Florida bill seeks to ban use of ‘West Bank’ in schools and state agencies

Florida legislators are pushing to pass legislation that would ban the use of the term “West Bank” in K-12 public schools and state agencies, including public colleges and universities, and mandate use of the term “Judea and Samaria”.The West Bank is the internationally recognized term for the Israeli-occupied Palestinian territory west of the Jordan River that was seized from Jordan by Israel in 1967. The rightwing Israeli government refers to the area as “Judea and Samaria” in reference to the biblical kingdoms of ancient Israel as part of broader efforts to bolster historical and religious claims to the land. The international community, on the other hand, broadly recognizes the West Bank as occupied land that must be part of a future Palestinian state.The term “Judea and Samaria” has been embraced by many US Republicans since the first Trump administration, including the former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee, who Donald Trump appointed as ambassador to Israel last year. Arkansas became the first US state to mandate replacing references to the “West Bank” in state institutions with “Judea and Samaria” in April last year. Similar bills have been proposed in the US Congress but have not come up for vote.Florida’s proposed legislation is the only one to also target K-12 schools.If the Florida legislation passes,, state agencies, including universities and colleges, would be prohibited from using the term “West Bank” in any official state government materials, and would require any new instructional or school library materials in K-12 public schools to comply with the new law and use the term “Judea and Samaria”.The bill, called the Recognizing Judea and Samaria Act, comes amid the imposition of sweeping restrictive changes to school textbooks and library materials by Florida legislators in recent years, particularly targeting LGBTQ+ and race-based themes; climate change and social justice issues, including the Black Lives Matter movement; critical race theory; and descriptions of socialism.The Lake Worth Democratic representative Debra Tendrich, who is Jewish and one of HB 31’s sponsors, said she felt the bill was necessary to combat the “erasure” of Jewish links to the land. “Jordan coined the term West Bank, not for any other reason than to erase the Jewish connection from this land,” she told the house state affairs committee last week.But the Democratic representative Angie Nixon of Jacksonville told the committee the proposal “could be seen as an attack, an erasure of the Palestinian people”. Adam Abutaa, Florida organizing manager with the Muslim-American advocacy group Emgage Action, added that the proposed change “elevates one narrative while erasing another, restricting how educators, researchers, public institutions can speak about a region recognized by the US government and the international community”.“This bill does not operate in the abstract; it touches people’s histories, families and lived realities,” said William Johnson, PEN America’s Florida director. “Our state is home to thousands of Palestinian Americans, many of whom have deep ties to the West Bank. At a time of rising anti-Muslim and anti-Palestinian rhetoric, the legislation sends a worrying signal that some Floridians’ identities and experiences fall outside the bounds of recognition and belonging.”The house version of the bill, HB 31, was advanced by the state affairs committee on 27 January and awaits debate on the house floor. The parallel senate effort, SB 1106, is still awaiting committee review to advance to a vote. Republicans control both chambers.