More than 40 advocacy organizations are urging Wikipedia editors and the Wikimedia Foundation’s board of trustees to reject what they describe as founder-driven efforts to censor the encyclopedia’s entry on the Gaza genocide. The appeal comes after Wikipedia co-founders Jimmy Wales and Larry Sanger intervened in a months-long editorial dispute over how Israel’s assault on Gaza should be described, prompting accusations that the founders are attempting to override established editorial processes and deny documented atrocities.
The controversy centers on a Wikipedia article that was renamed “Gaza genocide” in July 2024, following extensive internal debate. The entry had previously been titled “Allegations of genocide in the 2023 Israeli attack on Gaza.” Editors involved in the change said the new title reflected growing acknowledgment by experts and international bodies that Israel’s annihilation and siege of Gaza meet the legal definition of genocide. At the same time, the article explicitly notes that genocide is not yet a settled legal fact, as a case before the International Court of Justice remains ongoing, and that numerous experts reject the characterization of Israel’s actions as genocidal.
The rename, along with the subsequent inclusion of Gaza on Wikipedia’s list of genocide cases, sparked intense edit wars on the community-edited platform. Wikipedia has long been a target of organized public relations efforts aimed at shaping coverage of Israel, and the Gaza genocide entry quickly became a focal point. In the United States, a pair of House Republicans launched an investigation seeking to uncover the identities of anonymous editors who posted content critical of Israel, raising concerns about political intimidation and the safety of volunteer contributors.
Against this backdrop, Wikipedia co-founders Jimmy Wales and Larry Sanger stepped into the dispute. Wales, who has described himself as a “strong supporter of Israel,” publicly argued that the Gaza genocide entry failed to meet Wikipedia’s neutrality standards and required urgent correction. In a statement posted to the article’s discussion page after editing was frozen, Wales said he assumed the “good faith of everyone who has worked on this Gaza ‘genocide’ article,” but claimed that its presentation violated core policies.
“At present, the lede and the overall presentation state, in Wikipedia’s voice, that Israel is committing genocide, although that claim is highly contested. This is a violation of WP:NPOV (Wikipedia Neutral Point of View) and WP:ATTRIBUTEPOV (Wikipedia Attribute Point of View) that requires immediate correction,” Wales wrote, adding that the issue was “non-negotiable.” He suggested an alternative formulation that would state, “Multiple governments, NGOs, and legal bodies have described or rejected the characterisation of Israel’s actions in Gaza as genocide.”
Wales emphasized that he was speaking in a personal capacity, not on behalf of the Wikimedia Foundation, and said the page needed “immediate attention.” The article was subsequently locked from editing until a specified deadline or “until editing disputes have been resolved,” according to a notice on the page.
The intervention triggered sharp backlash from both Wikipedia editors and civil society groups. In a letter addressed to Wikimedia’s board and Wikipedia editors, 42 advocacy organizations accused Wales and Sanger of abusing their status as founders to bypass established editorial processes. “Wales and Sanger are using their roles as Wikipedia founders to bypass the normal editing and review process and introduce their own ideological biases into an entry that has already undergone exhaustive vetting and review by Wikipedia editors, including thousands of edits and comments,” the letter states.
The groups argue that the founders’ actions amount to censorship and genocide denial. “Their efforts deny the documented reality of Israel’s genocide in Gaza and contradict the broad consensus among genocide scholars, international human rights organizations, UN experts, and both Palestinian and Israeli human rights organizations,” the letter continues. “In doing so, Wales and Sanger are engaging in attempted censorship and genocide denial.”
Signatories to the letter include the American Friends Service Committee, Artists Against Apartheid, Brave New Films, CodePink, the Council on American Islamic Relations, Democracy for the Arab World Now, Doctors Against Genocide, MPower Change Action Fund, Peace Action, and United Methodists for Kairos Response, among others. The groups warned that treating the Gaza genocide as merely a matter of opinion sets a dangerous precedent. “Wales’ ‘both sides’ framework for denying the Gaza genocide,” they wrote, “could also be used to legitimize Holocaust denial, denial of the Armenian genocide, or to platform ‘flat-earthers’ who deny the Earth’s spherical shape.”
Wikipedia editors themselves also pushed back forcefully. On the discussion page, an editor using the username “Hemiauchenia” called Wales’s statement “patronising” and accused him of falsely equating the views of impartial international bodies with those of political actors. “The question is, why should the opinions of the largely impartial UN and human rights scholars be weighed equally to the obviously partisan opinions of commentators and governments?” the editor wrote, adding that it was “patronising to scorn the community as being ‘wrong’ for following the opinions of the UN, genocide scholars and major human rights organisations.”
Another editor, “Cortador,” rejected the notion that neutrality requires equal weighting of all claims. “Wikipedia has never, ever treated all voices as equal, nor does policy demand we do,” the editor wrote. “If we did, the Earth article would state that Earth’s shape is under debate. But we don’t do that because scholarly consensus is that Earth is roughly spherical. Instead, flat eartherism is presented as what it is: a fringe movement without scientific backing.”
A third editor, “Darouet,” accused Wales of yielding to political pressure. “Disheartened that you [Wales] frankly describe yourself coming to us under political pressure and asking us to betray scholarship and WP:NPOV. We cannot do that,” the editor wrote.
The dispute unfolds amid mounting international findings regarding Israel’s conduct in Gaza. In September, a United Nations inquiry concluded that Israel’s war in Gaza amounted to a genocide, citing statements by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant as “circumstantial evidence” of genocidal intent. Israel’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs dismissed the findings as “fake” and accused the report’s authors of “serving as Hamas proxies.” That same month, the International Association of Genocide Scholars, a 500-member academic body, passed a resolution finding that Israel’s policies and actions in Gaza fulfilled the definition of genocide under the 1948 Genocide Convention. Amnesty International has likewise concluded that Israel is committing a “live-streamed genocide” in Gaza. South Africa’s genocide case against Israel at the International Court of Justice, which cleared an initial legal threshold in early 2024, remains ongoing.
The humanitarian toll cited by advocacy groups and editors underscores why the terminology dispute carries such weight. Since the Hamas-led October 7, 2023 attack, Israel’s assault and siege have left more than 250,000 Palestinians dead, maimed, or missing, according to figures cited in the advocacy letter, while roughly 2 million people have been forcibly displaced, sickened, or starved amid what hunger experts describe as a human-caused famine. Israeli leaders Netanyahu and Gallant are wanted by the International Criminal Court for alleged crimes against humanity and war crimes.
At its core, the conflict exposes a deeper struggle over how Wikipedia defines neutrality when strong scholarly and institutional consensus collides with ongoing legal proceedings and intense political pressure. Advocacy groups argue that the founders’ intervention threatens the integrity of Wikipedia’s community-driven model, while Wales maintains that strict adherence to policy is essential on contentious topics.
“The simple reality is that Israeli officials and pro-Israel organizations are attempting to hide the horrifying reality of Israel’s genocide in Gaza by pretending that there is a substantive debate and by putting pressure on institutions like Wikipedia to engage in genocide denial,” the groups’ letter states.
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