u/Bulky_Imagination243

For 99.05% of the countries in the world, the official name of those few kilometres of land is the West Bank. Even the Vatican calls it the West Bank. Israel is the only country in the entire world that officially refers to it as Judea and Samaria, and they do so as a matter of State policy, not for purely religious reasons — that’s a lie. They use it overwhelmingly for reasons that are, frankly, anything but religious.

Really, this debate over what to call a few kilometres of land shouldn’t stir up so much fuss. A territory’s name is something that can change; history itself shows us countless examples. Logically, it shouldn’t matter all that much. And yet, for the State of Israel and its leaders, it does matter, because that name is the perfect geopolitical and political instrument: it amounts to erasing the Palestinians and provides a justification — a very poor one, it must be said — for illegal occupation. They seek to normalise annexation through language, using the argument that “this land was called Judea and Samaria long ago, so it belongs to us”, as if it were the “true and historical name”, something half true and half false. It is true that it is an ancient, historical name, but that doesn’t make it the “true” name, not by any means. Especially considering that long before it was called Judea and Samaria, those lands bore names given by the Canaanites. If we were to go purely by chronology, those would have to be the “true” names, since they were the very first.

Still, what I find most brazen of all is the attempt to present Judea and Samaria as a neutral term, when the State of Israel waves it like a political flag in a pathetic attempt to override modern international law. It is not a neutral, civilised term at all; quite the opposite. If Judea and Samaria were truly neutral, free of bias and not blatantly favouring one side, then 99.05% of the world’s countries would use it officially, not just 0.5%.