January 3, 2025

Wikipedia editors decided to rename the “2024 Nuseirat rescue operation” article to “Nuseirat rescue and massacre” after enough editors insisted that the only way the article title could be neutral is if “massacre” is included.

The operation, which occurred in June, involved Israeli forces rescuing four hostages in the Gaza Strip. The Hamas-run Gaza Health Ministry (last year, Wikipedia editors imposed a near total ban on the using the “Hamas-run” qualifier) has claimed that more than 200 Palestinians were killed during the raid. Anti-Israel editors were aghast that “rescue operation” was used in the article title when it was first written in June, prompting editors to write a separate article titled “Nuseirat refugee camp massacre,” with the rationale being that another article was needed to discuss the “massacre” aspect of the operation.

On Oct. 12, there was a consensus (meaning the result of a discussion based on numbers and site policy arguments) to merge the two Wikipedia articles into one, though as of publication time, the “Nuseirat refugee camp massacre” article still exists. Shortly after the verdict to merge the stories, a discussion known as a “Requested move” (RM) suggested that the “2024 Nuseirat rescue operation” article be renamed to “Nuseirat rescue and killings.” But that was not enough for anti-Israel editors, who vehemently insisted that “massacre” needed to be in the title in order for the article to be neutral. Wikipedia titles are derived from the most commonly used terms in reliable sources (WP:COMMONNAME), and anti-Israel editors argued that United Nations human rights experts like U.N Special Rapporteur on the Occupied Palestinian Territories Francesca Albanese, Oxfam International, Doctors Without Borders, Norwegian Deputy Foreign Minister Andreas Motzfeldt Kravik, European Union High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy Josep Borrell all called the operation a massacre, as did sources like Al Jazeera, +972 Magazine and Middle East Monitor. The editors argued that these sources outweigh mainstream media sources that avoided using the term “massacre.”

Middle East historian Asaf Romirowsky, who heads Scholars for Peace in the Middle East and the Association for the Study of the Middle East and Africa, called Albanese “a known antisemite,” citing a report from UN Watch documenting all the “antisemitic lies that she has been spreading with her latest tour on American college campuses.” This is the “whole Palestinian Hamas operating system that basically has created this kind of entire ether that allows them cascade this information out there using these very trigger words, using the so-called ‘neutrality’ of the United Nations,” he added. “This is the same organization who denies the fact UNRWA has been complicit with Hamas ––and that they are Hamas … all these vehicles is where Hamas turns to when they are trying to put pressure on Israel and using the so-called international humanitarian aid network of organizations because they all buy into the Hamas propaganda, hook, line and sinker.” Romirowsky further contended that “the Palestinian cause within U.N. circles is religion, and it doesn’t matter if the source is coming from Hamas or the Palestinian Authority, they [are] seeing this binary perspective where Israel can do no right and the Palestinians can do no wrong.”

He also pointed out that actor Scarlett Johansson stepped down from her position as an ambassador to Oxfam after the organization took issue with her ad for SodaStream; SodaStream has a factory in an Israeli settlement, and Oxfam opposes trade with Israeli settlements. “The assumption and the illusion that these NGOs are neutral groups is a fallacy,” Romirowsky said. “They all come with their own politics, they all come with their own set of donors, using the banner and flag of human rights, but they are not neutral parties and they’ve never been neutral parties.”

People like Albanese and Borrell wouldn’t “get their jobs if they weren’t part of the echo chamber” and they “have an axe to grind,” he argued.

Two Wikipedia editors told me that the organizations like the U.N. and Oxfam should not be given any more weight on Wikipedia than mainstream media news outlets that did not call the Nuseirat rescue operation a “massacre.”

Regarding the media outlets cited by editors in favor of using “massacre” in the title, Romirowsky said that those outlets are part of the “traditional arteries of the left to try to depict this world vision.”

Supporters of using “massacre” in the title contended that because an RM to change the separate “Nuseirat refugee camp massacre” title failed, the term “massacre” is therefore notable enough in reliable sources to be included into the merged article. They also cited the Gaza Health Ministry figures that more than 250 Palestinians were killed in the operation as reason for using “massacre” in the title.

“The whole idea that they’re using the Gaza ‘Health Ministry,’ that’s synonymous to Hamas,” Romirowsky said. “So basically you’re saying that you’re relying on the Hamas narrative to describe what is happening, which is totally detached from reality. Hamas has its own interests as far as aggrandizing everything … they’re looking to create a sense to put pressure on Israel by aggrandizing the numbers when they themselves are responsible for the devastation in Gaza. It’s all Hamas. Let’s be clear: This is part of the Hamas strategy.”

Editors who contended that the use of “massacre” violated Wikipedia’s neutral point of view (NPOV) policy were outnumbered, and the verdict was consensus to rename the article “Nuseirat rescue and massacre.”

“This is part of a concerted campaign to manipulate the narrative and thus rewrite history,” one Wikipedia editor told me. “The day of the rescue operation — they couldn’t simply let that be the story that four hostages were rescued so they had to rebrand it as a massacre in the refugee camp … and their main focus was butchering as many people as possible. They just happened to rescue four hostages. If Entebbe happened today, it would probably also be called ‘Entebbe airport massacre.’ Their MO is to deny that injustices occurred to us, but then take these said same incidents and repurpose it for themselves and their own narrative.”

An editor who grew disillusioned with Wikipedia after making thousands of edits told me that “even if some high-quality sources said a massacre happened, that still wouldn’t make it the COMMONNAME. Once upon a time, something like this would be called ‘Nuseirat operation’ or something neutral like that, it would describe the rescue and allegations of a massacre. But since experienced editors know very few people read beyond the title and lead, these guys are using their numbers to corrupt them both.”

Another editor told me that “a ‘massacre,’ by definition, is not a scientific classification. There are obviously many cases in which the term may be applied unambiguously, but that is not the situation here, nor in many of these contentious article title debates. All we are witnessing is subjective determination wholly driven by the politics and bias of the invoking party, specifically around what they wish to emphasize and ignore. The two sides doing their best to stack the optics deck with charged language to vilify the other side and win some endless PR war. They know that these article search results populate at the top of Google, and are widely cited and quoted by journalists and on social media. They so desperately want their authorship and preferred terminology to enter into common parlance and usage before everyday people have even had a second to think about whether the designation is true, or even appropriate to talk about it in that way. In the case of Nuseirat, what we know is that there was a rescue operation, as well as a reportedly sizable civilian casualty rate. I’m not sure if calling it ‘Nuseirat rescue and massacre’ is appropriate, and I don’t think most of the people who participated in the RM cared about finding the most appropriate solution as well. What we have now is a weird ‘Frankenstein’ result that only highlights the schism and unhealthy detente between sides with profoundly differing perspectives and agendas.” The editor contended that Wikipedia’s manual of style should be revised so the word “massacre” is “removed from general use in article titles when there is any ambiguity or intractable debate, or subject to far stricter criteria.”

One editor told me that the arguments put forward by those who wanted “massacre” in the title were “a stretch but it almost doesn’t matter because so many people bought it,” as there were “4-5 more supporters than opposers … the supporters of that name were particularly unified in their support — in fact, unusually so, so much so that they even carried a name that wasn’t even the one proposed. Which is possible to do but unusual.” The editor believes that the discussion had “all the hallmarks of canvassing and coordination, which we know they are doing on Discord.”

The editor is referencing reports of a Discord server titled “Tech for Palestine” that featured a Wikipedia collaboration channel in which anti-Israel editors coordinated edits to myriad articles; offsite coordination violates a Wikipedia guideline known as “canvassing.”

Interestingly, one of the editors involved in the RM discussion, “Ïvana,” was indefinitely banned from Wikipedia on Dec. 9 over her reported involvement in the Tech for Palestine channel. Screenshots purportedly taken from the channel in June where “Samer,” one of the leaders of the channel, alerted users to the existence of the initial “2024 Nuseirat rescue operation” article in June and tagged Ïvana, who was billed in the channel as “our resident Wikipedia expert.” Samer also discussed reassembling their “blitz team” to address the article. It is worth noting though that the timestamps of Samer’s messages were timestamped as being on June 11 and Ïvana had been involved in talk page discussions on the “Nuseirat refugee camp massacre” article prior to that.

The channel went private in September after “The Wikipedia Flood” blog highlighted the channel, and the activities in the channel received further scrutiny on Wikipedia after a viral piece in Pirate Wires, a site that covers the intersection of tech, politics, and culture, detailed some of the specifics of the coordination. Ïvana was one of a handful of editors who were sanctioned over it, though she received the most severe sanction of the lot.

“(Wikipedia) has lost its ability to maintain healthy debate and not fall victim to organized agenda.” – Wikipedia editor

An editor described the Tech for Palestine channel to me as “a major canvassing operation” and that “Nuseirat was a target of that operation.” All this shows that when it comes to contentious topics, Wikipedia “has lost its ability to maintain healthy debate and not fall victim to organized agenda,” the editor argued. “Tech for Palestine was exposed because its organizers were sloppy … how many other better organized canvassing operations are out there? And how many of them were involved in recent contentious RM’s like Nuseirat? Me and many other people would like to know, and it’s beyond troubling that arbitrators and admins have little-to-no ability to expose such groups or stop such operations.”