Category: Israel

Wikipedia editing courses launched by Zionist groups

Two Israeli groups set up training courses in Wikipedia editing with aims to ‘show the other side’ over borders and culture

Rachel Shabi in Jerusalem and Jemima Kiss

Two Israeli groups have set up 'Zionist editing' courses with aims to alter perceptions about Israel. Photograph: David Silverman/Getty Images

Since the earliest days of the worldwide web, the conflict between Israelis and Palestinians has seen its rhetorical counterpart fought out on the talkboards and chatrooms of the internet.

Now two Israeli groups seeking to gain the upper hand in the online debate have launched a course in “Zionist editing” for Wikipedia, the online reference site.

Yesha Council, representing the Jewish settler movement, and the rightwing Israel Sheli (My Israel) movement, ran their first workshop this week in Jerusalem, teaching participants how to rewrite and revise some of the most hotly disputed pages of the online reference site.

“We don’t want to change Wikipedia or turn it into a propaganda arm,” says Naftali Bennett, director of the Yesha Council. “We just want to show the other side. People think that Israelis are mean, evil people who only want to hurt Arabs all day.”

Wikipedia is one of the world’s most popular websites, and its 16m entries are open for anyone to edit, rewrite or even erase. The problem, according to Ayelet Shaked of Israel Sheli, is that online, pro-Israeli activists are vastly outnumbered by pro-Palestinian voices. “We don’t want to give this arena to the other side,” she said. “But we are so few and they are so many. People in the US and Europe never hear about Israel’s side, with all the correct arguments and explanations.”

Like others involved with this project, Shaked thinks that her government is “not doing a very good job” of explaining Israel to the world.

And on Wikipedia, they believe that there is much work to do.

Take the page on Israel, for a start: “The map of Israel is portrayed without the Golan heights or Judea and Samaria,” said Bennett, referring to the annexed Syrian territory and the West Bank area occupied by Israel in 1967.

Another point of contention is the reference to Jerusalem as the capital of Israel – a status that is constantly altered on Wikipedia.

Other pages subject to constant re-editing include one titled Goods allowed/banned for import into Gaza – which is now being considered for deletion – and a page on the Palestinian territories.

Then there is the problem of what to call certain neighbourhoods. “Is Ariel a city or a settlement?” asks Shaked of the area currently described by Wikipedia as “an Israeli settlement and a city in the central West Bank.” That question is the subject of several thousand words of heated debate on a Wikipedia discussion thread.

The idea, says Shaked and her colleauges, is not to storm in, cause havoc and get booted out – the Wikipedia editing community is sensitive, consensus-based and it takes time to build trust.

“We learned what not to do: don’t jump into deep waters immediately, don’t be argumentative, realise that there is a semi-democratic community out there, realise how not to get yourself banned,” says Yisrael Medad, one of the course participants, from Shiloh.

Is that Shiloh in the occupied West Bank? “No,” he sighs, patiently. “That’s Shiloh in the Binyamin region across the Green Line, or in territories described as disputed.”

One Jerusalem-based Wikipedia editor, who doesn’t want to be named, said that publicising the initiative might not be such a good idea. “Going public in the past has had a bad effect,” she says. “There is a war going on and unfortunately the way to fight it has to be underground.”

In 2008, members of the hawkish pro-Israel watchdog Camera who secretly planned to edit Wikipedia were banned from the site by administrators.

Meanwhile, Yesha is building an information taskforce to engage with new media, by posting to sites such as Facebook and YouTube, and claims to have 12,000 active members, with up to 100 more signing up each month. “It turns out there is quite a thirst for this activity,” says Bennett. “The Israeli public is frustrated with the way it is portrayed abroad.”

The organisiers of the Wikipedia courses, are already planning a competition to find the “Best Zionist editor”, with a prize of a hot-air balloon trip over Israel.

Wikipedia wars

There are frequent flare-ups between competing volunteer editors and obsessives who run Wikipedia. As well as conflicts over editing bias and “astroturfing” PR attempts, articles are occasionally edited to catch out journalists; the Independent recently erroneously published that the Big Chill had started life as the Wanky Balls festival. In 2005 the founding editorial director of USA Today, John Seigenthaler, discovered his Wikipedia entry included the claim that he was involved in the assassination of JFK.

Editors can remain anonymous when changing content, but conflicts are passed to Wikipedia’s arbitration committee. Scientology was a regular source of conflict until the committee blocked editing by the movement.

Critics cite the editing problems as proof of a flawed site that can be edited by almost anybody, but its defenders claim the issues are tiny compared with its scale. Wikipedia now has versions in 271 languages and 379 million users a month.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2010/aug/18/wikipedia-editing-zionist-groups, 18 August 2010

August 20, 2010
Israel’s new Mediterranean best friend

By JAY BUSHINSKY
08/19/2010 01:42

Analysis: Can Greece replace Turkey?

Can Greece replace Turkey as Israel’s foremost strategical ally in the Eastern Mediterranean region? To a certain extent, yes, but not entirely.

The Greeks can provide air space for Israeli warplanes to practice for long-range combat missions.

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(Since the withdrawal from Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula three decades ago, Israel’s minuscule size precluded such activity here.) They also can increase their purchases of sophisticated military hardware made in Israel and expand the sharing of sensitive intelligence data.

Greece already is a choice alternative for Israeli tourists, 400,000 of whom used to fill Turkey’s relatively low-cost and very comfortable resort hotels. It also offers ample opportunities for shoppers out to buy for less and to sightseers bent on exploring ancient sites like Athens’ Acropolis.

Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu had these considerations in mind when he embarked on his twoday official visit to Athens this week. His trip, the first by an incumbent Israeli prime minister, followed an inaugural visit to this country by his Greek counterpart, George Papandreou, a month ago.

Netanyahu’s itinerary included a voyage aboard a Greek naval vessel made in Israel as well as meetings with senior military and diplomatic aides as well as with Papandreou himself.

However, Greece has several limitations of which Netanyahu surely is aware.

Its population is substantially smaller than Turkey’s: 12 million compared to 63 million. Hence, its purchasing power is substantially less.

Historically, Greece has maintained a correct if not especially cordial diplomatic relationship with Israel.

This is due to wide-ranging trade links with the Arab states as well as an active left wing that supports the Palestinian side of the Middle East conflict. The two pro- or neo-communist parties in Greece objected strenuously to Netanyahu’s arrival and managed to run up Palestinian flags over the Parthenon in advance of the Israeli leader’s tour there.

On the other hand, the fact that the Greeks fought Nazi Germany and suffered from its brief occupation while the Jews were the primary victims also must be borne in mind as a coalescing factor. (Turkey, on the other hand, was neutral until the very end of World War II.) Politically, Greece has much less influence over the Arab states than Turkey.

Like them, Turkey is a predominantly Muslim state, even though its constitution advocates secularism in governmental as well as social affairs. Ankara’s ruling Islamic party, headed by Prime Minister Recep Tayyib Erdogan, even aspires to reassert the regional hegemony enjoyed by the former Ottoman Empire, which ruled in Baghdad, Damascus, Beirut, Jerusalem and Cairo – at least insofar as foreign policy is concerned.

However, the Greeks have several advantages. Their country is a longtime member of the European Union, a multi-national body in which Israel is vitally interested and which it would be happy to join if given the opportunity. They also serve as discreet intermediaries for Israel’s unpublicized exports to the Arab states.

There also is a profound Greek religious interest and involvement in the Holy Land.

The Greek Orthodox church is one of Israel’s major landowners. Its possessions include churches and monasteries throughout the country (especially in Jerusalem, where its prelates granted the prestate Zionists permission to build the attractive Rehavia neighborhood on land adjacent to the Monastery of the Cross). And thousands of Greek Orthodox pilgrims flock to Israel annually, especially for Christmas and Easter on the dates designated by the Greek religious calendar.

Actually, an Israeli swing away from Turkey toward Greece – because of Erdogan’s hostile rhetoric and behavior, especially since the May 31 seizure of a Gaza-bound flotilla by the Israeli navy and the death of nine Turkish passengers on board one of the ships – could backfire on Ankara.

It already has undermined Turkey’s ability to act as a regional mediator (between Israel and Syria, for example), prompted grave warnings from the US that military equipment sought by the Turkish armed forces may be withheld and thrown Turkey out of step with the international effort to deter Iran from expanding its nuclear development program.

Inevitably, Greece will act in its own best interests.

And if these include the upgrading of military and business links with Israel (whose burgeoning economy also could help Athens solve its financial problems), so be it – unless Greek public opinion stands in the way.

https://www.jpost.com/Middle-East/Israels-new-Mediterranean-best-friend

August 19, 2010
Turkey sets up its own inquiry into Israeli raid

Turkey has set up a commission to carry out its own investigation into Israel’s raid on Gaza-bound aid ships which left nine Turks dead, the foreign ministry said Thursday.

The Turkish ship Mavi Marmara was part of an aid flotilla raided by Israeli soldiers on May 31

The commission, which will work under the prime minister’s office, will “investigate the attack and the treatment the activists faced” before writing a report on its findings, the ministry said in a statement.

The report will be presented to the international inquiry set up by the United Nations earlier this month to look into the Israeli operation, it added.

The Turkish commission will include bureaucrats from the foreign, justice, interior and transport ministries as well as officials from the maritime agency.

The statement did not say when the commission would finish its report.

The May 31 raid by Israeli commandos on the flotilla of six ships in international waters triggered international criticism of Israel and plunged bilateral ties with Turkey into a crisis.

In June, Turkish prosecutors also launched an investigation against top Israeli leaders, which could result in them pressing charges, among them murder, injury, attacking Turkish citizens on the open seas and piracy, according to press reports.

Israel has set up two internal investigations into the raid, but Turkey has dismissed them, expressing doubt over their impartiality.

Ankara says it is confident the UN commission will shed light on the incident, but Israel has threatened to pull out of the probe if the UN commission insists on grilling Israeli soldiers.

Israel says its commandos resorted to self-defence after they came under attack from the activists on board. The activists say the soldiers fired as soon as they boarded the vessels.

, 12.08.2010

August 19, 2010
White House denies giving Turkey ultimatum over Israel, Iran

'I really don't know where they would have divined that from'

US admits holding ‘ongoing dialogue’ with Turkey but ‘no such ultimatum was issued’.

MILWAUKEE – The White House on Monday denied press reports that President Barack Obama warned Turkey it could lose its chance to obtain US-made weapons over its position on Israel and Iran.

Britain’s Financial Times newspaper quoted a senior official as saying that Obama told Turkish leader Recep Tayyip Erdogan that “some of the actions that Turkey has taken have caused questions to be raised on the Hill” referring to the US Congress.

These questions centered on “whether we can have confidence in Turkey as an ally,” said the official.

But while he confirmed the two leaders spoke several days ago, White House spokesman Bill Burton denied that any “ultimatum” had been issued to Ankara.

“I really don’t know where they would have divined that from,” he said.

“The president and Erdogan did speak about 10 days ago and they talked about Iran and the flotilla and other issues related to that,” Burton said.

“We obviously have an ongoing dialogue with them, but no such ultimatum was issued.”

Erdogan wants to buy American drone aircraft to combat separatist Kurdish rebels after the US military withdraws from Iraq at the end of 2011, the Financial Times reported.

The rebel group, the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), has bases in the mountains in the north of Iraq, near the Turkish border.

The United States voiced disappointment after Turkey voted against fresh UN sanctions on Iran, which the United Nations Security Council adopted in June.

Ankara argued that Tehran should be given a chance to carry out a nuclear fuel swap deal, brokered by Turkey and Brazil.

The paper quoted the unnamed official as saying congressional concerns over Turkey mean “that some of the requests Turkey has made of us, for example in providing some of the weaponry that it would like to fight the PKK, will be harder for us to move through Congress.”

Relations between Turkey and Israel were thrown into crisis after an Israeli raid targeting Gaza-bound aid ships on May 31 that left nine Turks dead.

Obama called on Turkey to cool its rhetoric about the raid when he met Erdogan at the G20 summit in Toronto in June, said the FT.

http://www.middle-east-online.com/english/?id=40649, 17.08.2010

August 19, 2010
Arab takes hostages at Turkish Embassy in Israel

By AMI BENTOV and MARK LAVIE, Associated Press Writers

AP – An Israel border police officer holds his weapon as a paramedic rushes put of the Turkish Embassy in …

TEL AVIV, Israel – A Palestinian demanding asylum abroad took hostages in the Turkish Embassy in Tel Aviv Tuesday after shots were fired outside, and Israeli officials said the man was recently released from prison after he attacked another embassy four years ago.

An Israeli rescue official said at least one person inside was lightly injured. The Turkish Anatolia news agency reported that security guards at the embassy captured the attacker, and the situation was under control. Israeli officials could not confirm the report.

Israeli Foreign Ministry spokesman Yigal Palmor identified the attacker as Nadim Injaz, a Palestinian from the West Bank town of Ramallah. Israeli police said Injaz was recently released from prison after serving time for an attack on the British Embassy four years ago to seek asylum.

“This is a hostage situation,” Palmor told The Associated Press before the Turkish news agency report.

Channel 2 TV played a recording of a phone call it said came from the attacker.

“I have two hostages,” he said in Hebrew. “I will blow up the embassy. … If they don’t let me leave this country now I will burn down the whole building. I will burn everything. I will burn the cars, the doors I will break down the doors. I will break everything.”

A lawyer who said he spoke to Injaz by phone told Israel Radio that the hostages, the consul and his wife, had escaped.

Injaz said he admired Recep Tayyip Erodgan.

“I love him and I respect him,” he said. The Turkish leader “should give me political asylum against these murderers the Zionists, the murdering Jews,” he added, linking the incident indirectly to recent tensions between Israel and Turkey.

He also condemned Palestinian leaders, saying President Mahmoud Abbas “should die” for stealing funds.

Israel-Turkey relations have been strained over the May 31 Israeli attack on an international flotilla that was trying to bust Israel’s blockade of the Gaza Strip. The raid killed nine Turkish citizens who were among hundreds of pro-Palestinian activists on board boats carrying aid and many Palestinians have expressed support for Turkey in the aftermath.

Turkey withdrew its ambassador from Tel Aviv after the flotilla attack.

Israel Radio reported from the scene that rescue workers with stretchers tried to enter the seaside embassy compound but left without bringing out any wounded. It said Turkish officials were not allowing Israeli police or rescue workers to enter the embassy.

“We know of one lightly injured person,” Eli Binn of the Israeli rescue service told Channel 10 TV.

The Israeli Maariv newspaper said the man called the paper, identifying himself as Injaz, the Palestinian who sought asylum at the British Embassy in Tel Aviv in 2006. He said he had a flammable liquid and threatened, “I will kill any Jew that enters.”

In London, the British Foreign Office confirmed in a statement that the attacker was the same one involved in the 2006 British Embassy incident.

Around the time of the first attack, police said Injaz was an informer and a criminal with a record of property and drug offenses who had run into financial and legal troubles.

He told an Israeli TV station in 2006 that he feared he would be killed by Palestinian militants if he returned to the West Bank.

Lawyer Shafik Abuani told Israel Radio that he talked to the man three times by telephone, trying to calm him down. The lawyer said Injaz threatened to burn the embassy down if he is not granted asylum.

It was unclear what his relation to the hostage-taker was.

Abuani said Injaz demanded to be flown to Turkey and said he was being persecuted by the Israeli Shin-Bet security force.

The lawyer said only the Turkish consul and his wife were in the building at the time, and they escaped. “I am in touch with the consul all the time by cell phone, and nothing happened to them, they’re OK,” he said.

____

Lavie reported from Jerusalem. Associated Press Writer Ceren Kumova in Ankara contributed to this report.

August 17, 2010
Obama warns Turkish PM over stance on Israel, Iran: report

President Barack Obama has warned the Turkish prime minister that Ankara’s position on Israel and Iran could lessen its chances of obtaining US weapons, a report said Monday.

The Turkish leader, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, wants to buy American drone aircraft to attack separatist Kurdish rebels after the US military withdraws from Iraq at the end of 2011, Britain’s Financial Times newspaper reported.

The rebel group, the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), has bases in the mountains in the north of Iraq, near the Turkish border.

“The president has said to Erdogan that some of the actions that Turkey has taken have caused questions to be raised on the Hill (Congress),” a senior administration official was quoted as saying in the daily paper.

These questions centred on “whether we can have confidence in Turkey as an ally,” said the official.

“That means that some of the requests Turkey has made of us, for example in providing some of the weaponry that it would like to fight the PKK, will be harder for us to move through Congress.”

The United States voiced disappointment after Turkey voted against fresh UN sanctions on Iran, which the United Nations Security Council adopted in June.

Ankara argued that Tehran should be given a chance to carry out a nuclear fuel swap deal, brokered by Turkey and Brazil.

Relations between Turkey and Israel were thrown into crisis after an Israeli raid targeting Gaza-bound aid ships on May 31 that left nine Turks dead.

Obama called on Turkey to cool its rhetoric about the raid when he met Erdogan at the G20 summit in Toronto in June, said the FT.

August 16, 2010