Admittedly, I would have jumped on the bandwagon for his banning when I had my first RK experience. RK has called me a few choice things in the past, but I been discovering that RK is an essential part of the Wiki community since his edit wars consistently yield the kind of synthesis that we want: quality, neutrality, and a unique perspective that highlights what Wiki can offer that other sourcebooks cannot.

We should disregard the mountain of grievances we have against him, and accept him as an eloquent, forceful representative of a significant share of hard-liners on the pro-Israel side, although I would certainly favor banning if there were no counterweight. Since these are mass-based struggles, there might be a substantive benefit to allowing partisans to engage in struggle and yield syntheses, in that we might be better able to deal with the role of public opinion, and political mobilization.

Actually, I’ve been noticing that Wikipedia’s have been doing a better job of conveying how the two sides see this conflict than the academic literature and media articles (Reuters, NY Times, BBC, AP usually) that I usually read.

All academic journals, sourcebooks, and media outlets have their strengths and weaknesses when weighed against each other. And Wiki offers a unique perspective on the Israeli-Palestinian dispute made possible by the dynamics of RK and his enemies. Nothing else available online is going to be synthesis of material written by- and also edited by - such a diverse group of perspectives (the online medium makes it possible – there might be violence if this group were in the same room!). The articles convey all facets of reality, being products themselves of an actually Israeli-Palestinian proxy battle.

As a disclaimer, as the son of Holocaust survivors I’ll state my solidarity with RK’s passions for a strong, secure state of Israel. However, my views on his conception of Arab culture are closer to the late Edward Said than Daniel Pipes. As a historian, I find myself cringing, and often gasping with disbelief, when reading RK’s tracts on the Palestinians, Arabs, or Islam.

Perhaps I can relate to RK’s mentality better than most, but I’ve wedded a strong rebuke of RK’s paranoia, obnoxiousness, and bully tactics to a defense of the end result.

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