Jesus a Palestinian Jew? Uproar grows in US against false appropriation of holy figure

A scholar of the holy Bible has accused US politicians and popular media figures of using Jesus to spread a message that is "historically false" and "inflammatory" amid ongoing war in Gaza.

"This Easter, let’s not try to pretend Jesus was a ‘Palestinian Jew,"historian and Aurelio Professor of Scripture emerita at Boston University Paula Fredriksen said in an article in the Washington Post.

Earlier on Christmas, US Democrats drew condemnation for likening Jesus to a "Palestinian Jew" living in an "occupied" country.

"So caught up were these advocates in their own spin that they mischaracterised reality," Fredriksen reacted.

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortezin a social media poston Christmas Day wroite,"In the story of Christmas, Christ was born in modern-day Palestine under the threat of a government engaged in a massacre of innocents."

"He was part of a targeted population being indiscriminately killed to protect an unjust leader’s power."

"Thousands of years later, right-wing forces are violently occupying Bethlehem as similar stories unfold for today’s Palestinians, so much so that the Christian community in Bethlehem has canceled this year’s Christmas Eve celebrations out of both [fear for their] safety and respect," she added.

Fredriksen further pointed out that Jesus Christ's birthplace has been under Palestinian rule for decades.

"But Bethlehem has been administered by the Palestinian Authority since 1995. Once a significant majority there, the Christian population plunged from 86 per cent in 1950 to less than 12 per cent in 2016," she wrote.

Ocasio-Cortez argued that present-day Gaza is "extremely hostile" to Christians.

The US historian said the term "Palestine" is derived from Rome a full century after Christ's death. Therefore ,the attempts to appropriate Jesus as a Palestinian to attack Israel was not just "inflammatory" but also "historically false".

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"For two millennia, Jews have been blamed for Jesus’ execution by the Romans; casting him as a Palestinian just stokes the fires of hate, using Jesus against Jews once again," Fredriksen wrote.

"It is, further, an act of cultural and political appropriation — and a clever rhetorical move. It rips Jesus out of his Jewish context. And it rips 1st-century Jews — and 21st-century Israeli Jews — out of their ancestral homeland, turning them into interlopers. This is polemic masquerading as history," she slammed.

Catholic priest Father Edward Beck also made a similar comparison on CNN on Christmas Day.

"I think the message of Christmas is that God enters into it with us and we're not alone in it," Beck said.

"What I'm so struck by is that the story of Christmas is about a Palestinian Jew- how often do you find those words put together? A Palestinian Jew born into a time when his country was occupied, right? They can't find a place for her to even give birth, his mother. They're homeless. They eventually have to flee as refugees into Egypt, no less. I mean, you can't make up the parallels to our current world situation right now," he added.

(With inputs from agencies)