And unfortunately, that goes double for Wikipedia’s Arabic language version. What an opportunity to break down stereotypes and promote understanding between strangers, even enemies – and they’re blowing it!

Unfortunately, if we are counting on the “brand name” of Wikipedia to help break down barriers and stereotypes, the site has a lot of work to do, it seems. Wikipedia, with its over 10 million articles (there are only 500,000 in the Encyclopedia Brittanica), is quickly becoming the de facto place to look for information, almost anywhere there is an internet; increasingly, the Wikipedia entry comes up first when you Google for information about almost anything these days.

How does Wikipedia make sure it stays more or less accurate? Through “peer-editing”; it is assumed that when inaccurate information is listed in an article, someone will come in and correct it, or at least present an opposing point of view (http://tinyurl.com/fccjr). According to the site, thousands of articles have been amended or rewritten since Wikipedia came into being on 2001, thus proving the validity of the system.

But what happens when you have a society that has a very definite set of “everybody knows” beliefs – where inaccuracies and outright lies plague Wikipedia articles, but no one does anything about it, because everyone believes them? If somebody writes that the earth is flat in an article, and all the peers believe that the earth is flat, then readers who are counting on the information in Wikipedia are going to read that the earth is flat, and that’s all they’re going to hear. So the system isn’t foolproof.

Unfortunately, this “what if” scenario is not theoretical, but what actually happens on pages I checked out in the Arabic language version of Wikipedia (http://ar.wikipedia.org/wiki). Many Westerners get nervous when they see Arabic writing, like there must be some terrorist-oriented message embedded in the text; but thanks to the miracle of Google Translations (http://translate.google.com/translate_t#), Arabic, along with dozens of other languages, no longer need be a mystery. While clearly not professional translations, Google returns a good enough rendering of a page that (usually) gives you a pretty clear picture of what the site in question is trying to say.

I don’t read or speak Arabic, but thanks to Google Translations, I’m able to get a much better insight into the point of view of Arabic speakers online. My method: Type in a search term at the translation site, then copy the resulting Arabic characters and do a Google search for them, then click on the “translate this page” link on results.

Using this method to Google for “hot-button” items like Israel, Jew, Zionism, etc., returns results like you would unfortunately expect, in many cases. Which is what led me to Wikipedia. Interestingly, in Arabic language Google searches, Wikipedia entries were usually at the top of the list, too. That’s good, I thought – wouldn’t Arabic language Wikipedia pages be translations of English language pages on the same subject? Not that I’m such a fan of Wikipedia’s point of view on Israel and Jewish-oriented issues, but it’s a lot more palatable than what many of the “native” Arabic sites present.

But it turns out that Arabic Wikipedia (AW) is not necessarily a translation of English language Wikipedia (EW). While as I mentioned, the Google Translation rendering of these pages is clearly not totally accurate, the discrepancies between AW and EW were so great that you quickly realize that the two versions have very little to do with each other, at least on the hot-button issues. Which to me is a major problem; Wikipedia is such an authority today that if a Wikipedia page says, for example, that the Haganah’s fighting against Arab villages in Palestine before the establishment of Israel is a “genocide,” akin to the Holocaust or the genocide in Rwanda, how can we be surprised when kids in Ramallah, Jenin or Gaza rally behind suicide bombers who wantonly kill Israeli women and children? Wouldn’t we have been happy if Polish Jews conducted an “intifada” against the Nazis? (Note that there is a separate AW page titled “Gaza Holocaust,” referring to a battle in Gaza in March of this year, in which Hamas said 116 Gaza residents were killed).

Of course, you won’t find a hint on AW of what was well documented by the Haganah during the War of Liberation – how residents of these Arab villages actively took part in the war, giving themselves the status of combatants, or how the vast majority ran away when told to do so by the Arab armies invading the newly established state of Israel, the better to clear out and give the Arab Legion a clear field to perpetrate a genocide of their own, against the Jews. Of course, one man’s terror attack is another’s “freedom fight,” as the old saying goes, but you have to really be out there in anti-Israel land to claim that the Haganah conducted a near-genocide against anyone, especially given the well-known and time-and-again proven historical facts.

Among the historic genocides listed on the AW page are the Cambodian genocide, the Rwanda genocide, “French massacres in Algeria from 1830 to 1962” (more about that later), the “Armenian genocide,” (ditto), and others. The next paragraph on this page reads: “Human history has witnessed several cases of mass murder, but the debate is the use of the term genocide by around the intent to destroy, in whole or in part, because this group is the core purpose of genocide, but difficult to demonstrate.” Listed here is “Mongol invasion of Baghdad,” “Annihilation of Native Americans (Indians),” and – “Massacres against the Palestinians by gangs Haganah Jewish at the beginning of the Zionist occupation of Palestine.”

Politics, of course, plays heavily on anything having to do with Jerusalem, and the AW page on the city makes for interesting reading. Prominent on the AW page, for example, are references to “the Judaization of Jerusalem.” The introductory line says “Jerusalem is the largest city of historic Palestine under Israeli control today,” and the city’s status “as the capital of a  Palestinian state within a Palestinian declaration of independence,” is the second sentence, while Security Council 476 and 478 are the context for the mention of the city as Israel’s capital (the resolutions condemned Israel’s unification of the city). Interestingly, the history of Jerusalem on the AW and EW pages are quite different, with Canaanites and Egyptians stressed far more strongly on the AW page (the “debate” link on this page makes clear why).

As far as the entry for Jews goes, the article seemed pretty balanced, except for a comparison of Purim to Halloween (wearing costumes and getting drunk), and of Chanukah to Christmas (gift giving) – false stereotypes Western Jews worked hard to debunk. That, and a discussion as to how the Jews and the Children of Israel are not the same entity (not very clear, but appears to be not very complimentary). Plus, a reference to “Aerosmith: Crazy,” which I always thought was a song by that rock group, but turns out to be, when you click on the link, a discussion of a heavy Quranic concept! The entry on Israel recited the country’s familiar history, but key elements (“In 1947, the world witnessed the partition of Palestine, which gave the Jews living in Palestine 55% of the land, when they accounted for 30% of the population”) are just plain wrong.

Besides issues that concern us, Wikipedia gives us an insight into how Arabs see their own history. There is no reference to a century of French genocide in Algeria in EW, but there is a page dedicated to the Sétif massacre, in which French troops shot and killed Algerian rioters (as few as 1,100, or as many as 45,000, depending on who you believe). Most interesting was the AW entry on the Armenian genocide, compared to the EW entry. On the AW page, it appears as if the Armenians were in league with the Russians to fight the Ottoman Turks, and the Armenians died in the general starvation of World War I, like everyone else (ie, there was no “genocide,” and even if there was, the Armenians had it coming, because they acted like “a fifth column” in Turkey, armed by the Russians). The EW page on this subject has the more familiar version of an organized extermination of the Armenians.

The disparity between the two versions is really wide – which means that one of the Wikipedias isn’t getting the story right. I could go on, but you get the idea. Like a Tower of Babel, Wikipedia aims to build a body of knowledge that all humanity can benefit from. But if we’re not speaking the same language – figuratively and intellectually, not just literally – what chance do we have of making that happen? And should Wikipedia be lending its authoritative name to the process?

A picture is worth 1,000 words, but unfortunately, you’d need 10,000 to explain those Gaza photos – especially the part about Hamas’ wanting to wipe Israel off the map (http://tinyurl.com/36yv6c), or their unending hate-mongering against Jews (http://tinyurl.com/2j45mr, http://tinyurl.com/3yhvtu, many others). It’s interesting how the anti-Israel crowd never puts this stuff into context, while they can easily find justification for, say, the attack at Mercaz Harav – the “seminary” trains soldiers and settlers, “as long as there is occupation, there will be terrorism,” etc. (no link, as I don’t want to drive up these morons’ page rankings!)

And then there’s Facebook (http://www.facebook.com), the latest tool being used to delegitimize Israel. Facebook, as you (or your kids) know, is a worldwide community of mostly young people who get together to party online. You invite your friends, chat and message, join groups, post photos – it’s sort of like an online pajama party. Personally, I don’t see the point – it’s not like you can make money off of Facebook. Or can you (http://tinyurl.com/3daohc)? Maybe – but probably not too much.

But maybe there are better ways to make money – or spend your leisure time, unless you want to support an organization that is apparently going out of its way to take sides in the Israel-Arab conflict, creating political “facts on the Web.” The Jpost reported last week (http://tinyurl.com/3df835) that residents of Jewish towns over the green line – Maale Adumim, Efrat, Ariel, etc. – are now located in “Palestine,” instead of Israel or even just “West Bank” (the designation other sites sometimes use). Not too long ago, FB was indeed using “West Bank and Gaza” to designate those areas, but at some point added the name Palestine, responding to user complaints (http://tinyurl.com/2vj9hy). While there hasn’t been any comment forthcoming yet from FB on why they’ve decided to resolve the Road Map while negotiations are still ongoing, it stands to reason the site has been responding to public pressure this time as well.

Unfortunately, a look at the Facebook groups (some of which act as sort of Political Action Groups in the FB world) shows more groups favoring “them” than “us.” There were nine pro-Israel groups I could find with over 1,000 members, but more than 20 supporting the Palestinian view of events, including one called “ Every Body who hates ISRAEL JION NOW,” with 988 members, and “Tell Google Earth Jerusalem is Not the Capital of Israel,” with nearly 10,000.

While I think it’s clear where I personally stand on these issues, I can’t begrudge Facebook users their right to express a political opinion. However, I think it’s very unfair of FB to take sides in an ongoing dispute by making official (the creation of a state called Palestine) something that the United Nations has not even decided on yet (http://tinyurl.com/muuqq)! Regardless of what Facebook may want you to believe, there is currently no country (“occupied” or otherwise) called Palestine; the only legal entity at this time representing residents of the designated areas is the “Palestinian Authority” – and Maale Adumim, Ariel, and the others, are clearly not part of the PA, or Palestine. This is not about politics – it’s about historical accuracy, and not submitting to the rule of the mob, dammit – the main reason Facebook apparently made this policy decision too (and there’s a new FB group dedicated to making sure that the boss, Mark Zuckerberg, doesn’t change his mind, called (”Palestine is a Country”). Even if you believe Israel should withdraw to the 1967 lines, there is no call for Facebook – or any other Web site – to be hijacked by propagandists.

Apparently over the weekend, Facebook got the message that they had gone too far, and restored the choice to those living in communities over the green line to list themselves as part of Israel, if they so wish. But Palestine is still listed as a country, which makes me think that more dirty tricks are in the offing. If I were a Facebook member, I’d find a different service to spend (waste?) my leisure time on. And to make it easier for you and FB to part ways, here are some other scandals/problems/issues the site has been involved in recently:

1) Facebook allows spam – lots of it: According to a report by HP Labs (http://tinyurl.com/37w4xy) 43% of messages received on average by Facebook users is spam. Where does the spam come from, since you only communicate with people you want to? Some of it is from groups you join, but another apparently major source is “friend spam” – where people send you applications to try out (http://tinyurl.com/2astou). Of course, you have to become their “friend” – and maybe recruit others, too – in order to get the application. Then, of course, your new “pal” can send you and your contacts anything they want, since you’re all buddies now. FB has promised to do something about it (http://tinyurl.com/2dt4sf), but according to this guy (http://tinyurl.com/3568eb), spam is how FB got to be so big.

2) Facebook could come back to haunt you: “With so much personal information posted online… students could become the victims of pimps or pedophiles, or denied jobs when a prospective employer discovers embarrassing postings during a background check.” (http://tinyurl.com/36zvch). And until very recently (like last month), getting your information off FB when you opted out was near impossible (http://tinyurl.com/yofclu).

3) Facebook Ignores Complaints about Sexual Predators: From a press release by New York State Attorney General Andrew Cuomo that “his office is investigating Facebook over representations the company makes about safety measures” (http://tinyurl.com/ywkxct). Apparently the case was resolved with a promise by FB to investigate predator-related complaints within 24 hours.

And so on – there are plenty of other complaints floating around out there. I know this looks like a “hatchet job,” but it really isn’t – FB has acknowledged and (at least somewhat) acted on each of these issues. But given these issues – and its shabby treatment of Israel – I wouldn’t trust it.