Palestinian Christians: what Wikipedia removed
The 2005 opening reported that “Palestinian Islamists in the West Bank are using violence and threats of terror to scare Christians out of Palestine”. Both “Islamist” and “terror” are now gone from the article entirely, and the opening explains Christian emigration through Israel’s occupation instead.
The word “islamist” appeared 2 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 2026-08-01.
The tracked words, snapshot by snapshot
Section titled “The tracked words, snapshot by snapshot”| word | 2005 | 2010 | 2015 | 2020 | 6 October 2023 | 2025 | 2026 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| islamist | 2 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| terror | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| occupation | 0 | 0 | 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 explanation that Islamism was driving Christians out was removed; today’s opening explains the decline through Israel’s occupation.
Who made the cuts
Section titled “Who made the cuts”Wikipedia publishes who makes every edit. These removals were traced to the exact revision that made them:
- 2007-06-01, Eliyak, edit summary: “sectioned as best I could” (see the diff)
How it opened then, and now
Section titled “How it opened then, and now”2005 (revision 15920697):
Palestinian Christians make up 6% of the Palestinian population, according to Bernard Sabella. The region called Palestine is considered as the Holy Land by Christians, and major Christian holy places like Bethlehem and Nazareth are placed in Palestine. Prior to the establishment of the state of Israel , approximately 10% of Palestine’s population was Christian . This is reflected in the large number of prominent Palestinians that are Christian, including Hanan Ashrawi , Edward Said , George Habash , and Raymonda Tawil , mother of Yassir Arafat ‘s wife Suha. However, the Christians were also often found in the more affluent segments of Palestinian society which generally fled the country in …
2026 (revision 1364253821):
Religious minority of the Palestinian people Palestinian Christians ( Arabic : مَسِيحِيُّون فِلَسْطِينِيُّون , romanized : Masīḥiyyūn Filasṭīniyyūn ) are a religious community of the Palestinian people consisting of those who identify as Christians , including those who are cultural Christians in addition to those who actively adhere to Christianity . They are a religious minority within Palestine and Israel , as well as within the Palestinian diaspora . Applying the broader definition, which groups together individuals with full or partial Palestinian Christian ancestry, the term was applied to an estimated 500,000 people globally in the year 2000. As most Palestinians are Arabs , the overw…
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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