Filling in the missing background for the WSJ article The Name ‘West Bank’ Erases the Truth by Gideon Israel.
For decades, diplomats and much of the media have obsessed over Judea, Samaria, and Gaza-roughly four percent of the territory of the former British Mandate for Palestine-as though the region’s entire future hinges on their “disposition," as political scientist and international jurist Paul S. Riebenfeld observed.
Here’s the point: Judea, Samaria, and Gaza are not “religious" branding or antiquated biblical labels. During the British Mandate (1920-1948), they were the official administrative names of these areas, designated as “Districts." These names were used by Jews and Arabs, by the Mandatory authorities, by the League of Nations’ Permanent Mandates Commission, and they appear in the UN Special Committee on Palestine (UNSCOP) report (1947).
Riebenfeld emphasized that using these names was the natural expression of a core legal-historical fact embedded in the Mandate’s preamble:
“Recognition has thereby been given to the historical connection of the Jewish people with Palestine and to the grounds for reconstituting their national home in that country."
By contrast, the term “West Bank" is a modern political invention. Riebenfeld noted it originated in 1950, after Jordan illegally annexed Judea and Samaria and needed a geographic label to distinguish it from the “East Bank" (Jordan proper). The Arab states and the United States did not recognize the annexation; only Britain and Pakistan did.
Bottom line: words are not neutral. “West Bank" launders history and law into a generic geographic euphemism. If we want clarity, we should speak clearly: Judea, Samaria, and Gaza.
The Legal Foundations of Jewish National Rights
A recurring propaganda claim says: “The League of Nations gave the Jews Palestine," or “The UN granted Israel its rights, so the UN can revoke them." That argument is strategically useful to Israel’s adversaries-and legally misleading.
As Douglas Feith (former Middle East specialist on the US National Security Council staff during the Reagan Administration) explains: the Allies did not “grant" Jews a right to a national home as a discretionary political gift. The Mandate framework recognized pre-existing Jewish rights, grounded in the Jewish people’s historical connection to the Land of Israel.
Feith’s key point is precise and critical: the Mandate does not contain language that creates Jewish rights in Palestine as a new entitlement issued by the League or the Allies. Instead, it recognizes rights that already exist, rooted in history and moral legitimacy-reflected in the Mandate’s deliberate wording: “reconstituting" the Jewish national home. That term was chosen intentionally: it signals restoration, not invention.
Even if, under post-World War I international law, the victorious powers could have disposed of former Ottoman territories purely as an act of power, Britain and the League went out of their way to ground their policy in a clear moral-historical claim: Jewish nationhood in its ancestral homeland is not a colonial project-it is a return.
British Recognition of Jewish Civilization in the Land of Israel
The British themselves openly acknowledged both the centrality of the Land of Israel to the Jewish people and the civilizational impact of Jewish history there. After surveying many centuries of Jewish history, the Palestine Royal Commission wrote:
“The history of Jewish Palestine…had been enacted for the most part in a country about the size of Wales; but it constitutes one of the great chapters in the story of mankind… the gift of Hebraism in ancient Palestine to the modern world must rank with the gifts of ancient Greece and Rome. Christians, moreover, cannot forget that Jesus was a Jew who lived on Jewish soil…"
The Commission also offered a harsh assessment of Palestine’s trajectory after the Arab conquest. One can debate tone and framing, but the historical record includes their conclusion:
“In the twelve centuries or more that have passed since the Arab conquest, Palestine has virtually dropped out of history… In the realm of thought, in science, or in letters, it made no contribution to modern civilization…"
The larger takeaway is not to score rhetorical points-it is to underscore how even imperial-era British commissions recognized the Jewish people’s deep roots and enduring national relationship to the land.
A Final Note: You Cannot Negotiate Away History
In the House of Lords on June 27, 1923, Lord Alfred Milner-a supporter of a pro-Arab policy and an Arab federation-made a statement that remains relevant precisely because it came from someone sympathetic to Arab political aspirations:
“Palestine can never be regarded as a country on the same footing as the other Arab countries… You cannot ignore all history and tradition… It is a sacred land to the Arabs, but it is also a sacred land to the Jews and the Christians, and the future of Palestine cannot possibly be left to be determined by the temporary impressions and feelings of the Arab majority…"
That is the sober reality modern discourse tries to escape: this isn’t merely a border dispute. It is a clash between a people returning to its homeland and a political program that insists Jewish history must be edited, minimized, or renamed out of existence.
So start with accuracy. Judea. Samaria. Gaza.
Not as a slogan-but as a refusal to let language become a weapon.
Dr. Alex Grobman is the senior resident scholar at the John C. Danforth Society, a member of the Council of Scholars for Peace in the Middle East, and serves on the advisory board of the National Christian Leadership Conference of Israel (NCLCI). He holds an MA and PhD in contemporary Jewish history from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.