‘Don’t pretend Jesus was a Palestinian’ – Historian blasts AOC’s ‘Palestinian Jesus’ tweet
Historian of early Christianity rips Democratic lawmakers for likening Jesus to today’s Palestinian Arabs.
By Globe Israel Information Workers
A historian who specializes in the review of early Christianity took purpose at feedback by some Democratic lawmakers evaluating Jesus to today’s Palestinian Arabs.
On Christmas eve past year, New York Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortes, a member of the much-left “Squad,” sparked controversy when she wrote a publish on Instagram evaluating Palestinian Arabs to Jesus – and the Condition of Israel to King Herod.
“Christ was born in modern day-working day Palestine under the menace of a government engaged in a massacre of innocents,” Ocasio-Cortes wrote in her Instagram article.
“He was element of a qualified population remaining indiscriminately killed to safeguard an unjust leader’s electric power. Mary and Joseph, displaced by violence and forced to flee, became refugees in Egypt with a new child ready to a person working day return home.”
“Thousands of yrs later on, suitable-wing forces are violently occupying Bethlehem as equivalent tales unfold for today’s Palestinians, so considerably so that the Christian local community in Bethlehem has canceled this year’s Xmas Eve celebrations out of each [fear for their] protection and regard,” the congresswoman added.
In response, historian and Aurelio Professor of Scripture emerita at Boston University Paula Fredriksen penned an impression piece published by The Washington Put up Thursday, forward of Easter Sunday, refuting Ocasio-Cortes’ comparison and suggesting the declare is akin to vintage antisemitic canards.
“This Easter, let us not attempt to faux Jesus was a ‘Palestinian Jew,’” Fredriksen wrote.
Ocasio-Cortes is not the only member of the Squad to review Jesus to Palestinian Arabs. In 2019, Minnesota Congresswoman Ilhan Omar came beneath fire right after she retweeted an feeling piece printed by The New York Moments declaring Jesus was a Palestinian.
“So caught up had been these advocates in their personal spin that they mischaracterized truth,” Fredriksen wrote of these comparisons, noting that in distinction to Ocasio-Cortes’ declare that Bethlehem is below occupation by “right-wing forces,” an apparent allusion to the Netanyahu authorities, in simple fact Bethlehem has been administered by the Palestinian Authority for virtually 30 a long time.
“But Bethlehem has been administered by the Palestinian Authority given that 1995. The moment a significant greater part there, the Christian population plunged from 86 percent in 1950 to fewer than 12 per cent in 2016,” she wrote, also noting that below Hamas, the Gaza Strip has been “extremely hostile” in direction of Christians, fueling the drop in the area’s Christian population.
Fredriksen extra that the comparison drew on historic antisemitic tropes, and fuels antisemitism nowadays.
“For two millennia, Jews have been blamed for Jesus’ execution by the Romans casting him as a Palestinian just stokes the fires of despise, working with Jesus towards Jews once yet again.”
“It is, additional, an act of cultural and political appropriation — and a clever rhetorical go. 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 background.”
