I am sitting in my mother’s home as I write you, enjoying a festive atmosphere of decorations and treats that surround a typical Danish Christmas, as a Christian family this time is very special to us.
As I do, my thoughts are very much back home in Israel, and seeing the need to address a myth that is being shared as a truth.
Bethlehem of Judea is mentioned in Scripture, and is just several miles south of Jerusalem. For Christians, it is the birthplace of Jesus, who lived his adult life ministering as a typically Jewish citizen. This includes obeying the commandments of the Torah.
Why is this important to mention? Especially for the Christians, is why I need to bring this up. As a Jewish Nation, observing the instructions of Moses has been central to her existence since the giving of the Law at Mt Sinai as first mentioned in Exodus.
He declared that he came to fulfill the law, not abolish it. That means that He would live His life observing the commands of Torah in every respect. He also declared that not one jot or tittle would pass away, unless every bit of it was fulfilled first.
But wait a minute! The Palestinians want to weigh in on Jesus also. It has been stated by the Palestinians, that Jesus was a Palestinian also! No Tallit. No tzit-zit or living like a Jewish citizen.
Does that mean the Palestinians deny that he was circumcised on the 8th day, and that He was not hanging around with the rabbis and other men of the Temple at age 12 when he did not have his Bar Mitzvah? Is there such a thing as a Jewish Palestinian according to the Arab narrative?
As you can see, a simple question has a very complicated answer, in order to answer it correctly. But I am going to give my simple answer to this question before I explain it. Absolutely NOT, would Jesus be a Palestinian!!
The Roman Centurion who asked for Him to heal his servant, know by his dress and title, that Jesus was Jewish, That is why it was not fitting to have Jesus come to his very unkosher home, since he was a pagan. The Samaritan woman near the well that belonged to Jacob is another example.
So, how can Jesus be Jewish and Palestinian at the same time? The answer is simple, He cannot! I can call an elephant a horse all day long, but that does not magically turn that elephant into a horse at all! So, why are the Palestinians so desperate to name Jesus as one of their own?
Now we are getting the real meat of this matter... It all has to do with something the sons of Ishmael have known about since the days of Abraham: Legitimacy. Who is legitimate, and who is not? Well, from Genesis to Revelation, we know the Jewish people are legitimate for many reasons.
If you are a real Jewish soul, you care about the Jewish Nation, the Land, and the Temple. This is not merely an intellectual matter, but a passionate conviction of the heart that beats with longing for all three of these foundational points to be established in the Shalom of God forever.
Thus, Hatikva (The Hope), the Israeli National Anthem. This is the true Zionism in its purest form. Do Palestinians care about the Temple? No way!
But they will riot and kill to defend the Al Aqsa mosque that sits on the Temple Mount site. Do they love and support the Jewish people living their life as Jews?
The answer can be seen in history since the Mufti Al Husseini started rioting and killing of Jews almost a century ago. Then, when Israel declared her independence in 1948, 5 Arab nations went to war against her the very next day. And then came the liberation of Jerusalem from Jordanian occupation in 1967, and it has been steady course of escalation ever since.
Especially now with the threat of another Intifada, now that President Trump had declared Jerusalem the legitimate and eternal capital of Israel, which he simply said, "This is common sense"
But not to the Palestinians, who insist that Jesus was and is a Palestinian! To understand this, I did some research.
First of all, we have to determine if there is any truly legitimate history or legacy to the Palestinians in Israel. What I found is simple and straightforward. Palestinians as they were called, the Arabs and Muslims who live in Israel, were first called that when Yasser Arafat literally proclaimed Egyptians, Jordanians and other Arab countrymen who were living in Israel as Palestinians overnight.
Walid Shoebat stated this fact years ago. Walid was part of the Palestine Liberation Organization, or PLO, a recruiter for the PLO on America campuses and mosques. He is now a Christian, and has renounced all of his terrorist past, and advocates for Israel and Christianity against radical Islam.
He noted that the PLO took the Jordanian flag, stripped the 12-pointed Muslim star from it, and called it the Palestinian flag. It is identical otherwise. Jordanians occupied Israeli territory from 1948 to the Six Day war in 1967. That was the ONLY historically true time that there was occupied territory in Israel, and not the other way around!
But where did the Palestinian name come from, prior to that. We must travel back in time to 135 CE, to the Roman Emperor Hadrian. The Roman army had put down the last resistance fighters in what was called the Bar Kochba revolt. With this, Hadrian ordered the majority of the Jewish people to leave Israel, and the Diaspora (Dispersion) began.
All national, religious, civic and operational forms of government in Israel were shut down. As a final insult of contempt for Israel, Hadrian decreed that all references to Israel be changed to Syria Palestina, which is translated from Latin to mean: The Land of the Philistines. Jerusalem was renamed Aelia Capitolina, and a pagan altar was erected to Zeus on the Temple Mount.
When the British controlled the region, beginning from the early Zionist movement, through the Mandate period following the Versailles Treaty of 1919, and up to Israeli independence, the land continued to bear the reproach of the being named Palestine, dating back nearly 2000 years.
Despite this, those returning in the first wave of immigration did not seem to mind that Israel was called Palestine, or that they were called Palestinians. I can show you images of currency, references in a world atlas, and a copy of the Palestine Flag that existed. What is notable about the flag is the Magan David star, emblazoned right in the middle of the flag in gold!
So, in MODERN history, the true Palestinians, on account of the British, were the Jewish people who were returning to Israel! The Arabs of that time period would literally REFUSE to be called Palestinians at that time, and not until Arafat politicized the name once again for his own purposes.
But I want to refer back to how Hadrian came up with that name of Syria Palestina in the first place. The Philistines were a nomadic people from Asia Minor who invaded and settled along the west coast of Israel, from Ashdod, Ashkelon and the Gaza Strip region. They invaded and harassed Israel for centuries!
The Prophet Jeremiah noted in chapter 47, that Egypt would finish off the Philistines, which came to pass. And indeed it did, and the Philistines ceased to exist. Not until Emperor Hadrian revived the name of the Philistines in his curse against Israel, did the moniker remain.
A final point of historical reference: During the ancient times of Israel, the Philistines occupied Bethlehem. Since the Palestinians claim Bethlehem as their own, this is the only reference that could render any sort of historical link to their claim that Jesus was a Palestinian.Of course, the REAL Philistines were killed off by Egypt, and they were NOT Arabs at all. Beyond this, they have tried to claim that Palestinians as Arabs and Muslims existed since the beginning of time, How can that be, given the reality check that Islam came into existence only in the 6th Century CE?
Talk about fake news! But this is the legacy the Palestinians claim with a straight face, believing they are justified in making up any story that can sound plausible to ignorant or gullible ears. So, this story is the complete story, pure and simply true.
Yes, Jesus was born in Bethlehem, but 2000 years ago, it was a city that was inhabited by the Jewish people of Israel, in fulfillment of Scripture. The Arabs and Muslims refuse to accept this, and over time, they have driven Christian pilgrims out of the city, and few Christians live there any more, out of fear of violence and persecution.
It is past time that the world knows the truth, and not accept these false statements any longer. Especially as we see every year how thousands of naive Christians are pouring into The Holy Land for the Christmas holiday, arriving to Bethlehem in "Palestine" in their "Jesus bubble", not paying any attention or blatantly not caring that The Arabs completely changed the narrative of Jesus from being a Jew into being a Palestinian, and in that way calling the Bible a lie.
Seeing how the Muslims in Bethlehem turned the Christmas lightning into one huge propaganda party against Israel, talking about liberating Palestine from the river to the sea is utterly repulsive.
As a Christian it must hurt your heart that it's not the Israeli flag with the Star Of David that is hanging in the streets of Jesus' birthplace, but instead the "Palestinian flag"
Everything inside of me is screaming out!
It's truly about time that the Christian world wakes up to the lies, propaganda and deception from the Muslim world not only about Jesus, but also about robbing Jewish identity from Israel .
Stand with Israel, her people and what the Bible foretold about this historical place.
Merry Christmas as we celebrate a Jewish Jesus, not a Palestinian one!