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The effort furthers the goals of the Heritage Foundation, which has launched a plan to "identify and target Wikipedia editors" using a number of underhanded tactics.
A pair of House Republicans is moving forward with an investigation that will seek to reveal the identities of Wikipedia editors who have edited articles to include information that portrays Israel negatively.
On Wednesday, Rep. James Comer (R-Ky.), chair of the House Oversight Committee, and Rep. Nancy Mace (R-S.C.), chair of the House Subcommittee on Cybersecurity, Information Technology, and Government Innovation, sent a letter to the Wikimedia Foundation, the nonprofit that owns the free encyclopedia.
The representatives asked Wikimedia's CEO, Maryana Iskander, for "assistance in obtaining documents and communications regarding individuals (or specific accounts) serving as Wikipedia volunteer editors who violated Wikipedia platform policies as well as your own efforts to thwart intentional, organized efforts to inject bias into important and sensitive topics."
The letter requested information about "nation state actors" or "academic institutions" that may have been involved in efforts to "edit or influence content identified as possibly violating Wikipedia policies."
A spokesperson for the Wikimedia Foundation told The Hill that they were reviewing the request.
"We welcome the opportunity to respond to the committee's questions and to discuss the importance of safeguarding the integrity of information on our platform," the spokesperson said.
The GOP investigation coincides with a long-standing objective of the far-right Heritage Foundation, which has accused Wikipedia of anti-conservative bias and promoting content that portrays Israel in a negative light, and sought to unmask the identities of the internet users who run it.
The letter sent by Comer and Mace requests that Wikimedia provide Congress with "records showing identifying and unique characteristics of accounts (such as names, IP addresses, registration dates, user activity logs) for editors" who have been "subject to actions" by Wikipedia's Arbitration Committee, which resolves internal disputes between editors.
It was, in essence, a request by Congress for Wikipedia to "dox" many of its editors.
"In the culture of Wikipedia editing, it is common for individuals to use pseudonyms to protect their privacy and avoid personal threats," wrote tech writer and Wikipedia expert Stephen Harrison for Slate in February. "Revealing an editor's personal information without their consent, a practice known as doxing, is a form of harassment that can result in a user's being permanently banned from the site."
Of chief concern to the legislators is investigating Wikipedia's handling of content related to Israel. They cited a report from the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), a pro-Israel lobbying group, which the legislators said "raised troubling questions about potentially systematic efforts to advance antisemitic and anti-Israel information in Wikipedia articles related to conflicts with the state of Israel."
The ADL report makes the allegation that 30 "bad-faith" Wikipedia editors, whose identities are not public, were collaborating to edit pages about the Israel-Palestine conflict by "spotlighting criticism of Israel and downplaying Palestinian terrorist violence and antisemitism," and in the process violating Wikipedia's commitment to neutrality.
That report, however, has been heavily criticized, including by some of the academics it cited. In a piece for The Forward, Shira Klein, whose research on Wikipedia's documentation of the Holocaust appears in the report, said the ADL "inaccurately" used her work, and the work of others, as part of its "ramped-up efforts to police public discourse about Israel," and quoted other researchers who felt the same.
Klein described the study's interpretation of the facts as "very skewed" and said it was reliant "on a faulty premise: that criticism of Israel or Zionism is inherently antisemitic."
"To establish foul play, the ADL would need to demonstrate that Wikipedia content about Israel and Zionism regularly expresses as fact ideas that diverge from broadly held scholarly opinions on the matters in question," Klein said. "But where is the evidence of editors repeatedly misrepresenting or contradicting peer-reviewed literature? There is none. The report simply wants us to take the ADL's word for it."
The ADL's report, as well as a similar report from the Atlantic Council alleging that Wikipedia editors had conspired to spread pro-Kremlin propaganda, are the sole pieces of evidence cited by Comer and Mace in their request for identifying information on Wikipedia's editors.
However, right-wing efforts to undermine Wikipedia's independence and attack the privacy of its editors go back much further.
In January, documents obtained by The Forward's Arno Rosenfeld revealed a secret plan by Heritage, the think tank behind the authoritarian Project 2025 playbook, to "identify and target Wikipedia editors" who the organization said were "abusing their position."
Among the methodologies it directed Heritage employees to use include "analyzing text patterns, usernames, and technical data through data breach analysis, fingerprinting, [human intelligence], and technical targeting."
The targeting methods also included "creating fake Wikipedia user accounts to try to trick editors into identifying themselves by sharing personal information or clicking on malicious tracking links that can identify people who click on them."
According to Rosenfeld, "The Heritage Foundation sent the pitch deck outlining the Wikipedia initiative to Jewish foundations and other prospective supporters of Project Esther, its roadmap for fighting antisemitism and anti-Zionism."
Jewish Voice for Peace has described Project Esther as Heritage's "blueprint for using the federal government and private institutions to dismantle the Palestine solidarity movement and broader US civil society, under the guise of 'fighting antisemitism.'"
"Even if you take issue with how the site is currently framing the conflict, that doesn't justify Heritage's plan," Harrison wrote. "Targeting Wikipedia editors personally, instead of debating their edits on the platform, marks a dangerous escalation."
Coming amid the Trump administration's crackdowns against campus protests and efforts to deport immigrants over pro-Palestine speech, critics have described the House Republican investigation as the latest GOP attempt to censor criticism and the spread of unflattering information about Israel.
Adam Johnson, a co-host for the political podcast Citations Needed, described it in a post on X as "House Republicans working with the ADL and Atlantic Council to discipline Wikipedia into parroting the Israeli and NATO line."
Johnson noted that this push was coming as the clear majority of Americans, including an overwhelming number of Democrats, now oppose US support for Israel, with many now believing the country is committing a genocide.
"Rather than end the genocide," Johnson said, "the response instead is to continue firing, doxing, smearing, and attempting to censor inconvenient narratives."
"This is not an unavoidable famine, this is a campaign of mass extermination," said Jewish Voice for Peace.
International outrage mounted Friday following the official declaration of full-blown famine in Gaza, with human rights defenders underscoring the preventable nature of a crisis caused by Israel's 22-month US-backed obliteration and siege of the Palestinian territory.
As Common Dreams reported, the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC)—the world's leading authority on hunger crises—issued a "special snapshot" on the situation in Gaza confirming the embattled Palestinian enclave has entered Phase 5, or catastrophic famine, characterized by "starvation, death, destitution, and extremely critical acute malnutrition levels."
According to the IPC, more than 500,000 Gazans are suffering Phase 5 conditions, more than 1 million Palestinians are currently in Phase 4 ("emergency"), and nearly 400,000 others are in Phase 3 ("crisis").
Hundreds of Palestinians have starved to death in Gaza, including at least 112 children, according to local health officials. Thousands more Palestinians have been killed or wounded while seeking food aid, including more than 850 people slain at or near distribution points run by the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation—described as "death traps"—where Israeli soldiers said they were ordered to fire live bullets and artillery shells into crowds of civilians.
"It is a famine on all of our watch. Everyone owns this."
The starvation crisis is so severe that even Israeli media and US President Donald Trump and senior members of his administration have addressed it, with Vice President JD Vance recently acknowledging that "you've got little kids who are clearly starving to death."
Critics—some of whom noted warnings of imminent starvation in Gaza dating back to late 2023—stressed that the Gaza famine is entirely the result of Israeli policies and practices.
"It is a famine that we could have prevented, if we had been allowed. Yet food stacks up at borders because of systematic obstruction by Israel," United Nations Undersecretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator Tom Fletcher said during a Friday press briefing.
"It is a famine we could have prevented"
UN emergency coordinator Tom Fletcher says people should read the IPC report "in sorrow and in anger"
pic.twitter.com/X1dekCrQFh
— Peter Stefanovic (@PeterStefanovi2) August 22, 2025
"It is a famine within a few hundred meters of food, in a fertile land," he continued. "It is a famine that we repeatedly warned of, but that the international media has not been allowed in to cover. To bear witness. It is a famine openly promoted by some Israeli leaders as a weapon of war."
"It is a famine on all of our watch. Everyone owns this," Fletcher contended. "The Gaza famine is the world's famine. It is a famine that asks, 'But what did you do?' A famine that will and must haunt us all. It is a predictable and a preventable famine. It is a famine that must spur the world to more urgent action."
"My ask, my plea, my demand to [Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin] Netanyahu and anyone who can reach him: Enough," he added. "Ceasefire. Open the crossings, north and south, all of them. Let us get food and other supplies in, unimpeded and at the massive scale required. End the retribution. It is too late for far too many. But not for everyone in Gaza. Enough. For humanity's sake, let us in."
Irish Foreign Minister Simon Harris—who is also defense minister and the equivalent of deputy prime minister—called the situation in Gaza "heartbreaking and devastating."
"It is sickening and despicable," Harris continued. "In [Ireland], we have called it out for what it is—a genocide."
Erika Guevara Rosas, the senior director for research, advocacy, policy, and campaigns at Amnesty International—one of many international human rights groups accusing Israel of genocide—said Friday that "this famine is the direct consequence of Israel's deliberate campaign of starvation in Gaza."
"It is all the more harrowing that this famine is an entirely man-made, deliberately orchestrated, and preventable catastrophe," she continued. "The deliberate obstruction of humanitarian aid, the destruction of life-sustaining infrastructure, and the direct killings of civilians are a clear manifestation of how Israel is inflicting conditions of life calculated to bring about the physical destruction of Palestinians in Gaza as part of its ongoing genocide."
"With every hour that passes without decisive international action, more Palestinian lives are lost, and Gaza City edges closer to complete annihilation," Guevara Rosas added, referring to Israel's launch of Operation Gideon's Chariots 2, a campaign to conquer, occupy, and ethnically cleanse 1 million Palestinians, possibly into a concentration camp proposed for construction over the ruins of Rafah.
"History will never forgive us for standing by as emaciated children die, while food remains just miles away, yet blocked by Israel," Guevara Rosas asserted. "To even begin reversing the devastating consequences of Israel's inhumane policies and actions, the world must take action now."
The US group Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP), which has led many protests against the Gaza genocide, said on the social media site Bluesky, "This is not an unavoidable famine, this is a campaign of mass extermination."
Today, the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC), a UN body, declared a state of famine in Gaza. While this is horrific news, it does not come as a surprise.
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— Jewish Voice for Peace (@jvp.bsky.social) August 22, 2025 at 9:23 AM
"The legacy of this genocide will last beyond any of our lifetimes," JVP added. "We've arrived at this point after decades of the US doing everything in its power to defend and fund the Israeli government's policies of ethnic cleansing, land theft, and now starvation and genocide. This depravity must end."
These statements follow similar condemnations earlier Friday by UN Secretary-General António Guterres, UN human right chief Volker Türk, and many others around the world on the 686th day of Israel's assault and siege, which have left more than 228,000 Palestinians dead, maimed, or missing, according to the Gaza Health Ministry.
Coinciding with the IPC designation, a report published Friday by Forensic Architecture and the World Peace Foundation detailed how Israel has dismantled the time-tested civilian aid distribution model and replaced it with a military-based system in which many Palestinians are not only dying from starvation but are also being killed while trying to obtain food.
The Israeli human rights group B'Tselem—which, along with Physicians for Human Rights-Israel recently became the first two groups in Israel to acknowledge the Gaza genocide—also published a report Friday on Israel's weaponized starvation of the strip.
Meanwhile, Israeli government officials responded to the IPC announcement in the same manner in which they've dismissed accusations of genocide for the past 22 months.
Netanyahu—who is a fugitive from the International Criminal Court wanted for alleged crimes against humanity and war crimes including murder and forced starvation—called the IPC report "an outright lie."
"Israel does not have a policy of starvation," the prime minister incredulously claimed. "Israel has a policy of preventing starvation."
According to the Gaza Health Ministry, two more Palestinians starved to death in Gaza within the past 24 hours, including a 5-month-old infant.
"Israel is systematically destroying Palestinian life and society, and Chuck Schumer and Kirsten Gillibrand are writing the checks," said a spokesperson for New York City Councilwoman Tiffany Cabán, who was arrested.
The advocacy group Jewish Voice for Peace announced Friday that 50 people, including elected officials, were arrested at the Manhattan offices of U.S. Sens. Kirsten Gillibrand and Chuck Schumer while protesting the New York Democrats' continued support for Israel as it annihilates the Gaza Strip.
"The deliberate and shameless killing of Palestinians in Gaza is enraging the world," said scholar Judith Butler, a member of the Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP) Academic Advisory Council, in a statement. "If it is not bombing or shooting, it is a strategic plan of starvation, all of which are crimes against humanity. It is time, past time, to cease looking away. Actions such as ours are a message to all those who look away: Wake up, take a stand, and demand the end to this genocide."
Although a majority of U.S. Senate Democrats this week supported Sen. Bernie Sanders' (I-Vt.) latest effort to block additional arms sales to Israel, Gillibrand and Schumer, the chamber's minority leader, opposed the resolutions.
"It is absolutely unconscionable that Sens. Schumer and Gillibrand continue to arm the Israeli military while it carries out genocide against Palestinians and uses starvation as a weapon of war in Gaza," JVP's Jay Saper, who had family members killed in the Holocaust, said Friday. "The echoes of the past are not lost on us. We refuse to be silent—because never again is now."
Around 200 protesters gathered at the Manhattan offices of U.S. Sens. Kirsten Gillibrand and Chuck Schumer, both New York Democrats, on August 1, 2025. (Photo: Ken Schles/Jewish Voice for Peace)
Protesters wore shirts with the message "Let Gaza Live," banged on pots and pans, and chanted "stop starving Gaza" in the lobby of the Third Avenue building. They held banners with messages including: "Jews for Palestinian Freedom," "Stop Arming Israel," and "End the Blockade."
Since the Hamas-led October 7, 2023 attack on Israel, the Israeli government has not only directed its forces to decimate Gaza but also severely restricted the flow of humanitarian aid into the coastal enclave. More than 150 people have died from starvation, according to local officials. Experts believe the official death toll of at least 60,332 is likely an undercount.
Outraged by the conditions in Gaza—enabled by the U.S. Congress and both the Biden and Trump administrations—200 people demonstrated at the Senate offices, JVP said. Protesters included New York City Councilwomen Alexa Avilés (D-38) and Tiffany Cabán (D-22), state Assemblywoman Claire Valdez (D-37), and actor Sara Ramirez.
The New York Daily News reported that Cabán and Valdez were among the protesters arrested, zip-tied, and put on decommissioned Metropolitan Transportation Authority buses. Cabán's spokesperson, Arden Dressner Levy, said she was taken into police custody for "participating in civil disobedience" to demand that "Israel stop starving Gaza."
"Israeli attacks in Gaza have created the highest rate of child amputees in the world. Israel is blocking food, medicine, and baby formula from entering Gaza. Israel is systematically destroying Palestinian life and society, and Chuck Schumer and Kirsten Gillibrand are writing the checks," Levy told the outlet. "Never again is now."
Religious leaders also joined the protest. Rabbi Abby Stein of the JVP Rabbinic Council said that "Jewish teachings compel us to take action to save lives. That is why we support blocking the sales of deadly U.S. weapons to the Israeli military, which is one of the few tools available to members of Congress that could actually, and immediately, save lives."
The protest came as U.S. Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee and President Donald Trump's special envoy to the Middle East, Steve Witkoff, visited one of the controversial Gaza Humanitarian Foundation aid distribution sites.
In response to their trip to Gaza, Oxfam America director of peace and security Scott Paul said that "we do not have time for symbolic measures—a few more trucks, airdrops, and humanitarian pauses may be better than nothing—but in reality, they are far more effective in grabbing headlines than they are at saving lives."