VCHR Urges General Assembly to Reject SB830

The Virginia Coalition for Human Rights (VCHR) calls on the Virginia General Assembly to reject SB830 – “Official terminology for certain geographic locations,” which would prohibit any official Virginia government communication from using the term “West Bank” and would instead require that area of Palestine to be referred to as “Judea and Samaria.” This dangerous censorship of geographic terminology is a blatant effort to erase Palestine from the map and normalize the illegal Israeli settlements and land theft, ethnic cleansing, and genocide against the Palestinian people. The Israeli government and its proxies should not be allowed to push such bigoted anti-Palestinian legislation in several US states, including Virginia, to restrict what terminology may be used by American state and local governments.

The complete statement may be found here.