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Case file

A History of the Palestinian People

In 2005 Wikipedia's first sentence called it “empty book by assaf voll purporting to cover the history of the palestinian people from the dawn of humanity to”. Today it says “empty book by assaf voll that uses blank pages to suggest that palestinians have no history”.
Measured, not asserted. Every count, date and revision on this page was taken from Wikipedia's own history and checked against the live article. The words quoted are theirs.
Machine-checked against the full current article on 2026-08-03.
We saved snapshots of this article over twenty years; you are reading the October 6, 2023 one. Red dashes: removed from Wikipedia since. Pale dots: rewritten; the numbered note shows what it says now. 1 tap a number or a side note to jump between them
The opening as it read in October 6, 2023

Assaf Voll A History of the Palestinian People: From Ancient Times to the Modern Era is an empty book by Assaf Voll that uses blank pages to suggest that Palestinians have no history, based on a false argument that a group may only call itself "a people" if it has always existed. It has continued to circulate on social media among the Israeli right-wing. It was published in paperback and digital formats in 2017, and most of its contents are blank pages. Its publication has been described as a "cruel joke". The incident has been said to signify "the continued vitality of a more enduring political, social and cultural impulse to abrogate Palestinian history and identity – on the part of Israel, and by extension, among its Western allies." "Empty book on Palestinian history becomes instant best-seller on Amazon" . The argument used by the Israeli right seems to imply that a group may only call itself "a people" if it has always existed, which is false because all peoples have at one point or another come into being. The book was removed from Amazon's site soon afterwards, but continued to circulate to abundant glee in the chambers of social media, with the applause in the chambers of social media, with the applause emanating predominantly from the right of the Israeli political spectrum. Though a short-lived source of public titillation, the incident signified the continued vitality of a more enduring political, social and cultural impulse to abrogate Palestinian history and identity – on the part of Israel, and by extension, among its Western allies. Such a tradition was aptly articulated more than thirty years ago in Edward Said's observation that 'the Palestinian narrative has never been officially admitted to Israeli history, except as that of "non-Jews", whose inert presence in Palestine was a nuisance to be ignored or expelled.' Peled, Daniella (6 October 2017). Not content to merely wipe out the Palestinian people, Israel is also bent on destroying their cultural heritage, even going so far as to claim that the Palestinians have no heritage or history of their own to begin with. Indeed, a book last year which quickly shot to number one in Amazon's "Middle East History" category, before being pulled from the website, was A History of the Palestinian People: From Ancient Times to the Modern Era by Israel author Assaf Voll. This book, which purposes to be "the comprehensive and extensive review of some 3,000 years of Palestinian history," consisted of 120 blank pages – a cruel joke attempting to show that the Palestinians have no history. There are <ref group=lower-alpha> tags or templates on this page, but the references will not show without a template or template (see the help page ).

This is Wikipedia's own text, saved in our repository. Their copy of it is revision 1177837553.
Today
In 2005 Wikipedia's first sentence called it “empty book by assaf voll purporting to cover the history of the palestinian people from the dawn of humanity to”. Today it says “empty book by assaf voll that uses blank pages to suggest that palestinians have no history”. Read the current article and compare.
2020Oct '232025
Counts in the opening at each snapshot. Green: the word gained ground. Red: it was cut. Grey: no change.

What Wikipedia says this is

Every article opens by defining its subject. This one was redefined since 2020, and today's defining sentence is their current revision.

Then

empty book by assaf voll purporting to cover the history of the palestinian people from the dawn of humanity to

Now

empty book by assaf voll that uses blank pages to suggest that palestinians have no history

Struck red text is no longer in the article; dotted amber text was rewritten. Every revision id links to Wikipedia's copy; the text shown is our own saved copy. Data: /data. Wikipedia text is CC BY-SA; quoted for the record; not affiliated with Wikipedia.

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