A leading conservative senator on Thursday introduced a bill that would eliminate all official US references to the “West Bank” and refer to the occupied Palestinian territory as “Judea and Samaria” instead.
With just weeks left until president-elect Donald Trump and his Republican Party take full control in Washington, one of Mr Trump's key allies, Senator Tom Cotton, is leading the bill. If passed, the legislation would expunge “West Bank” references from all official US documents.
The bill comes with a wordy acronym. Mr Cotton has called it the “Retiring the Egregious Confusion Over the Genuine Name of Israel’s Zone of Influence by Necessitating Government use of Judea and Samaria (Recognizing Judea and Samaria) Act.”
It persists on an extremist Judeo-Christian view of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, which denies Palestinian existence, opting instead for the more generic “Arab” identity, and holds firm that Israel is the rightful homeland of the Jewish people as dictated by the Abrahamic God.
“The Jewish people’s legal and historic rights to Judea and Samaria goes back thousands of years," Mr Cotton said in a statement. "The US should stop using the politically charged term West Bank to refer to the biblical heartland of Israel.”
The push in Washington would support Israel's far-right officials such as Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, who after Mr Trump's election win last month said that he has ordered preparations for the annexation of the occupied West Bank in the hope that the incoming US administration will recognise Israel’s “sovereignty” over the occupied territory.
In a post on X, Mr Smotrich earlier declared “2025: the year of sovereignty in Judea and Samaria.”
Mr Trump has indicated a more hardline approach to Palestinians with his cabinet appointments so far. His nominee for US ambassador to Israel, Mike Huckabee, has also stated that he does not believe the West Bank exists.
Congresswoman Elise Stefanik, Mr Trump's nominee for UN ambassador, has also been a leading conservative voice on Israel during her time on Capitol Hill, equating criticism of Israel to anti-Semitism, and becoming a crusader against pro-Palestinian campus protests that swept across the US this spring.
There is a partner bill to Mr Cotton's Recognizing Judea and Samaria Act already introduced in the Republican-controlled House of Representatives, and with the new all-Republican Congress starting next month, the bills have a higher chance of being passed into law.
Mr Cotton has also been a leading figure on Capitol Hill to threaten sanctions against the International Criminal Court for its warrants against Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former defence minister Yoav Gallant. Those sanctions are also expected to clear Congress and become US policy after the new Republican government assumes power in January.
