Wikipedia is finally taking a stand against users who abuse the popular encyclopedia to vilify Israel.

An arbitration committee was established this week by Wikipedia to address “Palestine-Israel Cases” after mounting complaints from users about editors’ anti-Israel bias. As of Thursday, two editors have been banned from the site for “canvassing” – a practice where users recruit and coordinate with other editors to influence Wikipedia content and discussions in their favor. Wikipedia explicitly prohibits this behavior as it undermines the platform’s collaborative decision-making process.

Watchdog group “Wikibias” quickly praised the committee’s decisive action.

“It is high time the Arbitration Committee takes immediate action to thoroughly investigate and hold all editors accountable for their distortion of Wikipedia content.”

A World Jewish Congress (WJC) report reveals that the English-language version of Wikipedia has seen a rise in anti-Israel bias since the Hamas massacre on Oct. 7, 2023.

According to the report, Wikipedia’s anti-Israel bias has taken various forms, including ambiguous terminology, a lack of context, one-sided sources, and critical omissions in articles on the ongoing Gaza war. Some entries have been found to promote the demonization or delegitimization of Israel, while others avoided mentioning the massacre that left 1,200 Israelis dead and hundreds taken as hostages.

This disparity similarly manifests in how Wikipedia discusses Hamas and Hezbollah terrorists compared to those from other organizations. Whereas Wikipedia explicitly refers to Al Qaeda’s Bin Laden and Khalid Sheikh Mohammed’s terrorist activities in the first paragraph of their respective entries, for Hamas’s late leader Ismail Haniyeh or Hezbollah’s late chief Hassan Nasrallah, it takes roughly twenty paragraphs before the word “terrorist” is even mentioned. For Hamas’s Yahya Sinwar, who orchestrated the deadly massacre, it takes a shocking four paragraphs.