I am an administrator of Wikipedia and have been an editor for four years now. Mr. Kurtzman interviewed me, among a few others, for this article. The Wikipedia he describes is one alien to my experience, and to the others I spoke to who were interviewed by Kurtzman. In fact, WP's open format and "neutral point of view" requirements ensure that on controversial topics such as Israel, the outrageous propaganda and outright fabrications of Islamist and Arabist interests are given equal place as "valid alternative discourses". At the same time, Islamic and Arab atrocities against Jews and others are habitually downplayed and whitewashed.

The road to solution in the Arab-Israeli lies in Israel and its allies pursuing a policy of victory, not in creating "shared narratives" with those who openly advocate the genocide of the Jewish people.

Please guys, just draw a line down the middle and call it a mixed neighborhood. Leave the religion at the door and we'll go have a beer. It's not rocket science. Sombody needs to get a small dog to pull the curtians back so everyone can see that a few lever-pullers are manipulating so many otherwise decent folk. They are pulling a myth over on us. We are really alot more alike than some would have us think. Get a life. Help a neighbor build a barn. Either make some music or do some dancing...Submitted by a fan of the Dawg

One thing you encounter right-quick in Wikipedia is the incessant refrain that the other guys are winning. For articles relating to any historical conflict, (some) editors from each camp are convinced that objective history, Ranke's "history as it really happened", is being systematically misrepresented by propagandists from the other side. Russians vs. Poles, Sunni vs. Shia, Macedonians vs. Greeks, the list is endless. I alluded to this in the article when I mentioned that Wikipedia often leaves members of both sides in any given dispute dissatisfied.

So the Israeli-Arab conflict is typical. Some editors are convinced that Zionist editors have made Wikipedia into a 24/7/365 hasbarah orgy; others, like the commenter above, are equally convinced that it’s dominated by “the outrageous propaganda and outright fabrications of Islamist and Arabist interests." And then there’s all those in between.

The bottom line, though, is this: the historiography of any ethnic/national conflict will be characterized by a range of conflicting narratives. That’s why it’s so Sisypheana challenge to write a single “objective history” of a conflict, and why individual historians have resorted to all manner of narrative device in their efforts to do so. The commenter above may be driven batty by the inclusion of “alternative discourses” that he regards as ludicrous, but the day-to-day slog in which Wikipedia editors of various nationalities, ethnicities, and ideological dispositions struggle to compose a single document that accommodates multiple discourses—that describes those discourses without validating them—is part of what makes many Wikipedia articles so useful, so insightful, and so fascinating. It’s a wonderfully novel way of writing the history of conflicts, and—frustrating though the process may be for many editors—it’s producing some excellent content.

Have you ever thought of simply synopsizing the major opposing points of view right up front 123 then, listing a timeline of known factoids about an instance of history (or other discipline). If this much were handled with dry respect maybe the semi partisan mish-mash of chatter that followed would have a little clearer perspective. "Fan of the Dawg"

pro-Israel editors on wikipedia far outnumber arab and neutral editors.that's why day after day wikipedia becomes more and more pro-Israel. The things is worsen because some pro-Israelis are administrators, where they can block users and lock articles.

In his rush to praise the melding of various "discourses", Kurtzman ignores a basic fact. Some of these "discourses" are simply factually wrong, others morally indefensible.

The other responses to my original post, for the most part, reflect notions of historiography that would be well at home in the old Soviet Union and are devoid of originality, noteworthiness or worth in general.

"The unnerving tensions, the nonlinearity and palimpsest-like quality of even Wikipedia’s bad articles on the Arab-Israeli conflict are a generally more balanced introduction than most accounts written by one person."

Can someone explain why balance is a virtue? Is it always seen as such? In discussions of, e.g., slavery? Some of us believe that a "balanced" picture would do violence to reality, in much the same way as evangelical insistence that creationism be taught alongside evolution as comparable options does violence to the way things are. Obviously, Joey, you accept this principle in other circumstances (e.g., you don't call for balance re the Armenian-Turkish question-or even accept that there's a question at all). Is the I-P conflict different in kind, innately undecidable, doomed to remain in permanent equipoise? Some of us believe that there's a bad guy in the I-P conflict. It's fine to disagree with us, but to announce that, unlike most other big issues, this one needs to genuflect to some wishy-washy notion of balance just seems avoidant. 

There's a bit of a recurring problem on the Arabic Wikipedia of referring to Israel as "the Zionist entity."

Anonymous, I agree with you. The things that are allowed to be said about Israel/Israelis &, placed into Wikipedia - all without attributions or sources - are outrageous. The talk pages are even worse.  Susan

"If nature calls, don’t we all prefer a public bathroom, however messy, to none at all."

That depends on how messy the public bathroom is.