You can’t have it both ways.
If Jesus was “Palestinian,” how come these people never want to claim the Jews that supposedly killed him?
Posted in 2022 by former Al Jazeera director general, Yasser Abu Hilala.
So Jesus was Palestinian but Judas was a Jew? Explain to me how that works, please.
For 2000 years, Jews were persecuted in the worst ways -- including multiple incidences of genocide and ethnic cleansing -- on the charge that we killed Jesus.
But now, Palestinian propaganda wants to claim Jesus as one of their own. Taking all of the credit but none of the persecution that comes along with actually being Jewish...isn’t that textbook cultural appropriation?
Jesus of Nazareth was born in either 6 or 4 BCE And was crucified in either 30 or 33 CE.
During his lifetime, the territory now encompassing Israel and the Palestinian Territories first belonged to the Herodian Kingdom, a client state of the Roman Empire. It was later annexed to the Roman empire as the Roman province of Judea. At the time, its Indigenous Jewish and Samaritan inhabitants interchangeably referred to it as either “Judea” or “Israel.”
Jesus and Mary never heard the term “Palestinian” in their lives, given the identity did not exist yet.
FOR THE MILLIONTH TIME: JESUS WAS NOT PALESTINIAN OR A PALESTINIAN JEW
Jesus was born in the Herodian Kingdom of Judea, a Roman Empire client state. When he was around 10 to 12 years old, Judea became a province of the Roman Empire.
The Roman Emperor Hadrian dissolved the province of “Judea” and merged the territory into a new province, which he named “Syria-Palestina” in 135 CE, over 100 years after Jesus died. The reason for the name change? To erase all Jewish ties to the land. The first Arab to identify as “Palestinian” was Khalil Beidas in 1898, over 1,800 years after Jesus died.
JESUS WAS NOT A PALESTINIAN JEW, BECAUSE THERE WAS NO SUCH THING
The vast majority of historians date the emergence of a cohesive Palestinian national identity to the interwar period between the two world wars, with the dissolution of the Ottoman Empire and the rapidly souring relations between Palestinian Arabs and Jews. However, some historians date the emergence of a cohesive Palestinian national identity to the 1834 Syrian Peasant’s Revolt. If you’re keeping count, a Palestinian identity did not exist until at least 1834, some 1800 years after the death of Jesus.
The first Arab to identify as Palestinian was Khalil Beidas in 1898 — nearly two millennia after Jesus was crucified.
Additionally, it’s worth noting that Jews were brutally massacred during the Peasant’s Revolt; that is, from the very beginnings of Palestinian nationalism, Palestinian Arabs did not consider Jews to be a part of the Palestinian nation, despite the fact that these Jews had lived there for hundreds, if not thousands of years, long before the Arab conquest of the region.
Even to this day, Palestinians make it abundantly clear that Palestinians are Arab. Regardless of any given individual’s DNA makeup, Palestinians speak Arabic and predominantly practice Islam, a religion which originated in the Arabian Peninsula. Their flag is a variation of the pan-Arab flag. Most prominent Palestinian families trace their lineage directly to the Arabian Peninsula. The current charter of the Palestinian Authority — the internationally-recognized Palestinian government — states that Palestine is “an indivisible part of the Arab homeland.” But the Arabs did not conquer Palestine until 637 — some 600 years after Jesus died.
WHAT HAPPENED TO THE "PALESTINIAN JEWS"?
In 1948, they became Israeli citizens, either because they lived in Israel proper (within the Green Line), or because the entire Jewish population of Judea and Samaria (later renamed the West Bank), East Jerusalem, and Gaza were expelled...to Israel.
The entire ancient Jewish community of East Jerusalem is given an hour’s notice to pack their belongings and leave their homes in May of 1948.
IN ANY CASE, THE "PALESTINIAN JEWS" ULTIMATELY BECAME ZIONISTS
While there were strong tensions between the pre-existing Jewish community in Palestine (known now as the Old Yishuv) and the newer Zionist immigrants (known as the New Yishuv), the leaders of the Old Yishuv were supportive of a sovereign, Jewish national home. For instance, Yaakov Meir spoke fluent Hebrew and encouraged the construction of new Jewish Quarters in Jerusalem. He also eagerly supported the re-establishment of an independent Jewish Israeli nation.
At the 1921 Cairo Conference, the Jewish National Council of Palestine, which represented the interests of the “Palestinian” Jews, thanked the British for supporting "the rebuilding of the Jewish National Home" (for more on how the British betrayed Zionism, see my post, “The British”) and asked that in doing so, Jews did not deprive Arabs “of their legitimate rights.” They also applauded the new Zionist immigrants for their accomplishments in the last 40 years, such as the cultivation of the land, which had undergone desertification after centuries of colonial mismanagement.
Even the most isolated and ancient Jewish community in Palestine, the Musta’arabi Jews of Peki’in, who had lived in the Galilee continuously since the destruction of the Second Temple in 70 CE, formed relationships with the Zionist movement, when, in 1922, a young Zionist activist and historian named Yitzhak Ben Zvi connected with the tiny community. Ben Zvi later became the second president of Israel.
After the 1929 antisemitic massacres, which targeted not the new Zionist immigrants but the oldest Jewish communities in Palestine, virtually all Jews in Mandatory Palestine united under the Zionist cause, with many of them joining the Jewish paramilitaries Haganah and Irgun. In 1947, a representative of the Old Yishuv, Eliahu Eliachar, testified before the United Nations, passionately arguing in favor of the establishment of a sovereign Jewish state in Palestine.
JESUS (AND MARY) WAS NOT A CANAANITE
Palestinians are an Arab ethnonational group; in other words, Palestinian is a nationality. Arab culture and religion, though part of the Semitic family, is not Canaanite in origin. The predominant religion in the Palestinian Territories, Islam, has no Canaanite origins either (unless you count what was taken from the Hebrew Tanakh), but rather, originated in the Arabian Peninsula. Unlike the Jewish language (Hebrew), culture (e.g. Passover), and religion (e.g. the name “Israel” itself coming from the Canaanite pantheon), Palestinian language, culture, and religion does not come from the Canaanites.
A Palestinian identity independent from a greater Arab identity did not begin to emerge until the interwar period before the two world wars. In other words, it’s a post-colonial identity, formed some 1200 years after the Arab Empire colonized the Land of Israel, and nearly 3000 years after the Canaanites existed.
To be clear: neither Palestinians nor Jews are Canaanites. Canaanites no longer exist, and they had ceased to exist long before Mary and Jesus. However, culturally and linguistically, as well as genetically, Jews clearly descend from the ancient Canaanite cultures. Palestinians do not, even though some Palestinians do have Jewish or Samaritan genetic ancestry.
DID THE JEWS KILL JESUS?
According to the extra-Biblical historical record, it’s impossible for the Jews to have executed -- or sentenced Jesus to death -- because the Romans stripped away the ability for the Jews to carry out sentences in 28 CE. Jesus was crucified, two to five years later, in either 30 or 33 CE. Had the Jews been involved, even marginally, Jesus would have been stoned, rather than crucified, as crucifixion was a Roman punishment -- on Jews who threatened their rule often. On the other hand, according to the Gospels, it was the Jewish Sanhedrin that sentenced Jesus to death. Some things to consider:
The first Gospel to be written was the Gospel of Mark, written around 60-70 CE, right during the period of the First Jewish Revolt against the Romans. In this Gospel, the death of Jesus is portrayed as a collusion between the Jews and Pontius Pilate, the Roman governor of Judea. Regardless, here, it is clear that Pilate is the one who orders Jesus’ crucifixion.
The Gospels of Matthew and Luke were written next, some 10-20 years after the destruction of the second Jewish Temple in 70 CE. This period marked significant conflict between the Jews and the Nazoreans (i.e. New Christians). This is reflected in these Gospels, as the role of the Romans is diminished; for instance, Pilate’s wife intercedes for Jesus and Pilate washes his hands as a sign of innocence.
The Gospel of Luke came next, though historians argue over the exact date during which it was written. Some believe it was in 80-90 CE, 10-20 years after the destruction of the Temple, while others believe it was written later, between 90-110 CE. Many believe the Gospel was still being revised well into the second century. What we do know is that the Gospel of Luke was written for a different audience: a Roman audience. To win the new audience’s favor, the role of the Romans was almost completely whitewashed.
The Gospel of John, written between 90-110 CE, implicitly blames not the Romans, not the Jewish authorities, but the Jews as a collective for the crucifixion of Jesus, finally completely severing Christianity from its Jewish origins. The Romans adopted Christianity in 313 CE. The bishop of Constantinople between 398-407 CE, John Chrysosom, was the first to declare Jews “Christ-killers.”
NOW, WAIT A MINUTE...
Yasser Arafat (late head of the Palestine Liberation Organization, Palestinian Authority, and Palestinian national movement) with Nayef Hawatmeh (Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine) and Palestinian writer Kamal Nasser in Amman, Jordan, 1970.
Could it be that rabid Israel hatred and anti-Zionism is driven by the same antisemitism that has taken millions of Jewish lives for over 2000 years?
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