US lawmakers seek to rename West Bank as ‘Judea and Samaria’

US Republican lawmakers in both the House and Senate on Tuesday introduced a bill seeking to rename the West Bank “Judea and Samaria”, the term used by the Israeli occupation.

The bill was introduced following an order signed by President Donald Trump upon taking office to lift the sanctions imposed by the outgoing administration of President Joe Biden on settlement officials.

Republican Senators led by Tom Cotton and Claudia Tenney demand US government departments refer to the area inhabited by nearly three million Palestinians as “Judea and Samaria” in official documents.

Cotton argued that the US should “stop using the politically charged term West Bank”, asserting that “the Jewish people’s legal and historic rights to Judea and Samaria go back thousands of years.”

According to them, the term “West Bank” is a confusing and geographically illogical concept, as Judea and Samaria is located in eastern Israel.

“Calling these areas the West Bank is like calling the East Coast of the United States the West Bank,” they claim.

Under the terms of the two-state solution, the occupied West Bank forms an integral part of a future Palestinian state, with East Jerusalem as its capital.

Israel has expanded its occupation of the area, increasing the number of settlers living there and making life for Palestinians increasingly difficult in an effort to force them out of their ancestral homeland.

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