Cotton's Hardline Fanaticism Strikes Again

When an American politician calls this territory Judea and Samaria, it is a signal of support for an annexationist and anti-Palestinian agenda.

Tom Cotton wants the U.S. government to echo the language of fanatics:

Sen. Tom Cotton, R-Ark., introduced a bill Thursday that, if passed, would ban the use of the term "West Bank" in federal government materials.

The bill would bar federal funds from going toward the preparation or promotion of any executive orders, policies, regulations, guidances, notices, briefings or other materials which refer to the area as such.

Sen. Cotton’s legislation is called the Retiring the Egregious Confusion Over the Genuine Name of Israel’s Zone of Influence by Necessitating Government-use of Judea and Samaria, or RECOGNIZING Judea and Samaria, Act. Israel refers to the West Bank as Judea and Samaria.

Cotton pretends that he wants the government to use “historically accurate” language to refer to the occupied Palestinian territory west of the Jordan, but this is an obvious sop to Israeli expansionists and the other American hardliners that support them. When an American politician calls this territory Judea and Samaria, it is a signal of support for an annexationist and anti-Palestinian agenda. Cotton denounces the term West Bank as “politically charged,” but in the context of the ongoing Israeli occupation of Palestinian land there could be nothing more politically charged than endorsing the name that the occupiers prefer.