Wikipedia’s anti-Israel bias persists despite banning 6 editors – new ADL report

Wikipedia’s anti-Israel bias remains largely unchanged more than a year after the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) exposed alleged coordinated efforts to distort its coverage of Israel, Gaza and the Hamas-led Oct. 7 attack, according to a new report by the ADL’s Center for Technology and Society (CTS).

Despite six editors being banned from editing Israel-related topics, articles they contributed to remain largely unchanged, the report found.

"Banning individual editors was never going to be enough,” ADL CEO and National Director Jonathan Greenblatt said. “The pages that millions of people read, and that AI tools learn from, still bear the marks of a systematic disinformation campaign that Wikipedia itself has sanctioned but never cleaned up.”

Greenblatt called on the Wikimedia Foundation to audit the affected content and urged companies developing search engines and artificial intelligence products to stop presenting disputed narratives as factual information.

“The most visited online encyclopedia that claims neutrality has to be willing to repair its own record,” he said.

In March 2025, the ADL accused 30 Wikipedia editors of coordinating efforts to introduce anti-Israel bias and factual distortions into the platform’s content. In November, Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales acknowledged that the site's “Gaza genocide” entry "failed to meet the neutrality standards," saying it “fails to meet our high standards and needs immediate attention.”

The ADL also accused Wikipedia of downplaying Hamas’ Oct. 7 atrocities against Israeli civilians. In December 2025, the encyclopedia removed an entry about Israeli hostage and IDF Sgt. Ron Sherman, reportedly explaining the decision by stating, “We don’t write entries about soldiers.”

Wikipedia’s Arabic-language edition has also drawn criticism for describing Israel’s actions as “genocide” while dismissing documented allegations of sexual violence against Israeli women on Oct. 7 as “Israeli propaganda,” according to a previous report cited by the ADL.

The new report warns that biased Wikipedia content continues to flow into AI training pipelines, Large Language Model (LLM) outputs and various search engines online. The distorted content is influencing how millions of readers online perceive Israel, Hamas and the conflict in the Middle East. Wikipedia’s bias also extends to Jewish history, Zionism and antisemitism. For instance, the online encyclopedia falsely portrays the Jewish national revival in Israel as “colonialism.”

The new report warns that biased Wikipedia content continues to flow into AI training pipelines, large language model (LLM) outputs and search engines, influencing how millions of people perceive Israel, Hamas and the conflict in the Middle East. The report also alleges that Wikipedia’s bias extends to Jewish history, Zionism and antisemitism. For instance, it argues that the encyclopedia falsely portrays the Jewish national revival in Israel as “colonialism.”

The ADL also raises concerns about Wikipedia’s treatment of Jewish history, Zionism and antisemitism. It alleges that the platform frames the Jewish national revival in Israel through a colonialism narrative while downplaying Palestinian Arab terrorism and antisemitism.

According to the ADL, coordinated anti-Israel editing declined by 95% following the exposure of the alleged activity last year. Nevertheless, the report found that similar bias continues through the work of a new group of editors, albeit in more subtle forms.

“Even in cases where the Wikipedia community took some modicum of action against editors who went against their policies, the activities of that banned editor remains – in this case activity over numerous years driving an ideological narrative in flagrant violation of the neutral point of view policy of the platform,” said Daniel Kelley, senior director of CTS.

“This speaks to a systematic issue with how Wikimedia allows their platform to operate, and it is something they have the responsibility to address,” he added.

Researchers have warned that Israel faces an uphill battle against what they describe as Wikipedia disinformation, including a phenomenon known as “knowledge poisoning.”

“Knowledge poisoning is the ability to influence how we perceive and understand reality, and our ability to think freely. It influences not only what we think, but how we think,” said Dr. Shlomit Aharoni Lir, a research fellow at the University of Haifa.

“When search engines and language models rely on Wikipedia, its influence extends far beyond the site itself. This is not only a localized distortion, but contamination of the entire global knowledge base,” she said.