The Utah Legislature has joined a growing red state fad of introducing — and, at least in the case of Arkansas, passing — bills meant to change the way their respective governments refer to a tiny slice of land on the other side of the world.
Introduced by Rep. Karianne Lisonbee, R-Clearfield, HB435 would make it “state policy” to no longer call the land between Jerusalem and the Jordan River the “West Bank,” the terminology adopted by most international bodies (not to mention many Israelis).
Instead, state institutions would be required to use the “the historical names of Judea and Samaria,” a reference to ancient Israelite kingdoms.
(Christopher Cherrington | The Salt Lake Tribune)
In seeking this shift in terminology, Lisonbee, a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, joins a conservative evangelical movement aimed at bolstering the claim of modern-day Israel, which many American Christians equate with ancient Israelites, to the region where millions of Palestinians reside.
About the bill
If passed, the measure, which has yet to have a committee hearing, would impact any “department, division, office, commission or other institution of the state.” Each would be barred from using state funds for any “official government material,” specified as any “rule, press release, communication, briefing, guidance or publication” from employing the “West Bank” term.
Unclear is how all of this might apply to state-run schools and universities and the language instructors would be allowed to use in class and in their academic research, as well as the readings they could assign students.
Lisonbee, who does not plan to run for reelection, did not respond to requests for comment.
(Trent Nelson | The Salt Lake Tribune) Rep. Karianne Lisonbee, shown in January, is proposing a measure that supports modern-day Israel.
Joel Gordon, a professor of Middle East studies at the University of Arkansas, said that a similar law passed in his state last year has not been used to censor scholarship.
At least, not yet.
“What we’re concerned about is that it’s part of a broader assault,” said Gordon, explaining that his state’s Legislature last November asked faculty members with courses on the region to turn over syllabuses for review (they have yet to hear back about those submissions).
If Arkansas tries to extend the measure to the academic setting, Gordon’s colleague, Middle East studies professor Mohja Kahf, is ready to fight back.
“I live in the real world,” Kahf said. “In the real world, this is the West Bank. If and when those who passed this religious-extremist-fantasyland law want to try to enforce this law in my classroom or in my writing, I am prepared to take it up in court.”
Meanwhile, states considering nearly identical bills this year include Georgia, Florida, Tennessee, Oklahoma, Missouri and South Carolina.
A greater end goal
Roughly the size of Delaware, the West Bank functions as a semiautonomous Palestinian state governed by the Palestinian Authority and, to varying degrees, Israel, which seized the territory from Jordan in a 1967 war. Debate has seethed for decades over whether Israel’s presence represents an illegitimate occupation.
The words “Judea” and “Samaria,” on the other hand, refer to Israelite kingdoms that existed around 3,000 years ago. The Hebrew Bible mentions both prominently.
Conquerors have come and gone — as have the region’s names. Today, the “West Bank” name, adopted during Jordan’s brief reign from 1949 to 1967, represents the most widely used and politically neutral.
(Samar Hazboun | The New York Times) A farm overlooking settlements in the West Bank village of Husan in March 2025.
By seeking to swap the label with Judea and Samaria, Lisonbee and her counterparts in other states are attempting to advance a cause that has been gaining momentum among conservative evangelicals for some years, said anthropologist and historian of North American Christianity Hillary Kaell.
“Over the last generation,” Kaell, who teaches at Montreal’s McGill University, said, “Judea and Samaria have become an important symbolic indicator for right-wing politicians in Israel and the U.S., and for U.S. Christians — usually white evangelicals — who believe that God wants, even requires, that all territory of biblical Israel be controlled by contemporary Jewish people.”
Realizing this divine mandate has major repercussions far beyond the world’s Jewish population in the minds of these believers, who view the “restoration” of the Holy Land to them as a major milestone on the road to the end times.
Latter-day Saints have traditionally interpreted apocalyptic texts in the Bible somewhat differently from evangelicals, and the church, as an institution, has a policy of neutrality on the Palestinian-Israeli conflict.
Those looking for an endorsement of the view that Jewish people are the rightful inheritors of the land once occupied by ancient Israel can find it. In 1841, for instance, apostle Orson Hyde dedicated Jerusalem “for the gathering together of Judah’s scattered remnants.”
Palestinian ‘erasure’ and ‘competing narratives’
Complicating the mission to extend modern-day Israel’s borders to include the West Bank is the fact that more than 3 million Palestinians call the territory home.
Satin Tashnizi, CEO and co-founder of the Emerald Project, a Utah nonprofit aimed at rooting out Islamophobia, stressed this point.
“Recognizing an ideologically driven name for the West Bank contributes to the ongoing erasure of Palestinians in service of Israeli, not U.S. interests,” Tashnizi said. “Utah officials were elected to serve Utahns, not to advance a foreign government’s political agenda.”
(Satin Tashnizi) Satin Tashnizi is the co-founder and executive director of the Emerald Project.
Salt Lake City Rabbi Sam Spector demurred on the question of whether he supported the bill. Instead he described “the Palestinian-Israeli conflict,” in which this debate is couched, as “one of competing narratives” in which “terminology validates one group’s narrative while negating another’s.”
He concluded: “It’s important to be educated as to the competing narratives.”
(Chris Samuels | The Salt Lake Tribune) Congregation Kol Ami Rabbi Samuel Spector in 2024.
Annie Greene, a historian of the modern Middle East who teaches at the University of Utah, underscored the importance of the role of language in one of the world’s most intractable conflicts.
Emphasizing that her views are her own and do not represent those of Utah’s flagship school, she said, “I do appreciate the Legislature bringing attention to language and terminology.”
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