Hamastan: what Wikipedia removed
Hamastan, the pejorative term blending Hamas with the Persian suffix for a homeland, describing Hamas’s governance of Gaza. Through October 6 2023 the opening described Hamas as “a Palestinian militant organization and political party.” The word appears nowhere in the article today; the opening now calls Hamas “a Palestinian political party with a military wing.” A reader today learns Hamas has a military wing and not that Wikipedia’s own opening once called it a militant organization outright.
The word “militant” appeared 1 times in this article’s opening at its peak, in 2010. Today it appears nowhere in the article at all, references included. 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 | 2010 | 2015 | 2020 | 6 October 2023 | 2025 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| militant | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 0 |
| terror | 0 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 |
| islamist | 0 | 1 | 1 | 2 | 1 |
| apartheid | 0 | 0 | 0 | 2 | 2 |
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 description of Hamas as a militant organization left the opening, replaced by a description of Hamas as a political party with a military wing.
- A section quoting a Hamas official praising the term Hamastan, dropped from the opening.
How it opened then, and now
Section titled “How it opened then, and now”2010 (revision 365826865):
Hamastan ( Template:Lang-ar ) is a pejorative neologism , merging ’ Hamas ’, a Palestinian militant organization and political party, and ’ -stan ’, a suffix of Persian origin meaning “home of/place of”. ^ William Safire, Year of the Stans , New York Times , December 31, 2006 ^ Newsweek International 5 September 2005 The Last Word: Mahmoud Zahar In Praise of “Hamastan” ^ The socio-political makeup of “Hamastan”
2025 (revision 1296716976):
Term referring to Hamas administration of Gaza Hamastan ( Hebrew : חמאסטן ) is a pejorative neologism , blending Hamas , a Palestinian political party with a military wing, and -stan , a suffix of Persian origin meaning “home of/place of”. The term Hamastan generally relates to the Hamas administration of Gaza . The term emerged during the days of Israel’s withdrawal from the Gaza Strip in 2005, and is suggestive of either Bantustans (the nominally self-governing black homelands created in apartheid -era South Africa ; see Palestinian enclaves ), or Hamas’ religious policies (rhetorically likened to the Taliban ‘s rule of Afghanistan ) or, alternatively, political ties with Iran . ^ Safire, …
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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