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A Toronto-based pro-Palestinian activist group is organizing a Wikipedia editing workshop on October 22, inviting participants to create “Wikipedia entries honouring martyred Palestinian artists and exposing the Canadian, Zionist backers of genocide,” months after hosting a similar event targeting an Israeli-linked philanthropic organization.
Artists Against Artwashing (AAA), operating through its Stop Artwashing Instagram account, advertised the upcoming “Free Palestine Wiki Edit-a-Thon” for 6 to 8:30 p.m. in downtown Toronto, with the precise location provided to registered participants. The evening will feature Palestinian short films, introductory Wikipedia training and hands-on editing.
The group explicitly frames the workshop as an effort to reshape the online narrative about Israel, declaring that the initiative seeks to counter attempts to conceal what it calls the “Imperialist perpetrators” of Israel’s actions in Gaza. Its announcement states that the event aims to remedy the narrative “towards Palestinian liberation,” directly linking the proposed Wikipedia contributions to the organizers’ political objectives.
The initiative follows an earlier Wikipedia editing workshop organized by the same collective in April, which specifically targeted articles associated with the Azrieli Foundation. An examination of Wikipedia’s revision history identified a controversial addition to the Azrieli Group article during that workshop, including an inaccurate claim about the ownership of an Israeli company. The material was subsequently largely removed following objections concerning neutrality and sourcing.
Previous Wikipedia Workshop Coincided With Disputed Edits
On April 28, 2026, Artists Against Artwashing organized a Wikipedia edit-a-thon at Gallery TPW in Toronto, alongside a program of Palestinian short films. The workshop specifically encouraged participants to modify Wikipedia pages connected to the Azrieli Foundation, a Canadian philanthropic organization with family and financial connections to Israel’s Azrieli Group.
The registration announcement portrayed the foundation as the charitable counterpart of Israel’s largest real estate company. Participants were invited to edit relevant Wikipedia entries as part of the collective’s broader campaign pressuring Canadian arts institutions to sever relationships with the foundation.
An examination of Wikipedia’s public revision history identified an addition to the Azrieli Group article at 7:30 p.m. Toronto time on April 28, precisely when the advertised editing workshop was scheduled to conclude.
On May 1, another Wikipedia editor removed 1,404 bytes of material, citing undue emphasis, insufficient reliable sourcing and violations of Wikipedia’s neutral-point-of-view policy. Additional material concerning the company was introduced and challenged during May, including a May 10 reversion citing repeated biographical-policy violations and biased content, followed by another substantial removal on May 30 over inappropriate sources.
The Activists Behind the Campaign
Artists Against Artwashing belongs to Toronto’s broader No Arms in the Arts coalition. Other coalition participants include Film Workers for Palestine, CanLit Responds, Writers Against the War on Gaza’s Toronto chapter and Musicians Against Artwashing. Among the collective’s publicly identified representatives are curator Mitra Fakhrashrafi, spokesperson Vince Rozario and activist Karina Iskandarsjah.
The organization has a history of disruptive protest actions targeting Canadian cultural institutions. In November 2024, its members interrupted the Toronto Arts Foundation’s annual fundraising gala, including a speech by Toronto Mayor Olivia Chow, to protest the foundation’s relationship with the Azrieli Foundation.
Film Contributors’ Connections to Pro-Palestinian Activism
The October 22 event announcement identifies two Palestinian artists, Ibrahim Abusitta and Maysam Khreibeh, as contributors to the evening’s short-film program.
Khreibeh, also known as Maysam Abu Khreibeh, was previously identified by the Mayworks Festival as an organizer with the Palestinian Youth Movement’s Toronto chapter. In November 2023, she participated in the disruption of Canada’s Giller Prize literary awards ceremony over its sponsorship by Scotiabank, which held investments in Israeli defense manufacturer Elbit Systems. According to The Breach, Khreibeh entered the ceremony posing as a photographer, transmitted footage of the protest to the Palestinian Youth Movement and later joined protesters onstage.
Abusitta, meanwhile, created an artwork titled Operations, a hand-drawn animation based on footage of a Palestinian terrorist approaching an Israeli military vehicle. In a published interview with The Ex-Puritan, he described repeatedly watching combat footage distributed by Resistance News Network (RNN), a channel that the Anti-Defamation League has documented circulating propaganda from Hamas, the PFLP and other designated terrorist organizations.
Abusitta described watching the footage while hoping for successful Palestinian terror attacks and said the material inspired him to create artwork honoring “resistance fighters.”
The Push to Shape Wikipedia’s Narrative
The October event appears to represent a deliberate effort by Artists Against Artwashing to shape Wikipedia’s coverage of Israel and its Canadian supporters in line with the group’s political objectives. Its stated intention to “remedy the narrative”, alongside its earlier workshop targeting the Azrieli Foundation, suggests an organized attempt to advance a particular political perspective on a platform intended to provide neutral, fact-based information. While such workshops do not inherently violate Wikipedia’s rules, the initiative raises concerns about the potential for coordinated advocacy campaigns to influence content that readers expect to be impartial.