The Republican chair of the House Foreign Affairs Committee instructed GOP staff to refer to the West Bank by its biblical name, Judea and Samaria.
The term is still used by Israel’s government to refer to territory on the West Bank of the Jordan River, claimed by both Israel and the Palestinians.
Rep. Brian Mast (R-Fla.), chairman of the committee, wrote in a staff memo that all “formal correspondence, communication, and documentation” would refer to the territory of the West Bank as Judea and Samaria. The term is often used by Israel’s religious and political right to emphasize Israel’s claim over the territory.
Mast said he was making the change to recognize the “inherent right of the Jewish people to their ancient homeland” and demonstrate the U.S.’s “unbreakable bond with Israel.”
Mast’s memo does not apply to the Democratic staff of the House Foreign Affairs Committee. Axios first reported on the memo.
Israel took over the West Bank from Jordan during the Six Day War in 1967, but the territory was partitioned in the 1993 Oslo Peace Accords between Israeli and Palestinian control. The expectation was that some of the territory would become part of a future Palestinian state.
But talks for a final-status agreement are remote, with Israel expanding settlements and its security presence in the West Bank, Palestinians resisting, and both sides resorting to violence at times.
The majority of the international community refers to the territory as Israeli-occupied given Israel’s overwhelming control over the security and economic situation in the West Bank.
President Trump said he would make a decision by early March whether to support Israel annexing the territory. Trump, during his first term, blocked Israel from annexing the West Bank.
Violent clashes between Israelis and Palestinians in the West Bank escalated in the wake of Hamas’s Oct. 7 terrorist attack against Israel, launched from the Gaza Strip.
On Sunday, Israel’s Defense Minister Israel Katz sent tanks into the West Bank for the first time in 20 years in an expanded military operation fighting against Palestinian militant groups in the areas of refugee camps.
