Response to Daniel Pipes' Explanation for Using 'West Bank'

Submitted by Jerome Verlin (United States), Feb 21, 2014 at 20:07

[1] The media and the public understand the terms "Judea-Samaria" and "West Bank" as coextensive. E.g. NYTimes (Bronner, 10/3/10 quoting Netanyahu's saying "Judea and Samaria" as him "using the biblical term for the West Bank"; USA Today, 9/20/11: "Jews have lived in Judea and Samaria, the biblical name for the West Bank, for thousands of years."

[2] Using "West Bank" instead of Judea and Samaria, derived from Hebrew biblical terms and "part of the geographical vocabulary of Christian Europe since the time of Jesus," is "to declare that Jews and Christians have no historical connection to these areas," Philologos, Forward, Oct. 2010; Ettinger, Israel Hayom, 12/16/11: "In April 1950 the Jordanian occupation renamed Judea/Samaria as 'the West Bank' to assert Jordanian rule and to expunge Jewish connection to the cradle of Jewish history. Until 1950, all official Ottoman, British and prior records referred to 'Judea and Samaria' and not to the 'West Bank.'"

[3] Wilken wrote in "The Land Called Holy" (p 196-97) that after the Bar Kochba revolt homeland Jews refused to use the conqueror's names for places in Israel. Neither should we.

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