Peulot Meyuhadot: what Wikipedia removed
The Peulot Meyuhadot were secret Jewish paramilitary squads set up on David Ben-Gurion’s orders in 1939 to strike back during the Arab revolt in Palestine. Through October 2023 the opening said the squads were created for ‘retaliatory strikes against Arab terrorists and villages, attacks on British installations, and the elimination of Jewish informers and traitors.’ Today the word terrorists is gone from the article entirely, and the opening instead describes strikes against Arab ‘resistants.’ A reader today learns the squads targeted Arab resistants and not that Wikipedia’s own opening once called the same people terrorists.
The word “terror” 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| terror | 1 | 1 | 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 changes on this article are at the word level rather than whole passages; the table above shows the counts moving.
How it opened then, and now
Section titled “How it opened then, and now”2010 (revision 363985442):
The Peulot Meyuhadot (POM or Pu”m) ( Hebrew : פלוגות מיוחדות ) were three highly secret special operations squads set up in Palestine by Yitzhak Sadeh on David Ben Gurion ‘s orders early in 1939, towards the end of the 1936–1939 Arab revolt in Palestine . The squads were created for retaliatory strikes against Arab terrorists and villages, attacks on British installations, and the elimination of Jewish informers and traitors. The squads were controlled directly by Ben Gurion, without reference to the Haganah general command, and were used repeatedly during the last months of the Arab revolt and during the months that followed. Notable members of the squads were Yigal Allon and David Shaltie…
2025 (revision 1248243804):
Secret special operations squads in Palestine, 1939 Military unit The Peulot Meyuhadot (POM or Pu”m) ( Hebrew : פעולות מיוחדות ) were three highly secret special operations squads set up in Palestine by Yitzhak Sadeh on David Ben-Gurion ‘s orders early in 1939, towards the end of the 1936–1939 Arab revolt in Palestine . The squads were created for retaliatory strikes against Arab resistants and villages, attacks on British installations, and the elimination of Jewish informers and traitors. The squads were controlled directly by Ben Gurion, without reference to the Haganah general command, and were used repeatedly during the last months of the Arab revolt and during the months that followed…
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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