Each year around Christmas, an insidious tradition takes place that undermines the very nature of the holiday and biblical history, which undermines the birth of Jesus, Christianity, and Jewish tradition from which Jesus and Christianity come.
Efforts to propagate anti-biblical malicious lies grow stronger and more brazen each year. It’s like Christmas in Fantasyland: a campaign of theological deception, whose goal is to erase Jewish history from Israel, and Israel from the map. Denying and trying to erase the centrality of Judaism to Israel, and the State of Israel, is bad and ridiculous enough. But doing so also undermines the origin of Christianity, the celebration of Jesus’ birth, and is why Jews and Christians should be alarmed and concerned.
For generations, Palestinian Arabs have led the charge to delegitimize Israel. A major tactic is by declaring that Jews have no history in Israel, despite biblical, archeological, and other historic accounts. By delegitimizing Jewish centrality and history in Israel, it’s a slippery slope to more historical and theological revisionism. The “Palestinian gift” at this season is saying that Jesus was not a Jew, but a “Palestinian.” Some say he’s “the first Palestinian,” a “Palestinian messenger,” “the great–grandfather of the Palestinian people.” Others refer to him as a “the first Palestinian martyr.” Other than being false, why is this so bad?
The New Testament is unambiguous, and rich with accounts of Jesus being a Jew. It describes his lineage, his participating in countless Jewish rituals, debating and preaching Jewish law, worshiping in the Temple, and the Last Supper being a Passover seder (not a Ramadan break fast). When one propagates the lie of Jesus being a “Palestinian,” it is not just historically inaccurate, but denies the foundation of Christianity.
If the New Testament were not good enough to dispel the lie of “Jesus the Palestinian,” historically there’s irrefutable evidence as well. The fact is that it wasn’t until a century after the crucifixion of Jesus, when the Jews fought Roman occupation (known as the Bar Kokhba Revolt), that the term “Palestine” was applied to the Land of Israel. Only after the Romans defeated the Jews in 135 did they rename the Land of Israel “Palestina” to punish and humiliate the Jews. The Romans hijacked the proper Jewish (and biblical) name, Judea, replacing it with the name of an ancient enemy of the Jews as if to complete the vanquishing of the Land and its People.
Because the name “Palestine” only came into being 100 years after his crucifixion, it is not possible that Jesus was a “Palestinian.” Not only that, Jesus would never have even heard that term. He’d have been just as likely to know about Martians, or Vulcans.
Claiming Jesus as a “Palestinian,” the Palestinian Authority gives voice to their national aspiration, not by building their own society, but by undermining Israel and its legitimacy. If actual historical and biblical facts don’t jive with their narrative, no problem. They just change the truth. There’s very little that the Palestinian Authority does from inciting, celebrating, and funding terrorism, to promoting the myth of Jesus as a “Palestinian” that is not meant to undermine Israel.
By hijacking Jesus this way, they ascribe to him characteristics of being a “Palestinian terrorist.” Indeed, the Arabic for martyr, shahid, is commonly used posthumously to “honor” those who have died in propagating terror or jihad, holy war, sacrificing his or her life for their Islamic beliefs. In the “Palestinian” case, that’s about fighting Israel and murdering Israelis. That would make Jesus a murderer of his own people. Ultimately, it's a lie of biblical proportions that’s a hybrid between Palestinian nationalism and the ultimate Islamic replacement theology.
I’m no theologian and, as an Orthodox Jew, certainly no expert in Christianity or the Gospels. However, I know a dangerous and offensive ambush on both Judaism and Christianity when I see it. When today’s “Palestinians” erase and rewrite whole sections of scripture that are the foundation of Judaism and Christianity, it must be called out.
There are many, many examples of this, but one of the best is when Palestinians say that there was never a Temple on the Temple Mount, the focal point of Biblical Jerusalem. This landmark was destroyed, rebuilt, destroyed again in the year 70 CE, and replaced by two mosques hundreds of years later, to spread the dominance of Islam over Jerusalem, which is never mentioned in the Koran, as an Islamic city.
The denial of the Temple’s very existence also undermines Jews and Christians who share so much in common over the foundation of our respective faiths. This is one egregious example, but one doesn’t have to look too hard to find plenty more, the same way one doesn’t have to dig too deep in Jerusalem to find archeological remains, evidence of the reality we know from the Bible.
The awakening in the past century of Christians who understand the biblical injunction to bless Israel, and who know that Israel’s rebirth is fulfillment of prophecy, needs to be met with open arms by Jews, and reciprocated. When a “Palestinian” leader refers to Jesus as a “Palestinian,” it’s a combination of historic revisionism and cultural appropriation that’s an affront to the foundation of Christianity.
In modern times, when the British took control of Palestine from the Ottomans it was governed under what was known as the British Mandate. Then, those who were referred to as Palestinian were the Jews. Jewish stamps, coins, and newspapers said “Palestine,” and nobody cared. Arabs in neighboring countries never called themselves Palestinians, but rather Syrians, Lebanese, Jordanians, Egyptians, etc.
Today, nobody questions the use of the word “Palestine” and that is a shame. It makes it that much easier to hijack the narrative when nobody cares or knows better. Pretending that the land of the Bible is Palestine, not Israel, that Jesus is a Palestinian, not a Jew, that Israel’s rebirth is a catastrophe, not fulfillment of prophesy, the Jewish people are illegal occupiers, not indigenous and rightful owners, are all interrelated, twisted, and false.
Call me crazy, but if I am trying to build a nation, I’d do so on a strong positive foundation, not on trying to erase another. Replacing undeniable Jewish connections to the Land over thousands of years, and creating an imaginary history of Palestinians in place of Jews, and Jesus as a Palestinian, is a sinister form of replacement theology that undermines Judaism and Christianity and must be taught against and resisted at every opportunity.
Author's Note: Join a conversation with Dr. Michael Brown about why calling Jesus a Palestinian is so wrong and let that be the gift that’s shared this season, not the lie. You and your children can also test your knowledge of the Jewish Jesus here.