Arkansas to ban agencies from saying 'West Bank'

Arkansas Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders, a Republican, signed legislation on Monday to prohibit the state’s agencies from using the term “West Bank.”

The bill, which passed in the Arkansas General Assembly earlier this month, is considered to be the first time that a U.S. state has required its documents to call the area that Israel captured from Jordan in the 1967 Six-Day War by the biblical names of Judea and Samaria.

“It is the intent of the General Assembly to: (1) Refer to the land controlled by Israel from Jordan during the 1967 Six-Day War by its historical name of ‘Judea and Samaria’, with the land south of Jerusalem being considered ‘Judea’ and the land north of Jerusalem being considered ‘Samaria’; and (2) No longer use the term ‘West Bank’ in official government materials.”

Proponents of the phrasing contend that the names better reflect Israeli terminology. They also say the use recognizes the historic and biblical connection of Jews to the kingdoms of Judea and Samaria, while the phrase “West Bank” was popularized by Jordan after it occupied the area in 1948 to imply continuity between the east and west banks of the Jordan River.

Sanders’s father, Mike Huckabee, the U.S. ambassador to Israel and a former governor of Arkansas, has previously argued that the Jewish state has a biblical “title deed” to Judea and Samaria.

“There are certain words I refuse to use,” Huckabee said in 2017. “There is no such thing as a ‘West Bank.’ It’s Judea and Samaria.”

Similar legislation, which has been proposed at the federal level, is pending in the House and Senate.