Championing Israel’s unshakeable 3,500-year-old claim to its ancestral homeland, new legislation introduced by Senator Tom Cotton (R-AR) this week seeks to codify the biblical names “Judea and Samaria” instead of the “West Bank.”
The “Recognizing Judea and Samaria Act” would require the federal government to align its language with the geographical and cultural significance of the region, reflecting Israel’s preferred terminology for these territories.
“The Jewish people’s legal and historic rights to Judea and Samaria go back thousands of years. The US should stop using the politically charged term West Bank to refer to the biblical heartland of Israel,” said Cotton on Thursday.
Rep. Claudia Tenney (R-NY), joining as a key supporter, emphasized that this linguistic shift is crucial for “defending the integrity of the Jewish state.”
“The Israeli people have an undeniable and indisputable historical and legal claim over Judea and Samaria, and at this critical moment in history, the United States must reaffirm this,” Tenney said. “This bill reaffirms Israel’s rightful claim to its territory. I remain committed to defending the integrity of the Jewish state and fully supporting Israel’s sovereignty over Judea and Samaria.”
The incoming Trump administration appears poised to support such a change, with Mike Huckabee, nominee for U.S. ambassador to Israel, already committed to using the biblical terminology. In an interview with Arutz Sheva, Huckabee rejected not only the term “West Bank” but also pushed back against claims of illegal Israeli occupation, stating the land has been rightfully held by the Jewish people since the “time of Abraham.”
Judea and Samaria encompasses some 2,180 square miles of land between Israel proper and the Jordan River, including historic cities like Hebron and parts of Jerusalem, which have been administered by Israel since the 1967 Six-Day War. While Israel has consistently used “Judea and Samaria” since gaining control of the territory, U.S. official communications have typically maintained the Jordanian pre-1948 “West Bank” designation.
