Kōzō Okamoto is a Japanese Red Army member responsible for the 1972 massacre of 26 passengers at Ben-Gurion Airport in Israel. In 2005 the opening called the Japanese Red Army a terrorist group. Today the opening instead calls him a 'Japanese communist,' and though terror survives 23 times elsewhere in the article, the group's own terrorist designation is gone from the opening. A reader arriving now learns he was a communist responsible for a massacre, not that Wikipedia's own opening once called his organization a terrorist group.
Read line by line and written up by hand.
Machine-checked against the full current article on 2026-08-01. “terror” appeared 1 times in this article's opening at its peak. Today the opening has none; the body has 23.
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.Red text: written in or rewritten since the previous snapshot.1 tap a number or a side note to jump between them
The opening as it read in 2005
Kōzō ) was a member of the Japanese terrorist group, Japanese Red Army (JRA). After disembarking from the plane the three members of the JRA opened fire with automatic weapons in the arrival terminal. The attack was a joint operation of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), and the Japanese Red Army. They killed 26 people and injured 78 others. Yasuyuki Yasuda was killed in the attack when he ran out of ammunition. Tsuyoshi Okudaira committed suicide by placing a grenade against his body. Kozo Okamoto was captured trying to escape the terminal. In the letter claiming official responsibility for the attack carried out by the Japanese Red Army, the PFLP referred to it as Operation Dir Yassin . This was to portray it as revenge for the 1948 massacre by Israeli soldiers on Palestinian civilians in the village of the same name. The letter also stated that the operation was carried out by the Squad of the Martyr Patrick Arguello . Patrick Arguello had been shot and killed two years earlier, on 6 September 1970 on an Israeli El Al jet he had attempted to highjack together with PFLP member Leila Khaled . Kozo Okamoto was sentenced to life imprisonment in Israel, but was released in 1985 , after spending 13 years in prison, as part of a prisoner exchange with Palestinian militant factions. After his release from prison in Israel, Kozo Okamoto moved to Libya, then Syria and finally to Lebanon where he reunited with other members of the Japanese Red Army. In February 1997 Lebanon detained five Red Army members, Haruo Wako , Masao Adachi , Mariko Yamamoto , Kazuo Tohira and Kozo Okamoto for using forged passports and visa violations. They were sentenced to three years in prison. After their prison term was completed the four other members of the JRA were forcibly deported to Jordan and from Amman, Jordan via a chartered Russian plane to Japan. The Lebanese government however granted political asylum to Kozo Okamoto because "had participated in resistance operations against Israel and had been tortured in Israeli jails." Kozo Okamoto is still wanted by the Japanese government. It has requested that he be extradited to Japan. This request was not made when Kozo Okamoto was a prisoner in Israel.1
This is Wikipedia's own text, saved in our repository. Their copy of it is revision 16809888.
The opening as it stood in 2010 19 passages from the previous snapshot no longer appear
Kōzō Okamoto ( 岡本 公三 , Okamoto Kōzō ; born December 7, 1947) is a former member of the Japanese armed militant group, Japanese Red Army (JRA), who was later detained in Lebanon.During his stay in Lebanon, Okamoto converted to Islam , what was seen as an attempt to avoid being returned to Japan.He is a convicted mass murderer, and is still wanted by the government of Japan url= http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/681569.stm | title: Okamaoto convert to Islam
Red text was written in or rewritten since the previous snapshot. Their copy is revision 366007473.
The opening as it stood in 2015 2 passages from the previous snapshot no longer appear
Kōzō Okamoto (left) and Fusako Shigenobu , leader of the Japanese Red Army at a press conference Kōzō Okamoto ( 岡本 公三 , Okamoto Kōzō ; born in Kumamoto , Japan, on December 7, 1947) is a Japanese former militant and member of the Japanese Red Army (JRA).Okamoto was a 24-year-old botany student from a middle-class family when he was recruited to the Japanese Red Army.He was later detained in Lebanon . During his stay in Lebanon, Okamoto converted to Islam . He is wanted by the government of Japan for his activities with the Red Army, and was imprisoned by Israel for his involvement in the Lod Airport massacre .
Red text was written in or rewritten since the previous snapshot. Their copy is revision 664745367.
The opening as it stood in 2020
Kōzō Okamoto ( 岡本 公三 , Okamoto Kōzō ; born in Kumamoto , Japan, on December 7, 1947) is a Japanese former communist and member of the Japanese Red Army (JRA). Okamoto was a 24-year-old botany student from a middle-class family when he was recruited to the Japanese Red Army. He was later detained in Lebanon . During his stay in Lebanon, Okamoto converted to Islam . He is wanted by the government of Japan for his activities with the Red Army and was imprisoned by Israel for his involvement in the Lod Airport massacre .
Red text was written in or rewritten since the previous snapshot. Their copy is revision 953665708.
The opening as it stood on October 6, 2023 4 passages from the previous snapshot no longer appear
Japanese communist, terrorist, and member of the Japanese Red Army Kōzō Okamoto ( 岡本 公三 , Okamoto Kōzō ; born 7 December 1947) is a Japanese communist and member of the Japanese Red Army (JRA), responsible for the massacre of 26 passengers at Ben-Gurion International Airport in Israel .
Red text was written in or rewritten since the previous snapshot. Their copy is revision 1178823231.
The opening as it stood in 2025
Japanese communist and member of the Japanese Red Army Kōzō Okamoto ( 岡本 公三 , Okamoto Kōzō ; born 7 December 1947) is a Japanese communist and member of the Japanese Red Army (JRA), responsible for the massacre of 26 passengers at Ben-Gurion International Airport in Israel .
Red text was written in or rewritten since the previous snapshot. Their copy is revision 1295046296. This is our newest snapshot; the live article may have moved again since.
Today
“terror” appeared 1 times in this article's opening at its peak. Today the opening has none; the body has 23. Read the current article and compare.
2005
2010
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Oct '23
2025
terror
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militant
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massacre
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martyr
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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 between 2005 and 2025.
Then
member of the japanese terrorist group
Now
japanese communist and member of the japanese red army
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.
