Jan 02 2014
Was Jesus a Palestinian, a Jew or both?
By Daoud Kuttab
The Israeli Foreign Ministry was quick to reply to the Christmas message of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas. They were angry that Abbas, who attended Christmas Mass in the Church of Nativity with High Representative of the European Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Catherine Ashton, laid claim to the birth of Jesus.
Abbas followed many other Palestinians in saying that Jesus, born in Bethlehem, was Palestinian. Israelis, who refused a request by a Palestinian Israeli parliamentarian to have a Christmas tree at the entrance of the Knesset, angrily refuted the Palestinian claim. The spokesman of the Israeli Foreign Ministry, Yigal Palmor, called Abbas’ claim “rewriting Christian history,†petitioning the Palestinian president to read the Gospels.
Figuring out who Jesus was depends on how you categorize identity. For Palestinians, anyone who was born (or whose ancestors were born) on the geographic areas between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea is Palestinian. While many nationalities have lived in historic Palestine, including Canaanites, Jabusites, Romans, Israelites, Ummayads and others, the term Palestinian is used in an all-encompassing way.
While Israeli officials mocked Abbas and said he “needs a hug from Santa,” they didn’t lay “Jewish” claim, even though Jesus was historically and Biblically known to have been born to a Jewish family. Continue Reading »