Kōzō Okamoto: what Wikipedia removed
Kōzō Okamoto is a Japanese Red Army member responsible for the 1972 massacre of 26 passengers at Ben-Gurion Airport in Israel. In 2005 the opening called the Japanese Red Army a terrorist group. Today the opening instead calls him a ‘Japanese communist,’ and though terror survives 23 times elsewhere in the article, the group’s own terrorist designation is gone from the opening. A reader arriving now learns he was a communist responsible for a massacre, not that Wikipedia’s own opening once called his organization a terrorist group.
The word “terror” appeared 1 times in this article’s opening at its peak, in 2005. Today the opening carries none; the body carries 23. 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 | 2005 | 2010 | 2015 | 2020 | 6 October 2023 | 2025 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| terror | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 |
| militant | 1 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| massacre | 1 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 |
| martyr | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| resistance | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 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 sentence naming the Japanese Red Army a terrorist group is gone from the opening.
How it opened then, and now
Section titled “How it opened then, and now”2005 (revision 16809888):
Kozo Okamoto (岡本公三 Okamoto Kōzō ) was a member of the Japanese terrorist group, Japanese Red Army (JRA). On May 30 , 1972 , Kozo Okamoto along with Yasuyuki Yasuda , and Tsuyoshi Okudaira , arrived at Israel’s Lod Airport in Tel Aviv , via Air France Flight 132 from San Juan , Puerto Rico . After disembarking from the plane the three members of the JRA opened fire with automatic weapons in the arrival terminal. The attack was a joint operation of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), and the Japanese Red Army. They killed 26 people and injured 78 others. Yasuyuki Yasuda was killed in the attack when he ran out of ammunition. Tsuyoshi Okudaira committed suicide by placing …
2025 (revision 1295046296):
Japanese communist and member of the Japanese Red Army Kōzō Okamoto ( 岡本 公三 , Okamoto Kōzō ; born 7 December 1947) is a Japanese communist and member of the Japanese Red Army (JRA), responsible for the massacre of 26 passengers at Ben-Gurion International Airport in Israel .
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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