Benjamin Netanyahu and a large statistical majority of the Israeli population wished, BilledMammal initiated a process to get several of the most prominent editors that he had catalogued banned. [122]

The combination of suspicious factors, including public coordination, make me suspect the involvement of at least one external heavily partisan intelligence agency.

I also ask that Wikipedia's arbitration committee members please take into consideration that, although the pro-all human rights "side" editors seem to be overall nice people by my experience, they are also only human, and as such they may get somewhat testy sometimes due to being bombarded with videos depicting extremely tragic human rights abuses as a natural part of staying informed for their work here, combined with continuously having to deal with extremely biased bad faith editing sockpuppets, people who seem to defend horrible actions, and extreme insults or death threats from some pro-Israeli government editors, which I think are very valid excuses regarding such an extreme situation.

A few personally experienced example links, and the editors who have been dealing with this topic area far more extensively and for far longer than myself, have naturally had to endure extremely more of it. [123] [124] [125] [126] [127] [128]

Also, punishing any of them for comparatively extremely minor offences considering the full context of the situation and everything they have had to deal with, would not only be extremely unfair, but also enormously worsen the overall reliability and behaviour connected to this topic area in Wikipedia, and play into the hands of the sockpuppets that are attempting to remove the most knowledgeable and reliable members there, who edit properly and follow Wikipedia's rules. It would open the floodgates for trolls, vandals, death-threatening criminals, and large-scale removals of reliable content.

David A (talk) 18:45, 14 December 2024 (UTC)

Evidence presented by Bluethricecreamman

Evidence of experienced users protecting problematic users on your side

Generally all sides, but Andre happened to be most recent one I can recall.

• [129] [130] - disruptive newbie attempting to skirt WP:ARBECR by editting about Antisemitic trope article. Not necessarily an issue that newbie didn't know, or that sometimes the line is blurry, but I objected to owning behavior and newbie posting template warnings against his opponents all over talk page. Andre attempts to defend user and calls report "meritless", my attempt to get admin attention to issue as forumshopping, and generally dismissing the issue. Of note, both andre and i were worried about WP:BITEing the newbie, tho we disagreed on disruption.
• [131] - Newbie eventually ends up on ANI again due to disruptive editting against multiple other oppos (I was not involved in this last dispute, iirc). pro-Israeli newbie reached EC and then attempted to enforce ARBECR against other pro-Pal newbies all editting on non-EC page List of antisemitic incidents in the United States [132]. request for page protection gets moved to ANI, where others point out newbie is just as guilty at editing undetected in violation of arbecr in peripheral topic area [133]. Andre votes to oppose any sanctions, despite community consensus and clear disruptive and escalatory behavior.
• I've also emailed evidence of WP:OWH by newbies to arbcom in the past. had to deal with random IP harrassment to my user talk page,[134][135][136] which is how i figured out OWH was happening.

would like clarification of how to deal with motivated newbies in PIA topic area and adjacent topic areas (i was one a few months ago), some sort of process to de-escalate with users who don't have WP:CLUE, and additional support to deal with unprecedented off-wiki activity/publicity by both sides.

Response to Andre

Newbie was biting as often (if not more) as was bitten. There is assisting a newbie editor in the topic area, and there is allowing/enabling editor to remain aggressive if they happen to be on your side. See the ANI[137] that got him banned for all details. This SPI probably was indicative of newbie's worst behavior [138].

Response to Dan

Saw Andre's edit summary, I agree. Steven1991 was banned in 2019 and had only 10 edits in en.wikipedia. Apparently spent time on zh.wikipedia before returning in mid-2024. Generally had/has no WP:CLUE and got barely enough understanding of processes by october to misuse them and get banned again. seems to be editing on simple.wikipedia now.

Evidence presented by Tryptofish

My limited involvement in the topic area comes almost entirely from discussions about renaming Racial conceptions of Jewish identity in Zionism from its previous name as Zionism, race and genetics, an RM that ultimately got community consensus.

What this is not

• Neither Nishidani [139] nor Levivich [140] is motivated by any sort of POV agenda over Israel/Palestine, and most certainly, neither is motivated by any anti-Israel bias.

Nishidani adopts contradictory views of copying text, depending on who does it

• When I first became aware of the page, I said this: [141], and Nishidani replied with a quote from a footnote on the page (something originally added by another editor, not him): [142]. What the page leading to the footnote said in Wikipedia's voice: "With the development of human population genetics from the 1950s onwards, these same themes have reverberated in genetic studies on Jews in relation to studies on the genealogical origins of modern Jews." I checked the source, which says: "and their relationship to Zionist nationalism, reverberate within the genetic studies of Jewish populations by Israeli scientists from the 1950s to the present" ([143]). I revised the text, to make it less closely paraphrased: [144], [145] ("have reverberated" to "have continued to appear"). Nishidani strongly objected to my doing so: [146] ("In any case, since this is a matter of tone and style, 'appear' is not correct. 'Reverberate' could be glossed as reappear, which however is a flat word when 'resonate' would serve the same purpose. Please don't get me on to the question of tone in prose."). I agreed with him to ask Diannaa: [147], who agreed with me about changing it: [148], [149]. (I subsequently made other, similar corrections: [150], [151], [152].)

• After talk page discussion, I later started a new page section by importing text from other pages: [153], [154], [155]. Please note my edit summaries; I complied fully with Wikipedia:Copying within Wikipedia. Those were just the initial edits, and I and other editors subsequently revised the wording of that material to be more specific to the page. Nishidani nonetheless objected: [156], "Cross-wiki copy-and- paste stuff, one of the worst editorial vices afflicting this topic area."

Nishidani and Levivich direct belittling and othering language at other editors

• Saying that other editors haven't read the sources, or are incapable of understanding the sources, and so should be discounted:
  • Nishidani:
    • [157] ("who is going to do a full month's further reading")
    • [158] ("the careless consequence of not thinking about, or even grasping, what the article writes up")
    • [159] ("I can't recognize what you state about Falk. Have you read his 2017 book, and the three other pages?)
    • [160] ("Have you read Alice in Wonderland? Just wondering.")
    • [161] ("This is incompetent, the result of a lack of mastery of the sources... That kind of careless rewriting seriously damages the article.")
  • Levivich:
    • [162] ("Have you actually opened any of the sources I just listed"?)
    • [163] ("Students who don't do the reading shouldn't try to participate in the class discussion. Same for editors who haven't read any of the sources.)
    • [164] ("have you tried to find out for yourself what "Zionism, race, and genetics" is about, by reading the sources? Any of them?" Directed at an uninvolved editor who responded to the RM.)
  • I'll point out that I would not have been able to identify close paraphrasing of sources had I not read the sources.

• Saying that it's just two editors (Andre and me) who want to rename the page, when it's actually many more:
  • Nishidani:
    • [165] ("This is the nth attempt by some two or three editors...")
    • [166] ("Two editors alone...")
    • [167] ("two editors who can't accept the existing title... If you both, Trypofish /Andrevan, want a different article...")
  • Was it really just us two? Here are the opening posts for every section on the talk page, that were about discussing a new page name:
    • [168], (jps, draftify)
    • [169], (Selfstudier)
    • [170], (Onceinawhile, who originally started the page under the old pagename)
    • [171], (Sirfurboy)
    • [172], (Selfstudier)
    • [173], (Onceinawhile)
    • [174], (me, but just brainstorming, no formal proposal)
    • [175], (me, but just to add a comma, which Nishidani and Levivich both supported)
    • [176], (Andre, proposing a title that I first suggested in earlier talk. This proposal received community consensus.)
  • Note that Andre and I did not always agree with one another: [177].
  • It's worth reading the entire RM discussion that got consensus: [178], and the accompanying discussion: [179]. Note in particular how experienced editors who were previously uninvolved, and who came in response to the RM, were treated as unwelcome. --Tryptofish (talk) 21:45, 14 December 2024 (UTC)

Evidence presented by Alaexis

Canvassing

I'm not sure I understand how I ended up as a party, I suppose this is due to this statement at AE. I stand by it but u:Chess already provided evidence of an "offwiki group that promoted pro-Palestinian points of view" at this page and I can't add much to it. To be clear, there is no evidence that any parties to this case other than u:Ivana participated in this offwiki group.

I hope that ArbCom will take the existence of such offwiki coordination seriously. Alaexis_¿question? 09:51, 15 December 2024 (UTC)

WP:NPOV gamed via forks

The creation of new articles has been used to effectively bypass NPOV requirements in ways that are difficult to remedy through normal processes (see examples by Aquillion, Boksi and ScottishFinnishRadish). The procedural asymmetry creates perverse incentives. When questionable content is added to an existing article, issues can be addressed through standard editing processes. However, when a new article is created, both deletion and renaming requires time-consuming community processes. This effectively reverses WP:ONUS - instead of the adding editor needing to justify inclusion, the burden falls on those seeking to fix issues. Even when there is a consensus to de-fork, the process can take months. Alaexis_¿question? 21:54, 21 December 2024 (UTC)

Diminishing outside input

u:ScottishFinnishRadish is right that The community has limited energy to continuously engage with dispute resolution in this topic area. I have felt it myself, for example with an RfC that I helped to draft at Talk:Hamas. In this case it was a good-faith RfC and we hoped to get opinions of uninvolved editors but we mostly got the same editors. Alaexis_¿question? 21:54, 21 December 2024 (UTC)

Evidence presented by Smallangryplanet

BilledMammal appears to weaponise AE

A party in this case - BilledMammal (BM) - has apparently been weaponising AE and launching what I believe to be a campaign to drive away productive editors.

Behavioural history / warnings

BM has a 3-year history of this behaviour, having been formally warned twice at AE:

• A report against Naleezy on October 24, 2021, which was closed by Eruyales with this warning: “BilledMammal is warned that groundless or vexatious complaints may result in blocks or other sanctions.”
• An AE report against LokiTheLiar on June 4, 2024, which was closed by ScottishFinnishRadish: “BilledMammal, when you're frequently the target of accusations that you're weaponizing AE maybe don't weaponize AE in this way."

Volume of AE reports

Since 10 October 2023, BM has filed 18 AE reports relating to ARBPIA, more than anyone in this case (myself, as an interested 3rd party and an editor in the topic area: zero). Of BM’s 18 AE reports, just over half, 10, ended in a sanction or warning:

• Sanction or warning: [180] [181] [182] [183] [184] [185] [186] [187] [188] [189]

• Failure: [190] [191] [192] [193] [194]

• Referral: [195] [196]

• Inconclusive: [197]

Intent

I suppose one could make a case that these reports were meant to ensure 1RR or other guideline compliance, but a closer look shows this is not necessarily true – in half of the reports, BM expanded their original complaint when it turned out to be unconvincing or misleading: [198] [199] [200] [201] [202] [203] [204] [205] [206] [207]

BilledMammal appears to misrepresent sources

Downplaying Palestinian suffering in Gaza

BM has made many edits to the lead of Israel-Hamas war, downplaying Palestinian suffering in Gaza in disregard of a majority of RS:

• changing killed Palestinian children into “minors” [208],

• attributing the Palestinian casualty figures to Gaza Health Ministry [209],

• inserting controversial claim that accuracy of Palestinian casualty figure is disputed [210],

• removing mention of Israel’s destruction of Palestinian heritage sites [211],

• removing mention of discovery of Palestinian mass graves [212].

Removing reliably sourced material

BM has made similar POV edits on other related articles by removing reliably sourced content referenced to:

• Forensic Architecture [213]

• The Guardian [214]

• CNN [215]

AndreJustAndre Canvassing

Extension requested and granted here.

User AndreJustAndre (previously Andrevan) was temporarily topic banned from ARBPIA back in December 2023 for WP:BATTLEGROUND editing. He was later indefinitely blocked by ArbCom in January, but unblocked in September, following a successful appeal. However, Andre keeps engaging in questionable behaviour. Andre has been canvassing for an off-wiki pro-Israeli blog for months. This blog has published guides explicitly requesting people to canvass for them, singled out numerous editors, including some of the current parties, and highlighted articles demanding specific changes be made. I could identify a couple of instances where Andre complied with these requests. I also included a change made as a result of a news article also asking for specific changes to be made. The outlet that ran the article is often shared in the blog.

Screams Before Silence:

The blogger complains about a deprecated source being used and the article being in the “Propaganda” category. After this post, Andre removes both. link, archive, diff

Zionism:

The blogger complains about the entire article, calling it biased and antisemitic. It gets vandalised immediately. After a couple of days and reverts by some editors countering the vandals, the content is still the same as the version before the post. Andre then makes his first edit on the page. On his second edit, he removes a word the blogger highlighted as biased. link, archive, diff 1, diff 2

Zionism talk discussion 1:

The blogger mentions what he calls an “antisemitic slur” written by Selfstudier. After the post is published, Andre requests for Selfstudier to remove the comment, and Selfstudier complies. He later notes that it was a request by the blogger. Andre doesn't reply. link, archive, diff

Zionism talk discussion 2:

The blogger highlights a discussion. After the post is published, Andre participates in the discussion for the first time. link, archive, diff

1948 Arab–Israeli War:

The blogger highlights a specific section of the page. Andre makes a series of consecutive edits targeting the same section, adding templates. Those were his first edits on the page after more than two years. He also opens a discussion in the talk page questioning the expression “Jewish bribes”, as mentioned by the blogger. This was his first edit on that talk page. link, archive, diff1, diff2

Yahya Sinwar:

The blogger questions the usage of the word “humble” to describe Sinwar. The next day, Andre removes it. It was his first and only edit to the page to this day. link, archive, diff

Israeli-Palestinian conflict:

The writer of this article highlights some newly added lines that they find questionable. A couple of hours after the article is published, Andre removes them. It was his second edit on the page; the first one was back in January 2023. link, archive, diff

Evidence presented by Valereee

Editors inexperienced in CTOPs

Inexperienced but ECR editors are a major issue. Zionism has been mentioned in ten different publications over the past three months, primarily media targeted at Israeli and Jewish readers. This has drawn a huge number of ECR-but-inexperienced editors who haven’t previously edited in this CTOP but who appear to have been galvanized into this article by this media coverage, and end up being just generally disruptive to the process. Here is an example of an experienced editor (who is inexperienced at CTOPS) drive-by tagging, delaying responding to ping, then exhibiting lack of understanding of why that's a problem for other editors.

Unlike Eladkarmel, I do not believe there is bias against Israeli or Jewish contributors. No, it’s not that when they transition to English Wikipedia, they suddenly become bad. It’s that there’s a root problem: inexperienced contributors are being drawn into this highly contentious topic by media outrage. The fact most of those drawn to Zionism in this way are in fact Israeli or Jewish is not surprising, as it’s primarily appearing in media targeted at Israeli and Jewish. The blocks are happening not because the editors are Israeli or Jewish but because they are relatively inexperienced, are entering the area with an imperfect understanding of enwiki policy, and CTOPs are a terrible place to learn to edit.

Sealioning

Sealioning is another major issue. It’s not that difficult to see over a span of multiple exchanges and sometimes weeks of discussion, but proving it is incredibly frustrating because it requires both many, many diffs and a willingness on the parts of those who haven’t been paying attention to read those diffs and likely the entire exchange or series of exchanges. And sealioning works, beautifully. Which combined with how difficult it is to even get attention to complaints means we’re offering a powerful motivation to use this tactic repeatedly. It wears people out, which is the point, because if you’re willing to spend the time, eventually you’ll get your way.

It's been suggested at talk I provide links to sections and diffs:

• | Sealioning diffs in the CTOP at an AE case.
• Again I don’t want this to be taken as an indication a single editor is the root of the problem. Other discussions involving more than a single editor sealioning include
• this ongoing RfC, plus multiple previous talk sections, where the arguments against including a statement against using language around Zionists having a goal of “as much land/as many Jews/as few Arabs in the lead, that it’s only a single source making the claim, which when rebutted turned into an argument about one of the multiple sources, and that none of the provided sources support as much land, and back to the RfC where the argument returns to ‘as few Arabs’ isn’t covered in the provided sources.
• Talk:Palestinians#Indigineity – and I’ll draw your attention to the multiple blocked socks – in a discussion of whether Palestinians can be described as indigenous to Palestine, one editor asks those seeking to keep content in the article to provide several references, including the exact text of the reference, that say Palestinians are indigenous. (I know they are already in the article, provide them below as well so we can compare them with any sources that say otherwise). Which, when provided, another editor objects to using those sources to call Palestinians indigenous to Palestine with the comment, would you say that the current WASP descendants of the Mayflower immigrants are "native Americans"? It was after all over 400 years ago.
• A not dissimilar argument over whether all of Jerusalem is part of Israel here.

Systemic nature of the problem

I disagree that there are clear editors to blame. In my opinion the issues are systemic and not related to particular editors. And we absolutely do not want everyone left editing in the topic to be ECR but otherwise inexperienced. Instead give us tools: the ability to restrict sources to the highest-quality recent sources would be a good start. The authority to tban for sealioning without having to get multiple other admins to sign off at a noticeboard would be extremely helpful.

Apologies for the lack of diffs. I think diffs supporting the fact both these behaviors are happening are not particularly helpful. I don’t think it’s fair to provide 45 diffs showing one editor sealioning, as I kind of worry it might result in sanctioning that single editor and thinking we’ve solved the problem.Ditto new editors showing up with opinions rather than sources. I hope no one will actually question this is happening, which is really the crucial issue. What we need is a way to deal with it.

Evidence presented by Boksi

I have encountered a phenomena in an incredibly huge scale that shows articles in a way that is biased against Israel. It is relevant to new articles created in recent years, names of articles, and their content.

For example, we have an article about the 1948 Palestinian expulsion and flight created in 2002. We have an article about the 1948 Palestine war (from 2007). Over many years, that's all there was. But in April 2021, an article called Nakba was opened by Onceinawhile. Levivich provided since most of the content. Iskandar323 also added the related Ongoing Nakba article in December 2022. Later, In October 2023 Iskandar323 added another related article, Nakba Denial.

But, Nakba is the Palestinian name, of one of two first articles I mentioned: either the war of 1948, or the expulsion and flight. This means that the article is already oriented, due to its title, with a not neutral narrative (calling the event "ethnic cleansing" as a fact but this is a term scholars disagree upon). It shows the facts in a way that works with that narrative. By the way, the opposite narrative: the Israeli war of independence, is a redirect to the article about the 1948 war. There's no article under that name.

We have Temple Mount, created in 2002 about the complex, Al-Aqsa Mosque about the mosque (from 2002 too). But in 2022, twenty years later, a new article was created Al-Aqsa, it is almost about the same subject as Temple Mount. Iskandar323 authored most of it. But there is no Jewish or Christian background content on the complex. This is clear POV FORK. It abandons part of history and not other parts. It shows history belonging to one group, erasing the others.

We also have articles with titles is directly biased. It takes one side of the conflict. Examples: Israeli apartheid, Gaza genocide (also see Palestinian genocide accusation. To me this trend seems not good for Wikipedia. I also see other articles like: Weaponization of antisemitism Anti-antisemitism in Germany Nakba Denial Racial conceptions of Jewish identity in Zionism. They all take one way of looking at things, one side of research. The research is then shown as the basis of the articles in a way which is not POV.

On the seriousness of the issue, I can point at the fact that they are not even arguments on these pages about the content that is so probelematic. It probably shows that there is a lack of diversity among the editors or that Wikipedia editors who don’t usually show up in this topic find it difficult to touch the topic. Boksi (talk) 14:06, 20 December 2024 (UTC)

By the way I found something very revealing: Selfstudier twice called the October 7 attack name a branding effort. Makeandtoss agrees and Levivich agrees and adds that "a "date name" may improperly imply terrorism to some readers" Boksi (talk) 19:40, 21 December 2024 (UTC)

Evidence presented by Makeandtoss

Extensive sockpuppetry

Contrary to claims here, edit wars in topic area as demonstrated by Zero0000 are at an all-time low. And aside from symptomatic incidents presented so far, actual root causes of problem are sockpuppets who are canvassing, stonewalling, coordinating and disrupting. All examples I am mentioning below are only ones I remember and encountered, I am sure there are many more.

Sockmaster mapping

Note that numbers of confirmed/suspected socks is an undercount since not all are categorized:

Sockmaster overview

Sockmaster	Account creation date	Account block date	Confirmed sockpuppets	Suspected sockpuppets	Last sock block	Some sock examples
User: AndresHerutJaim	13 April 2009	28 December 2010	475	106	3 December 2024	User:BanyanClimber
User:Dag21902190	19 April 2024	11 August 2024	2	0	25 November 2024	User:Techiya1925
User:Icewhiz	6 August 2012	1 October 2019	10	31	21 December 2024	User:UnspokenPassion, User:O.maximov, User: Minden500, User: OdNahlawi, User:EnfantDeLaVille, User:Galamore, User:PeleYoetz, User:ABHammad, User:EliasAntonakos
User:NoCal100	3 January 2008	1 January 2011	42	14	23 July 2023	User:Red Slapper

Collaboration

As early as 2022 there were signs of collaboration between these sockmasters that led one user to oddly state at an AE filing that: “IceWhiz, NoCal and Yaniv aren't my overlords if that's what people are thinking.” Unsurprisingly, that editor, User:BanyanClimber, was later blocked as an AndresHerutJaim sock.

Coordination

Zionism article can be considered microcosm of topic area, having witnessed most disruptive incidents this past summer, seeing half a dozen Icewhiz socks removing same material relating to colonization:

1-ABHammad

2-Icebear244

3-Galamore

4- O.maximov

5- האופה

6- PeleYoetz

• Another example there with NoCal100’s sock Kentucky Rain 24 restoring edits made by Icewhiz sock האופה just three hours apart.
• Another example at Israel-Hamas war where a move was opposed by at least three sockpuppets [216]

Stonewalling

Icewhiz socks are notorious for stonewalling for periods lasting as long as several months:

1- Galamore

2- PeleYoetz

3-OdNahlawi

4-EnfantDeLaVille

Discriminatory hate speech

Several of these sock networks have used blatantly discriminatory hate speech against other editors and admins:

1- User:Techiya1925 recently commented that: “Wikipedia is way too important to be run by radical Islamic propagandists, working in tandem with “they/them” computer geeks who hate Jews.” Needless to mention, this is extremely serious hate speech –likes of which I have never experienced in a decade of WP editing– that was directed towards myself and an admin, which they got sanctioned for. User:Andrevan was there to argue in their defense before Techiya1925 was uncovered and indefinitely blocked as a sock of User:Dag21902190.

2- Some of these decades-old sockmasters are so notorious that they have their own Long-term abuse page, in which sockmaster User:NoCal100’s habit is described to be “defending Islamophobic groups/individuals and adding negative content to pages about pro-Palestinian groups/individuals.”

Agitation at AE

Of course, a report being filed by a bad actor against a user does not exonerate that user from any wrongdoing, but there are obvious disruptive aspects to be considered:

1- Socks’ disruptive behaviour is often cause of conflicts that lead to AE

2- Socks’ provocative behaviour is an attempt to get a reaction and get longtime editors banned

3- Sock complaints are often vexatious and are designed to irritate and waste editors’ time

4- Multiple socks concentrating their aggression on one editor to stress them out and manipulate how others perceive them

A few examples shows how extensively socks have utilized AE:

1- Icebear244 filing against Nishidani [217]

2- 916crdshn joins in on the Icebear244 filing against Nishidani, Selfstudier, and Levivich. [218]

3- ABHammad filing against Selfstudier [219]

4- ABHammad joining BilledMammal’s filing against Iskandar323 [220]

5- ABHammad joining Andrevan’s filing against Nableezy to attack myself [221]

6- ABHammad attacking Vice regent in his filing against Icewhiz sock EnfantDeLaVille [222]

7- ABHammad attacking Levievich after they had correctly identified tag team edit warring by socks [223]

8- ABHammad joining FortunateSon’s filing against JDiala [224]

9- ABHammad attacking filer Levivich against Icewhiz sock האופה [225]

Sophisticated bad actors

As described by one checkuser who saw technical data, these sock networks are sophisticated bad actors, employing several techniques to evade sanctions; the actual disruptive “unsanctionables.”

For example, User:AndresHerutJaim amassed a staggering 475 confirmed socks and 106 suspected over a decade. This coupled with their connections with other sockmasters and sophisticated ban evasion tactics does not appear to be individual work, but likely systemic and institutional manipulation.

Conclusion

Clearly, these levels of sockpuppetry and their disruptive and provocative behaviour has been the root cause of all these tensions. Socks have mutated and learnt to avoid being caught, while WP has lagged as its sock-catching tactics remained the same, so we should all be concentrating on proposing remedies to deal with this in workshop phase if we were to ever root out the core issues.

Evidence presented by Huldra

Topic-bans work for pro-Palestinian editors, but not for pro-Israeli editors

(I am using the "pro-Palestinian" and "pro-Israeli" for ease, actually it is more "pro-international community" and "pro-Israeli")

In the last arb.com where editors were sanctioned, WP:ARBPIA2, 8 editors were topic-bannned, what happened to them?:

Canadian Monkey (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)

NOcal sock, still (very much) around

G-Dett (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)

last edit 6 April 2010; gone

Jayjg (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)

sanctions lifted 6 January 2011, after lots of work

MeteorMaker (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)

last edit 2 September 2009; gone

N-HH (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)

last edit 20 January 2019; gone

Nishidani (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)

sanctions lifted 21 July 2011, after lots of work

NoCal100 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)

still (very much) around

Pedrito (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)

last edit, 25 September 2012

So, 2 of the sanctioned editors (Jayjg and Nishidani) worked themselves back after doing lots of work elsewhere on the projects. Of the 6 other, all the 4 "pro-Palestinian" left the project, while the 2 last "pro-Israeli" were actually 1 (=Nocal), who is very much with us today, in his n'th incarnation. I haven't seen any indication/claim that the 4 topic-banned "pro-Palestinian" editors have come back as socks.

Socks tend to have an outsized influence on some of the most disputed issues in the IP area

In the question of the use of the word "colonization" in the context of the Zionist project: As has been mentioned here; 5 of the 7 accounts opposed "colonization" have been blocked as socks of banned users.

And wrt if Gaza genocide should be added to Genocide of indigenous peoples see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Palestine-Israel_articles_5/Workshop#Genocide_of_indigenous_peoples_edit_war: 8/12 removals were by now-blocked socks.

BilledMammal

In addition to the evidence presented by Smallangryplanet, BilledMammal (BM) also:

• Closed a RM request clearly against consencus, claiming he was "uninvolved" in the IP-issue,
• falsely accused me publicly of "Covert canvassing and proxying in Israel-Arab Conflict"
• A children's book is called "“From the river to the sea”. South African Jewish Report claims that this "calls for the eradication of Israel and the genocide of all who live in it". Editors then want to add this to the Calls for the destruction of Israel-article. BM writes: be clear, you’re saying that Jewish sources have a conflict of interest in relation to Israel, even when they aren’t Israeli? when nobody has claimed that. See Violent children's textbook?

• Claim that "some editors advocate for Jewish sources being classified as less reliable than non-Jewish sources" Statement by BilledMammal, when nobody had said that. The question was whether to cite an "unabashedly biased", explicitly Zionist source as if it was "in Wikipedia's voice". See Statement by Ivanvector and Statement by Huldra3 Huldra (talk) 23:09, 21 December 2024 (UTC)

outside state actor?

There is some indication that an outside state actor is involved with editing the IP area on wikipedia, since it involves WP:OUTING, I will be sending it via email to arb.com.

Evidence presented by {your user name}

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