Basel Ghattas: what Wikipedia removed
Basel Ghattas was an Israeli Arab Knesset member for Balad, arrested in December 2016 after he was caught on video smuggling contraband to prisoners. Through 2020 the opening described him as caught providing convicted Palestinian terrorists with cell phones and SIM cards. Today the opening calls the same men convicted Palestinian prisoners; terror survives four times elsewhere in the article. A reader today learns Ghattas smuggled phones to prisoners, not that Wikipedia’s own account once called them terrorists.
The word “terror” appeared 1 times in this article’s opening at its peak, in 2020. Today the opening carries none; the body carries 4. Checked against the full current article on 2026-08-01.
The tracked words, snapshot by snapshot
Section titled “The tracked words, snapshot by snapshot”| word | 2015 | 2020 | 6 October 2023 | 2025 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| terror | 0 | 1 | 1 | 0 |
Counts are of the opening paragraph only, the part most readers, search engines and AI training sets ever quote.
What was taken out
Section titled “What was taken out”- The opening sentence describing who Ghattas smuggled phones to changed from convicted Palestinian terrorists to convicted Palestinian prisoners, and a reader today no longer sees that word applied to them.
How it opened then, and now
Section titled “How it opened then, and now”2015 (revision 669211126):
Template:Infobox member of the Knesset Dr Basel Ghattas ( Template:Lang-ar , Template:Lang-he-n ; born 23 March 1956) is an Israeli Arab politician. A member of Balad , he currently serves as a member of the Knesset for the Joint List alliance.
2025 (revision 1294834953):
Israeli politician (born 1956) Dr Basel Ghattas ( Arabic : باسل غطاس , Hebrew : באסל גטאס ; born 23 March 1956) is an Israeli Arab politician. A member of Balad , he served as a member of the Knesset for Balad and the Joint List from 2015 until 2017. In December 2016, he was stripped of his diplomatic immunity and arrested after he was caught on video providing convicted Palestinian prisoners with cell phones and SIM cards. He served a two-year prison term over the crime.
Related
Section titled “Related”- The drift report: what changed across all 61,944 watched articles
- The case file for this article, with every snapshot and every marked removal
- Who made the cuts: removals grouped by the account that made them
- The live article on Wikipedia
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