The page represents the consensus view among academics who study genocide, including the leading Israeli academics who study the subject.
Wikipedia has policies around what constitutes a reliable source, and academics who study a particular subject and publish in peer-reviewed journals are generally considered among the highest-quality sources. In this case, they nearly unanimously agree that what Israel has been doing in Gaza is a genocide.
It took Wikipedia a long time to come to this determination. At first, academics were divided, but as time went on and Israel's actions became ever more extreme, opinions shifted and nearly all academics in the field started calling it a genocide. That caused Wikipedia to start calling it a genocide. There was a very long process of discussion and debate on the talk page of the article leading up to this change, centered on an evaluation of the sources.
Jimmy Wales has now come along and essentially ordered the Wikipedia community to change the article. He's effectively ordering them to disregard the usual "reliable source" guidelines and instead represent a view that he personally feels is neutral.
The thing is that Wikipedia editors don't necessarily respect Jimmy Wales that much, and they generally don't think he has the right to dictate what any particular article should or should not say. Wikipedia has been around for more than 20 years. It has well established rules and a community of editors. Jimmy Wales is just the guy who originally set it up, but he's not necessarily an expert on anything.
> There was a very long process of discussion and debate on the talk page
Could you link to it? It's seems key to the issue. Many refer to it - including in the discussion with Wales - but nobody seems to link to, refer to, or analyse it.
As you can see, it wasn't just a few editors saying, "lol, let's just say it's a genocide." Hundreds of people weighed in on the proposal. They looked at lists of recent sources.
There were previous discussions like this that came to a different conclusion. But as more and more sources started calling it a genocide, Wikipedia editors eventually decided the opening sentence had to be changed.
My complaint was not at all about the first sentence but about the total absense in the entire article of any alternative viewpoint, or even references to the conflict or the totally different treatment of scholarly consensus (because there is a scholarly consensus that hamas committed genocide too, in fact, there is consensus about multiple hamas genocides, and about many genocides committed by other palestinian factions including the PA). And as I pointed out even the beginning of the conflict, Hamas' attack, which is a genocide without any discussion about it, is barely mentioned at all, and only as an "attack".
Because once again, your comparisons just doesn't work.
Wikipedia title for an article that 90% of scholars (WITH academic credentials) agree hamas and palestinians committed genocide on Jews:
"Allegations of genocide in the October 7 attacks"
Wikipedia title for an article that 90% of scholars (who paid 20 euros to be considered scholars, the IAGS) agree Israel committed genocide against Gazans:
"Gaza genocide"
(IAGS does not require academic credentials to be a member, and many members have none)
Note that the scholars alleging Hamas' committed genocide in the October 7 attacks are largely the same as the in the "Gaza genocide" article. In ONE of those articles both genocides are represented ... in the other they aren't (except in the non-user-editable part).
Of course, on the page describing the hamas' genocide, none of the your arguments apply. The various viewpoints are represented (frankly ad nauseam), including arguments by individual scholars denying the genocide. On that page Wikipedia seriously makes the argument that "a massacre with genocidal intent" does not constitute a genocide. On that page scholarly consensus that a genocide occurred is described as "allegations of genocide". It continues like that, with for every scholar mentioned every tiny caveat they put anywhere in their paper repeated. For example that information sources may not be reliable as to intent.
On that page it is extensively mentioned that there are accusations against Israel committing genocide in Gaza, whereas on the "Gaza genocide" page it is not mentioned at all that hamas' committed genocide (except in that consensus is that hamas' definitely committed genocide against Israeli too ... oh and of course, there's the title.
I could keep going, pointing out that even in this article it is not mentioned that hamas' has in fact committed multiple genocides, including against Palestinians (in Al-Shifa hospital, among other places), and that the Palestinian Authority has done so as well, including against Palestinians, Jordans, Lebanese, ...
You really need someone to explain to you why the systematic destruction of all of Gaza, murder of tens of thousands of civilians, and intentional blockade of food, water and electricity by Israel, a country with overwhelming military superiority over the Palestinians, is viewed as a genocide, while the Hamas raid on Israel on October 7th, 2023 isn't? There are some people - primarily Israeli propagandists trying to distract from Gaza - who have called the latter a genocide, but the former is being called a genocide by huge numbers of scholars of genocide and human rights organizations.
You really need someone to explain to you why "if your group is 'weak' you get to commit genocide without punishment" is an incredibly, incredibly bad principle?
And no, the UN has called hamas' actions genocide, as I pointed out, are mostly the same people as for the "Gaza genocide".
If your group is weak, it's impossible for you to commit genocide. The idea that Hamas would ever be able to commit genocide against the Israelis is absurd. The reason why Israel is able to commit genocide against the Palestinians is because it has overwhelming military dominance.
Israel can kill Palestinians at will with almost no resistance. It can cut off food, water and electricity. It can bomb every hospital in Gaza. It can bomb almost every apartment building. It can destroy every water treatment plant. Etc. Etc. The most Hamas can do is launch a raid a few kilometers into Israel for a few hours, and that's only if the Israeli military isn't paying attention.
There is only one thing holding Israel back: fear of international pressure, in the form of sanctions, boycotts, etc.
Oh, one might even add: there was no need whatsoever to change the definition of genocide to come to that conclusion. There was no need to declare a paid mailing list "academic experts on genocide", just to get "academic experts on genocide" to say something is a genocide. No need for years of propaganda, change laws and definitions after the fact.
Who knew? Just emptying two automatic weapons in a kindergarten classroom, leaving no survivors, because hamas fighters thought they were Jews, that event, just that one incident, is genocide. Along with hundreds of other war crimes that also count. Even if two of those children (the black ones) weren't even Jewish. Raping, killing and torturing women because they're Jewish is genocide.
Is your claim seriously that cutting off electricity is worse, or justifies something like this? Because we all know why people think those victims aren't worth caring about ...
The IDF has killed more babies alone than the total number of Israelis killed on October 7th.
The conflict between Israel and the Palestinians has nothing to do with Judaism itself, and the Palestinians don't care that the Israelis are Jewish, so I don't know why you keep bringing Jews into this (except to somehow relate it to the Holocaust).
Wikipedia has policies around what constitutes a reliable source, and academics who study a particular subject and publish in peer-reviewed journals are generally considered among the highest-quality sources. In this case, they nearly unanimously agree that what Israel has been doing in Gaza is a genocide.
It took Wikipedia a long time to come to this determination. At first, academics were divided, but as time went on and Israel's actions became ever more extreme, opinions shifted and nearly all academics in the field started calling it a genocide. That caused Wikipedia to start calling it a genocide. There was a very long process of discussion and debate on the talk page of the article leading up to this change, centered on an evaluation of the sources.
Jimmy Wales has now come along and essentially ordered the Wikipedia community to change the article. He's effectively ordering them to disregard the usual "reliable source" guidelines and instead represent a view that he personally feels is neutral.
The thing is that Wikipedia editors don't necessarily respect Jimmy Wales that much, and they generally don't think he has the right to dictate what any particular article should or should not say. Wikipedia has been around for more than 20 years. It has well established rules and a community of editors. Jimmy Wales is just the guy who originally set it up, but he's not necessarily an expert on anything.