Skip to content

Wael Zwaiter: what Wikipedia removed

The first target of Israel’s response to the Munich massacre. The opening still records that “Israel considered Zwaiter a terrorist”, but the word count fell from 3 to 1, and the Munich massacre is no longer named in the first sentence.

The word “terror” appeared 3 times in this article’s opening at its peak, in 2010. Today the opening carries none; the body carries 1. Checked against the full current article on 2026-08-02.

word2010201520206 October 202320252026
terror322211
massacre333333
colonial000011
resistance000011

Counts are of the opening paragraph only, the part most readers, search engines and AI training sets ever quote.

  • The Munich massacre is no longer named in the sentence explaining why he was targeted.
  • His defenders’ claim that he opposed terrorism was also cut, which leaves the reader with less of the dispute, not more.

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

2010 (revision 359225065):

Wael Zwaiter ( Template:Lang-ar ) was a Palestinian translator assassinated as the first target of Israel’s Operation Wrath of God campaign following the 1972 Munich massacre . Israel considered Zwaiter a terrorist for his alleged role in the Black September movement, while his supporters argue that he was “never conclusively linked” with Black September or the Munich massacre and was killed in retribution. Zwaiter was born in Nablus in the mid-1930s as son of Adel Zu`aiter. He went to Iraq and studied Arabic literature and philosophy at the University of Baghdad . Zwaiter moved then to Libya and afterwards to Rome , where he was a PLO representative and worked as a translator for the Libyan…

2026 (revision 1362435698):

Palestinian Arab diplomat and writer (1934 – 1972) Abdel Wael Zwaiter ( Arabic : وائل زعيتر ; also known as Wa’el Zu’aytir ; 2 January 1934 – 16 October 1972) was a Palestinian writer and translator. He was assassinated as the first target of Israel ‘s Mossad assassinations following the Munich massacre . Israel considered Zwaiter a terrorist for his alleged role in the Black September group , while his supporters argued that he was “never conclusively linked” with Black September or the Munich massacre and was killed in retribution. ^ Khalidi, Rashid . The Hundred Years’ War on Palestine: A History of Settler Colonialism and Resistance, 1917-2017. Kindle edition. Profile Books, 2020. ^ Mich…

Wikipedia text is quoted under CC BY-SA 4.0. This page is not affiliated with Wikipedia.