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Case file

Nitzan Alon

Nitzan Alon is an Israeli major general who commanded the IDF's Judea and Samaria Division and later Central Command. Through October 2023 the opening quoted him warning that Jewish 'price tag' attacks 'amount to terrorism.' Today the opening states only that he is a general who commanded Central Command starting in 2012, and the word survives once in the body. A reader today does not learn that Alon, as division commander, publicly called Jewish extremist 'price tag' attacks terrorism.
Read line by line and written up by hand.
Machine-checked against the full current article on 2026-08-01. “settler” appeared 4 times in this article's opening at its peak. Today the opening has none; the body has 4.
We saved snapshots of this article over twenty years; you are reading the 2015 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 2015

Nitzan Alon, 2011 Major General Nitzan Alon ( ; born 1964) is a general in the Israel Defense Forces . In December 2011, he was named GOC Central Command and became Head of Central Command in early 2012.1 He has a combined BSc in Physics and Material Engineering from the Technion in Haifa .2 Between 1984 and 1998, Alon was assigned to various positions in the IDF elite General Staff Reconnaissance Unit Sayeret Matkal , being appointed its commander in 1998. While commanding Sayeret Matkal, he was awarded the Chief of Staff Citation for a covert mission he commanded. In 2001, he began working as a research associate in Washington, D.C. . In 2003, he was appointed as commander of the IDF 551st Brigade Hitzey HaEsh (Fire Arrows) and in 2005 as commander of the Etzyon Regional Brigade in the IDF Central Command. In 2007, he was appointed as Head of the Israel Defense Intelligence Operations Division. From 2009 until October 2011, he served as commander of the Judea and Samaria Division. In 2012, he became the new head of the central command. The appointment was criticized by right wing organisations and political figures, including representatives of the Jewish settlers in the West Bank . A spokesperson for the Mateh Binyamin Regional Council stated that Alon′s appointment to head the IDF′s Central Command "represents a certain aspect of ' price tag ' on the part of the defense minister", but gave Alon credit for being "intelligent, wise and courageous", according to Arutz Sheva . During his term as commander of the Judea and Samaria Division, Alon was harshly criticized by the Jewish settlers in the West Bank who claim that he is "stacked against the settler movement". In July 2011, settlers attacked his military jeep at Tapuah Junction, and protested outside his home, harassing him and his family. The Jerusalem Post called him "the most radical, politically insubordinate officer to have held the position in recent memory", claiming that he "went out of his way to demonize and attack Israeli residents of Judea and Samaria, [claiming] without evidence continuously ... that acts of vandalism against Arab property in Judea and Samaria and inside of the 1949 armistice lines is the work of Jewish residents of the areas". At the end of his term as commander of the Judea and Samaria Division, Alon stated: "Even today an extremist minority, small in number but not in influence, could bring about a major escalation via acts that are dubbed 'price tag', but amount to terrorism. [These acts] should not just be condemned for their inherent injustice and stupidity; they must be stopped, and their perpetrators arrested, more effectively than we have succeeded in doing thus far". In an editorial, the Israeli daily Haaretz called his stance "supremely statesmanlike", and the proof "that not only is he a brave and decorated soldier, but he is also a man of conscience, who fears for the future of his society". Alon is married to Mor Alon. The couple has four children.3

This is Wikipedia's own text, saved in our repository. Their copy of it is revision 596042328.
Today
“settler” appeared 4 times in this article's opening at its peak. Today the opening has none; the body has 4. Read the current article and compare.
201020152020Oct '232025
terror01110
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 2010 and 6 October 2023.

Then

officer in the israel defense forces

Now

general in the israel defense forces

Where the word went

It left the opening. It did not leave the article. Wikipedia moved it down the page, where a reader arriving from a search result will not reach it.

  • “settler” now appears 4× under Career, 50% of the way down the article
  • “terror” now appears 1× under Career, 50% of the way down the article
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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