Arabic Wikipedia launches competition for Palestinian-related articles

“The Third Palestine Competition” was launched on the Arabic Wikipedia website last week. Running from May 15 to June 15, 2025, the competition offers monetary prizes ($400 for first place, declining to $100 for fourth) to encourage the creation and development of Palestinian-related articles.

With dozens of participants already creating the articles, the initiative demonstrates significant engagement. However, the underlying funding structure transforms what appears to be a grassroots community effort into a more gray-zone endeavor: government-incentivized content creation on a platform built on principles of editorial independence.

The event is organized by the Wiki Palestine Association, launched in December 2022 by the Palestinian Authority’s Ministry of Culture. The governmental nature of this initiative is even more striking as Batul Qaisiyah, Director of the Digital Content Department at the ministry, also served in parallel as coordinator of the Wiki Palestine association upon its launch in 2022.

In other words, a government-sanctioned organization is being platformed by the Wikipedia website to redact content with strong political undertones, promising to reimburse the winners with what appears to be governmentally allocated funds.

The competition's detailed point system, which awards bonuses for articles related to the Palestinian Nakba and other politically sensitive topics, suggests an agenda that extends beyond simple content creation and history documentation. The financial incentivization by interested political parties also raises questions about the neutrality of resulting articles.

The use of funding originating from state actors to motivate Wikipedia content creation may be a challenge to the encyclopedia's core mission, namely the volunteer-driven, allegedly neutral approach to knowledge compilation, principles that may become compromised when external political entities provide financial incentives for specific types of content.

The Wiki Palestine Association's role as intermediary between government funding and Wikipedia content creation exemplifies an arrangement that would allow states to influence content while technically avoiding direct editing, creating a gray area that existing Wikipedia policies may not adequately address.

A problematic history 

Dr. Shlomit Aharoni Lir, a Wikipedia expert, research fellow at the University of Haifa and founding member of Forum Dvorah, commented to the Jerusalem Post that cooperation between governments and cultural institutions with Wikipedia is not negative in and of its own, “as long as it is a way to deepen knowledge and encourage active civic participation in the production of knowledge.

This is true for the creation of content that focuses on documenting historical and cultural items and artifacts, such as coins, banknotes, stamps, postcards, newspapers, and magazines, used or published in various countries, in accordance with the criteria of encyclopedic importance.”

However, Lir added, “the problem arises when the laws are vague and the intervention concerns sensitive content in a way that produces biased knowledge or a blatant violation of the laws of neutrality in a way that turns the encyclopedia into a propaganda tool, as can be seen in many entries.”

Lir added that there are even more worrying cases than this one in terms of unbalanced contributions to the Wikimedia Foundation. “For example, when Qatar heavily funds projects in Arabic, but there is no corresponding support from pro-Israeli countries, a gap is created. In this situation, even neutral entries may lean in a certain direction.”

Wikipedia describes itself as an endeavor where anyone can contribute to the world's common knowledge. It is owned by the Wikimedia Foundation, an NGO which, as a matter of principle, rarely interferes in the content and editing process of specific entries, even when facing stories of widespread bias and misinformation. The website was put under scrutiny in the past months after pro-Palestinian attempts at offline coordination were exposed, following a lead from Pirate Wires, leading to the banning of several editors.

Further substantiating these concerns, journalist Aaron Bandler released hundreds of screenshots in April 2025 showing coordination among “Tech for Palestine” community members to influence Wikipedia content. Likewise, in March 2025, the Anti-Defamation League published findings documenting how 30 editors collaborated to bypass Wikipedia’s safeguards against antisemitic content. 

Another instance of Wikipedia making headlines over accusations of partiality happened last month, when acting attorney for Washington DC, Ed Martin, accused the popular website of becoming a vehicle for foreign propaganda and threatening to revise the Wikimedia Foundation’s tax-exempt status.

Arabic version of Wikipedia serves as a hub for antisemtism and misinformation

The Arabic version of Wikipedia also serves as a hotbed for bigotry, misinformation, and bias, featuring antisemitic accusations against Jews, implying that the Protocols of the Elders of Zion may have been real, and even making up quotes of Israeli leaders. Since the beginning of the war, the Arabic version’s logo has been infused with the Palestinian flag, infringing the website’s pretense of neutrality.

Disdain toward the bias on the Free Encyclopedia is not limited to activists and reporters alone. Larry Sanger, one of the founders and creators of Wikipedia, has also voiced his concerns regarding the bias on the platform Wikipedia, being cited in 2021 as saying that he wouldn’t trust it as a source despite being amongst its creators.

Sanger warned that Wikipedia “has changed”, implying that it is no longer “committed to neutrality” as it used to be, due “a big, nasty, complex being made behind the scenes to make the article say what somebody wants them to say.”

Wikimedia Foundation has yet to respond to the Jerusalem Post’s media request.