Shoreshthe drift report · all case files
Case file

Israel and weapons of mass destruction

In 2005 Wikipedia's first sentence called it “very widely believed to possess a substantial arsenal of nuclear weapons and intermediate-range ballistic missi”. Today it says “only country in the middle east that is believed to possess nuclear weapons”.
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 2005 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 2005

Israel is very widely believed to possess a substantial arsenal of nuclear weapons and intermediate-range ballistic missiles to deliver them. There is also speculation that it may have chemical and biological weapons programs. Israel acceded to the Geneva Protocol on February 20 , 1969 .1

This is Wikipedia's own text, saved in our repository. Their copy of it is revision 16438535.
Today
In 2005 Wikipedia's first sentence called it “very widely believed to possess a substantial arsenal of nuclear weapons and intermediate-range ballistic missi”. Today it says “only country in the middle east that is believed to possess nuclear weapons”. Read the current article and compare.
2005201020152020Oct '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 2005, and today's defining sentence is their current revision.

Then

very widely believed to possess a substantial arsenal of nuclear weapons and intermediate-range ballistic missi

Now

only country in the middle east that is believed to possess nuclear weapons

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.

← back to the drift report