An Upstate New York congresswoman says Israel should be allowed to annex the land west of the Jordan River captured during the Six-Day War, and asked U.S. President Donald Trump to sign off on it.
Rep. Claudia Tenney (R-N.Y.) asked Trump to recognize Israel’s right to sovereignty over the land that the U.S. government currently refers to as the “West Bank.” The Israeli government and many others use the biblical names “Judea and Samaria.”
In a letter to the president dated Tuesday, Tenney said that the territory, which was placed under partial Palestinian control in the 1993 Oslo Accords, is where 80% of Jewish scripture took place and comprises “the Judeo-Christian biblical heartland.”
“This region is the heart of our shared Judeo-Christian heritage, and recognition of the right of Israel to declare sovereignty over this region would build upon your previous recognition of the importance of this heritage,” stated the letter, which Reps. Andy Harris (R-Md.), Mary Miller (R-Ill.), Barry Moore (R-Ala.), Nick LaLota (R-N.Y.) and Randy Weber (R-Texas).
The lawmakers did not close the door on an eventual Palestinian state but said that they wanted “to express our strong opposition to the recognition of any hostile Arab state in Judea and Samaria that supports terrorism and fails to recognize Israel.”
Tenney, chair of the new Friends of Judea and Samaria Caucus, said that she was moved to act in response to Trump’s comments earlier this month in which he did not rule out supporting Israeli sovereignty.
“In anticipation of a potential policy announcement regarding Judea and Samaria in the next few weeks, we want to express our strong support for recognizing Israel’s right to declare sovereignty over this historically and biblically significant region,” the lawmakers wrote.
At a Feb. 4 press conference at the White House alongside Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Trump said he was looking at whether to support Israel’s sovereignty over the land captured from Jordan in June 1967.
“We’re discussing that with many of your representatives,” Trump said. “You’re represented very well, and people do like the idea, but we haven’t taken a position on it yet.”
“We’ll be making an announcement probably on that very specific topic over the next four weeks,” he added.
In February, Tenney introduced legislation requiring all U.S. documents and materials to stop using the term “West Bank” and instead use “Judea and Samaria.”
“The Israeli people have an undeniable and indisputable historical and legal claim over Judea and Samaria,” she said at the time.