For the past 41 years as a Jewish follower of Yeshua (Jesus), I have had to justify the Jewishness of my Messiah more times than I can remember. The dejudaization of Yeshua is not a new concept, but until recently, taking His Jewish roots away from Him was always done to make Yeshua more into a blue eyes/blond hair Gentile than anything else. For the most part, when people made Yeshua look more like a Gentile than a Jew, it was either out of ignorance or possibly because of a mild case of cultural appropriation. When corrected, these people usually accept the fact that Jesus was a Jew.
Jesus, the “Palestinian” comes from a completely different agenda. It is still considered an attempt at the dejudaization of Yeshua, but for different reasons. It falls into one of the three Ds of Natan Sharansky’s antisemitism test. Trying to turn Yeshua into a Palestinian is part of the delegitimization agenda of the enemies of Israel. The concept would have never worked two or three decades ago, but armed with patience, the pro-Palestinian faction pressed on with their propaganda. Historical revisionism finally seems to be paying off.
During the 2024 Christmas season, the Vatican received a gift from Palestinian artists. It was a baby Jesus, Joseph, and Mary made out of olivewood, resting in a manger… wait for it… the manger was covered with the Palestinian keffiyeh (head covering made popular by PLO leader Yasir Arafat.) A photo of Pope Francis sitting in a wheelchair and admiring the nativity scene was circulated worldwide through the Internet, only to quickly be removed after receiving a lot of backlash.
The Palestinian Jesus was borne out of a faulty theology known as Christian Palestinianism. It is the same theology promoted by the creators of “Christ at the Checkpoint.” The agenda aims at re-writing history to take everything Jewish out of the Bible, including Jesus’ Jewish heritage and identity.
Christian Palestinianism is Replacement Theology on steroids and is very dangerous. Here are six reasons why:
A Distortion of God’s Word
The promise ofย Genesis 12:1-3, made by God to Abraham and the Jewish people, still stands. Blessings or curses will follow those who treat Israel and the Jewish people accordingly. The land boundaries ofย Genesis 15:18-20 have never changed and have yet to be fully fulfilled: “To your descendants I have given this land, From the river of Egypt as far as the great river, the river Euphrates: the Kenite and the Kenizzite and the Kadmonite and the Hittite and the Perizzite and the Rephaim and the Amorite and the Canaanite and the Girgashite and the Jebusite.”
Why is it that almost nobody questions the historical and biblical revisionism of people like Stephen Sizer, Naim Ateek, Elias Chacour, Munther Isaacs, Gary Burge, Hank Hanegraaff, and the like? We are seeing 21st-century Christians blinded by reports of occupation and ethnic cleansing against Palestinians completely turn their back on Israel. But even more than changing one’s interpretation of the Bible, we also witness rejection of the inspired Word of God.
A Rejection of God’s Word
Christian Palestinianist Naim Ateek wrote in Sabeel’s newsletter Cornerstone: “The lesson is clear for me: whatever does not agree with the hermeneutic of God’s love for all people has no authority for us and must not be read even if it is written in the BibleโฆJesus had a hermeneutic of God’s love for all people and Isaiah’s words did not comply with that criterion.”
This desire to ignore and even reject Scripture from the Old Testament simply because it appears to be “in conflict” with later teachings of Yeshua is strangely reminiscent of Islam’s “Law of Abrogation,” when Qur’anic verses can be annulled when historically superseded by contradicting ones. Such an approach to God’s Word is inherently wrong, yet many Evangelicals take their lead from people like Naim Ateek on what they perceive to be a valid biblical approach to the Middle East crisis.
Biblical illiteracy is running rampant within the Evangelical Church, and it creates a very shaky foundation upon which historical revisionism can be built with very little challenge, if any. Christian Palestinianists excel at biblical revisionism.
In both cases of distortion and rejection of God’s Word, the authority of the Bible is put in question. The God of the Bible, who is the God of Israel, as well as the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, is made into a different god. This allows for the insertion of a revised agenda favoring the Palestinian people at the expense of Israel and the Jewish people.
The concept of Eretz Yisrael (the land of Israel) being the Palestinian homeland and that of the existence of a native Palestinian people were already looming over the horizon a couple of decades ago, but today, it is no longer discussed. The land ownership is accepted without questions. The false premise of a biblical Palestine was propaganda long enough to become truth, with there no longer being a need to have the information checked for biblical accuracy.
A One-Sided Reconciliation
Accusations of “apartheid,” “colonization,” “ethnic cleansing,” or “nazification” of Palestine are constantly brought up without ever speaking of terrorism, rocket attacks, human rights violations, or bloody murder ordered by Palestinian leadership of both Fatah and Hamas. Islamic terrorism is simply dismissed and, in some cases, even justified. Christian Palestinianism offers a one-sided reconciliation, and that, of course, is no reconciliation at all.
God the Covenant Breaker
Christian Palestinianism changes God from a covenant maker and keeper to a covenant breaker. While it might not be clear to many Evangelicals yet, for Christian Palestinianism to exist, Israel has to cease to exist.
What better way to postulate that Israel has become irrelevant than to say that God’s covenants with the Jewish people have been changed? If God had reneged on His covenant or changed the original recipients of His covenantal blessings, it would become obvious that He is done with Israel and the Jews.
But God never changed His mind when He said to Abraham: “I will establish My covenant between Me and you and your descendants after you throughout their generations for an everlasting covenant, to be God to you and to your descendants after you. I will give to you and to your descendants after you, the land of your sojournings, all the land of Canaan, for an everlasting possession; and I will be their God.”
If God were a covenant breaker, He would also have to be a liar. 1 Samuel 15:29 tells us otherwise: “Also the Glory of Israel will not lie or change His mind; for He is not a man that He should change His mind.”
A Demonization of Israel
Once one is convinced that God is finished with Israel and the Jews, it becomes easier to extrapolate the generalization that Israel is the cause of evil against the Palestinians. The accusations against Israel come from Palestinians, Liberals, and some Evangelicals. They come so strongly that, at times, it becomes difficult to define one source from another.
Additionally, the liberal media has absolutely no other agenda than demonizing the victims and victimizing the perpetrators. Facts no longer matter in our postmodern global village. As a matter of fact, radical anti-Zionism is now part of the fabric of society and is in the process of becoming the standard by which one measures his/her degree of tolerance and multiculturalism.
French author Pierre-Andrรฉ Taguieff developed it further in his book Israel et la Question Juive when he wrote: “Intellectual and political conformism moves alongside radical anti-Zionism, having nothing to do with a critique of Israel’s politics but rather aiming at the final destruction of the Jewish State.”
A Promotion of Islam
In her book Eurabia: the Euro-Arab Axis, Jewish author and activist, Bat Ye’or, describes Christian Palestinianism as “Palestinian Marcionism:” “The Christian policy that would eliminate the Jewish source of Christianity by suppressing the link between the Hebrew Bible and the Gospels represents an old and lingering trend, always opposed by the Church. Today, Palestinian Marcionism (Palestinianism) paves the way for the Islamization of the Church as it prepares mentalities for an Islamic replacement theologyโฆ and encompasses the whole paraphernalia of traditional antisemitism.”
Bat Ye’or’s assessment has tragically proven true in the last few decades. Christian Palestinianism is well on its way to de-judaize Yeshuaโa job that the gentile branch of Christianity generously contributed to, out of ignorance and sometimes, pure hatred of the Jews over the centuries. Christian Palestinianism will also continue to invalidate much of the Jewish Scriptures as history gets re-written and Jewish references get replaced to accommodate the “Islamization” of the Bible.
The Palestinian Jesus can only exist if we ignore biblical truth. To accept that Jesus was the first Palestinian, we first have to agree that Palestinians are real people from the land of Palestine, currently called Israel. That is a false premise to start with, but it needs to be understood as such. Once we are beyond the false premise of Palestine, we also need to stick to the biblical proof that Jesus was a Jew and the Bible is replete with that kind of data. Following are a few examples:
- Jesus was a descendant of Jewish patriarchs Abraham, Isaac and Jacob – Genesis 22:18; Matthew 1:1-2
- Jesus came from the Jewish tribe of Judah – Genesis 49:10; Hebrews 7:14
- Jesus was a Jewish prophet like Moses – Deuteronomy 18:15-19
- Jesus was from the line of Jewish king David – 1 Chronicles 17:10-14
- Jesus had Jewish parents – Luke 2:39
- Jesus was circumcised on the eighth day according to Jewish law – Genesis 17:11-14; Luke 2:21
- Jesus was a rabbi – John 1:38, 6:25
- Jesus celebrated the Jewish Feast of Passover – John 2:13
- Jesus celebrated the Jewish Feast of Tabernacles – John 7:2
- Jesus celebrated Hanukkah – John 10:2
- Jesus was called the King of the Jews by Pilate – Mark 15:2
So, no, Jesus is not a Palestinian. Jesus is a Jew. As a matter of fact, He came to the Jewish people first, but eventually, He extended His salvation program to all people who trust in His death and resurrection. Jesus came as the Messiah of Israel, but He became the Savior of the world. He never was and never will be a Palestinian, but He died for every Jew, Arab, or Gentile in the world, no questions asked and no strings attached.
Let’s celebrate the birth of the Jewish Messiah and His universal free gift of salvation for all without trying to revise history or redefine Jesus!
