Why Wikipedia just labeled a top Jewish civil rights organization ‘unreliable’ on the Israel-Palestine crisis

The editors of Wikipedia have concluded that the Anti-Defamation League, the premier Jewish civil rights organization in America, long a trusted outlet for research on hate and extremists of all kinds, is no longer “generally reliable” as a source of information about anti-semitism and the Israel-Palestine crisis.

The decision, which puts the organization on par with tabloids like the National Inquirer and right-wing outlets like Newsmax in the eyes of the online encyclopedia, is a major blow to the ADL, which has been advocating for civil rights for more than 100 years.

As The Jewish Telegraphic Agency (JTA) reports, debate about the ADL has been ongoing for months among the dedicated team of volunteer editors whose work is viewed in more than 15bn monthly visits from web users around the world.

“ADL no longer appears to adhere to a serious, mainstream and intellectually cogent definition of antisemitism, but has instead given into the shameless politicization of the very subject that it was originally esteemed for being reliable on,” an editor known as Iskandar323, who prompted the discussion about the ADL, wrote in a debate thread.

The editors pointed to a variety of factors behind their decision, mostly centered on how the ADL reckons with the concept of Zionism, the historical movement that advocated for the establishment of a Jewish homeland in the area that’s now the modern nation of Israel.

The ADL is frequently cited in news reports for its data showing rising antisemitism, though its methodology for measuring the threat inside the US has come under increasing scrutiny because of how it categorizes Zionism.

Since the October 7 Hamas attack on Israel, the ADL has counted demonstrations that feature