Palestine Liberation Organization and Hamas: what Wikipedia removed

The 2005 opening stated that “Hamas is officially characterized as a terrorist group by Israel, the United States and the European Union”. Terror ran at 7 mentions. The article is now a redirect to the Fatah-Hamas conflict, and that sentence exists in our copy.

The word “terror” appeared 7 times in this article’s opening at its peak, in 2005. Today it appears nowhere in the article at all, references included. Checked against the full current article on 2026-08-02.

Where this comes from

We saved this article’s opening paragraph at 7 moments between 2005 and 2026. Everything below is Wikipedia’s own text, quoted from those saved copies. The interactive version, with every snapshot side by side and each removal marked in place, is at ilroot.com/case/palestine-liberation-organization-and-hamas.

The tracked words, snapshot by snapshot

word	2005	2010	2015	2020	6 October 2023	2025	2026
terror	7	2	0	0	0	0	0
jihad	1	0	0	0	0	0	0
martyr	2	0	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

• The designation sentence, naming Israel, the United States and the European Union. The article is now a redirect, and this text survives in our copy.
• Israel’s characterization of Hamas as a terrorist organization, removed.
• The charge that the Palestinian Authority failed to act against Hamas terrorism as it had agreed to do, removed.
• The criticism that the PLO violated its own commitments, removed.
• The 1996 crackdown on Hamas cells, removed.
• The prisoner releases to Hamas and Islamic Jihad, removed.
• Hamas’s own claim to challenge the PLO’s authority, removed.

Who made the cuts

Wikipedia publishes who makes every edit. These removals were traced to the exact revision that made them:

• 2006-04-24, Tazmaniacs (see the diff)
• 2010-10-30, Marokwitz, edit summary: “Poor article, better information in the redirect” (see the diff)
• 2006-04-24, Tazmaniacs (see the diff)
• 2010-10-30, Marokwitz, edit summary: “Poor article, better information in the redirect” (see the diff)
• 2006-04-24, Tazmaniacs (see the diff)
• 2010-10-30, Marokwitz, edit summary: “Poor article, better information in the redirect” (see the diff)
• 2006-04-24, Tazmaniacs (see the diff)

How it opened then, and now

2005 (revision 15921041):

One issue in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is the charge that the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), the main political organization of the Palestinians, is allied with Hamas , a Palestinian fundamentalist paramilitary and political organization, which is accused of organizing suicide bombers and other attacks against Israel, often targeting civilians . Hamas is officially characterized as a terrorist group by Israel , the United States and the European Union . The PLO takes measures to distance itself from Hamas, but because of the widespread popular support of Hamas, the PLO has historically been reluctant to directly confront the organization. While both the PLO and Hamas share a…

2026 (revision 735509313):

Redirect to: Fatah–Hamas conflict

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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