Viajero wrote:
Several of us were discussing the topic on the IRC channel in December (Anthere may remember this because she was one of them) and this question came up. One person said they thought WP (EN) had a pro-Israeli bias. Another said a pro-Palestinian bias. A third said neither POV was accurately represented.
Conclusion???
There just aren't a lot of Arabs or Palestinians showing up here. Most pro-Palestinian edits are coming from a liberal Israeli point of view such as Danny's
One Palestinian-Canadian showed up awhile ago but alas he has not contributed since September:
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/wiki.phtml?title=Special:Contributions&limit=5...
I think part of the problem, as always, is deciding what is a "neutral" point of view. IMO, it does *not* mean that it's one that all people would accept as neutral. It's one that all *reasonable* people would accept as neutral, even if somewhat grudgingly. Of course, how to define reasonable is controversial.
To take one example, it is mainstream public opinion in many Arab countries that the [[Protocols of the Elders of Zion]] are an authentic document, a viewpoint that is not in keeping with the evidence (which is fairly strong on this point). To have any sort of reasonable argument, we can't help but simply saying "well, just about everyone who has examined the evidence thinks mainstream Arab public opinion is flat-out wrong on this point" (albeit phrased more politely).
This is not only to pick on Arabs. Some polls last year showed that a fairly high percentage of Americans believed Iraqis were among the Sept. 11 hijackers, but as evidence shows that the hijackers were Saudis, we can't really present "they were Iraqis" as a legitimate viewpoint.
-Mark