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Zionism: what Wikipedia removed

The word “colonial” appeared 0 times in this opening in 2005. It appears 14 times today, including the sentence that criticism characterizes Zionism as “a supremacist, colonialist, racist, or exceptionalist ideology or as a settler colonialist movement”. Antisemitism, the thing Zionism answered, peaked at 6 mentions in 2020 and has fallen since.

The word “colonial” appeared 14 times in this article’s opening at its peak, in 2025. Today the opening carries none; the body carries 14. Checked against the full current article on 2026-08-01.

The tracked words, snapshot by snapshot

Section titled “The tracked words, snapshot by snapshot”
word20052010201520206 October 202320252026
colonial003441432
antisemitism0216544

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”
  • This sentence now runs in the opening: supremacist, colonialist, racist, settler colonialist. It was not there in 2005.
  • Herzl’s founding role was moved out of the opening.
  • The Balfour Declaration’s support for the movement, removed from the opening.
  • The description of Religious Zionism, removed.
  • Herzl’s own words weighing Palestine and Argentina, removed.
  • The account of Zionist arrival in the land was reworded.
  • The independence sentence was rewritten.
  • The one-line description at the top was rewritten.

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:

  • 2026-03-17, Astropulse, edit summary: “Theodor Herzl is not even mentioned in the lead. I also think the picture of the founder is not the best way to represen” (see the diff)
  • 2026-06-30, Beland, edit summary: “seems to be where [[Talk:Zionism/Archive_42#Explicit_priviledge]] ended up” (see the diff)
  • 2026-02-10, Davefelmer, edit summary: “Restore longstanding wording. Shoehorning in the civil war feels clunky as we make no mention of the UN Partition Plan t” (see the diff)
  • 2026-03-16, Chicdat, edit summary: ”/* top */ remove some unnecessary text” (see the diff)
  • 2025-09-14, Chicdat, edit summary: ”/* top */ consistency with prev. sentence” (see the diff)
  • 2026-06-15, Bobfrombrockley, edit summary: “moving Alroey to a more pertinent use” (see the diff)
  • 2026-01-28, Smallangryplanet, edit summary: “Fix ref again” (see the diff)

How it opened then, and now

Section titled “How it opened then, and now”

2005 (revision 17941493):

For other meanings, please see Zionism (disambiguation) Zionism is a political movement among Jews , although supported by some non-Jews and not supported by some Jews, which maintains that the Jewish people constitute a nation and are entitled to a national homeland. Formally founded in 1897 , Zionism embraced a variety of opinions in its early years on where that homeland might be established. From 1917 it focused on the establishment of a Jewish national homeland or state in Palestine , the location of the ancient Kingdom of Israel . Since 1948 , Zionism has been a movement to support the development and defense of the State of Israel , and to encourage Jews to settle there. File:Ac.zioni…

2026 (revision 1366662290):

Jewish nationalist movement For other uses, see Zionism (disambiguation) . History Communities Population Denominations Orthodox Modern Haredi Hasidic Reform Conservative Karaite Reconstructionist Renewal Science Haymanot Humanistic Culture Languages Hebrew Biblical Mishnaic Medieval Modern Bukharian Ghardaïa Sign Jewish Koine Greek Judeo-Arabic Judeo-Aramaic Judeo-Berber Judeo-Gascon Judaeo-Georgian Judaeo-Iranian Judeo-Italian Judeo-Malayalam Judaeo-Spanish Judeo-Tat Knaanic Shassi Yeshivish Yevanic Yiddish Zarphatic Politics Category Portal v t e Zionism is an ethnocultural nationalist movement that emerged in late 19th-century Europe to establish and support a Jewish homeland through col…

Section titled “Related”

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