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Tennessee bans the name ‘West Bank’ from official documents
Marianna Bacallao
April 13, 2026

Tennessee will no longer recognize the Middle Eastern region known as the West Bank in official state documents. The General Assembly voted to change all official references to the region to “Judea and Samaria,” as it’s referred to in the Bible. “The ideological and cultural conflict over Judea and Samaria represents a broader civilizational struggle between Judeo-Christian values,” HB 1446/SB 1663 reads. “Radical Islamic ideologies … seek to undermine Western democratic principles and religious freedom. Evangelical activist Laurie Cardoza-Moore, who led a campaign against the Islamic Center of Murfreesboro, testified in favor of the bill…Anwar Arafat, a Palestinian American from Memphis, opposed the bill. As an imam, Arafat argued that the land known as the West Bank was also called Canaan, a more politically-neutral name. READ MORE