JRV1317

For 3,000 Years It’s Been “Judea & Samaria,” Not “Occupied West Bank”; It’s Time We U.S. Jews Stood Up and Said So

#1317 April 12,, 2026

With Israel being unprecedentedly vilified the world over, it’s incumbent upon us grassroots American Jews to counter the deepest-cutting delegitimizing canard that “the West Bank, including East Jerusalem” is “Israeli-occupied.”

For 3,000 Years It’s Been “Judea & Samaria,” Not “Occupied West Bank”; It’s Time We U.S. Jews Stood Up and Said So

It doubtless doesn’t surprise you that yesterday, Saturday, 4/11/26, Aljazeera headlined a news article

“Israeli Settlers Kill Palestinian During Raid on Occupied West Bank Village”

and this morning, Sunday, 4/12/26, headlined

“Israeli Army Raids Across the Occupied West Bank Overnight”

Let’s count the slurs in Saturday’s. 

[1] The place is not the “West Bank,” invented by Jordan in 1950 to delegitimize Jews, but “Judea & Samaria” for 3,000 years (including by the UN in 1947).

[2] It’s not “Occupied,” it’s ours – historically (3,000 years presence), legally (Palestine Mandate), equitably (Pal Arab majority in three-fourths of Mandated Palestine, judenrein Jordan), and indispensably (defensible Jordan Valley backed by highland ridge, not 9-miles-wide in lowland middle).

[3] It calls Jews “Settlers” while Arabs live in a “Village.”

[4] It calls the fight over Palestine as between “Palestinians” and “Israelis.”  Guess who are the natives and who the outsiders. BTW, Jews were Palestinians first, and the UN in 1947 called its Jews and Arabs “the two Palestinian peoples.”

Let’s focus on “occupied.”

It should not it surprise you that international media giant Reuters led an article Thursday, 4/9/26,

“CAIRO/TAYASIR, West Bank, April 9 (Reuters) – Israel has approved the establishment of dozens of new Jewish settlements in the West Bank, an Israeli watchdog group said on Thursday, amid a rise in settler attacks on Palestinians across the occupied territory.” [emphasis added]

Or that the BBC yesterday, 4/11/26, headlined

“Palestinian shot dead during Israeli settler attack on occupied West Bank village” [emphasis added]

But what ought to bother you as an American Jew, to the extent of our standing up and speaking out against it, is American media these days headlining and leading “occupied West Bank.”  E.g.,

*** PBS headline and lede, 12/21/25, emphasis added:

“Israeli Cabinet approves 19 new Jewish settlements in occupied West Bank

“TEL AVIV, Israel (AP) — Israel’s Cabinet has approved a proposal for 19 new Jewish settlements in the occupied West Bank, the far-right finance minister said Sunday, as the government pushes ahead with a construction binge in the territory that further threatens the possibility of a Palestinian state”

*** CNN. Wednesday this week, 4/9/26, lede, emphasis added:

The Israeli security cabinet secretly approved the legalization of over 30 new settler outposts and farms in the occupied West Bank last month, according to three Israeli sources familiar with the decision

*** AP lede, 3/22/26, emphasis added:

RAMALLAH, West Bank (AP) — At least 10 Palestinians were injured Sunday night in attacks in the occupied West Bank by Israeli settlers, who rampaged through nearby villages after holding a funeral for a settler killed in a car crash a night earlier.

Fox [!], 10/23/25, leading an article headlined Vance Rebukes Israel on ‘Very Stupid’ Vote to Annex West Bank, emphasis added:

“A bill applying Israeli law to the occupied West Bank, which effectively would annex the territory for Israel, passed a vote Wednesday in Israel’s parliament as Vance was visiting the country, according to Reuters.”

Bottom Line

Make no mistake, the world views this “occupied West Bank” as including not just our people’s homeland’s defensible Judea-Samaria biblical hill country heartland but “East” [i.e., historic] Jerusalem.  E.g., UNSC 2334: “Palestinian territories occupied since 1967, including East Jerusalem”; Quakers’ AFSC: “Israel’s unlawful occupation of the West Bank, including East Jerusalem.”

By me, this obsession with “the occupied West Bank” is not just an indictment of the world’s media.  It’s an indictment of us, we grassroots American Jews, for not standing up and contesting it at the very moment of unsurpassed worldwide vilification of Israel.  “West Bank” is not objective reporting.  It’s taking sides in a names war between a three-millennia-used Jewish connection name used by even the UN in 1947, and a name coined by an invader in 1950 expressly to destroy that connection.  Doubling down by blatantly prefixing “occupied” to “West Bank” in headlines and ledes constitutes media joinder and inflaming of that delegitimization of our Jewish people’s historic homeland and us.  Our acquiescence is shameful.

Whenever you see “West Bank” and especially “occupied West Bank” in an internet news article, post a comment. If not us, who? And if not now, when?