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The “Jesus was a Palestinian” narrative is an annual Christmas-season antisemitic farce promoted by anti-Israel activists to distort history and weaponize faith for the sole purpose of demonizing the world’s only Jewish state.
This year was unfortunately no different, and the Antisemitism Research Center (ARC) by CAM tracked numerous incidents just this week centered around this false notion, which vilifies and incites violence against Jews, marking a continuation of antisemitic concepts dating back to the “deicide” myth blaming the Jewish people collectively for the killing of Jesus.
In this modern manifestation of a classic antisemitic trope, creating an ahistorical “Palestinian” Jesus, Mary, and Joseph allows anti-Israel propagandists to equate the biblical story of Jesus with the present situation of the Palestinians, or even further, argue that Jesus would today be a victim of Israeli “persecution” and “brutality.”
Playing off of the false accusation that it was the Jews who instigated the crucifixion of Jesus by the Romans in antiquity, contemporary anti-Zionist antisemites now portray the Jewish state as murdering Palestinians, the “kin” of Jesus and the people he supposedly embodies.
Furthermore, it is the modus operandi of anti-Zionists to reject the truth of Jewish indigeneity to the Land of Israel, with the aim of delegitimizing the modern-day State of Israel as an “evil settler-colonial state” supplanting and oppressing the “real” indigenous people, the Palestinians.
Denying the Jewish heritage of Jesus is antisemitic, as it removes the Jewish people from history and implies Jews persecuted Jesus and his followers.
The simple truth is Jesus was a Jew, born to Jewish parents in Judea, and he lived his life in the Jewish homeland — and no semantic games or manipulations can alter these basic facts.
Incidents monitored by the ARC this week included:
Anti-Israel protesters in Bristol, England, staged a procession through the center of the city, featuring a float depicting a “2024 Palestinian Nativity Scene” under the banner of “Jesus was a Palestinian?”
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British adventurer Bear Grylls was criticized for referring to Mary, Jesus’ mother, as a “terrified Palestinian girl” (he later amended the language to “terrified girl living in first-century Palestine”).
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Hi @BearGrylls,
A quick historical note: ‘Maryam’ (Mary) was a Jewish woman from Judea, under Roman rule.
The region wasn’t called ‘Palestine’ until 100 years later when the Judeans (Jews) were exiled and Emperor Hadrian renamed it Syria Palaestina after the Bar Kokhba Revolt… https://t.co/br5iqkyGLr
— Campaign Against Antisemitism (@antisemitism) December 24, 2024
Meanwhile, in a Christmas Day column in the Palestinian daily Al-Quds, Jordanian-Palestinian journalist and writer Hamada Fara’neh — a member of the PLO Palestinian National Council — claimed that Christianity belonged to the Palestinians and Jesus was the “first Palestinian martyr.”
#Jordanian-Palestinian Journalist In Christmas Day Column: Jesus, ‘The First #Palestinian #Martyr,’ Was Killed By A Jewish-Roman Colonialist Conspiracy – Audio of report here https://t.co/ElRttVx1on #MEMRI pic.twitter.com/r8KC2FdRRK
— MEMRI (@MEMRIReports) December 26, 2024
In the Wisconsin State Capitol in Madison, demonstrators unfurled a “Jesus is Palestinian” banner overlooking the Christmas tree in the Rotunda.
Pro-Hamas protesters stormed the Wisconsin State Capitol, hijacking the Christmas program to spread false claims that Jesus was Palestinian and other anti-Israel propaganda.
Mary was Jewish. Joseph was Jewish. Jesus was Jewish.
If they had journeyed to Bethlehem in 2024, they… pic.twitter.com/tR8Z13BJBM
— StopAntisemitism (@StopAntisemites) December 26, 2024
Meanwhile, in New York City, anti-Israel activists confronted worshipers outside St. Patrick’s Cathedral after Christmas Day Mass.
BREAKING: Yesterday during Christmas, Pro-Palestinian waited outside of St. Patrick’s Cathedral in Manhattan to harass churchgoers leaving Christmas mass.
They then went to the Rockefeller Christmas tree, preventing children on Christmas to go to the tree. pic.twitter.com/oQ73n0YBK7
— Eyal Yakoby (@EYakoby) December 26, 2024
Earlier this month, Pope Francis attended the inauguration of a seasonal nativity scene in the Vatican featuring a baby Jesus lying on a keffiyeh, The Times of Israel reported.
Three years ago, in December 2021, CAM launched the #JesusFromJudea campaign to share the true story of Jesus’ background.
