I frankly am extremely confused at why so many people are reacting significantly worse to this than prior incidents.
The effects were not more severe this time, if anything they were less.
The number of people involved was less not more.
The group being more mainstream lessens the danger that their edits are further off base, though it does make them harder to detect sometimes.
This is not comparable to issues where we have large on-wiki disputes between competing factions, such as Pakistan/India. There is little risk of policy subversion when the issue is so contentious that everyone is watching all the time. That is not to say that those areas are not hotbeds of contention and problems - but they're not the same.
The only explanation that makes sense to me is that those who feel very strongly that this was uniquely severe are those who also are very strongly opposed to CAMERA's viewpoint on the Palestinean/Israeli conflict.
Is there anyone who either is neutral on that point or pro-Israel who thinks this was a terrifically bad incident, beyond that of other advocacy groups incidents we've had?