Every year, December 25 is celebrated as Christmas, the day when Jesus Christ, the founder of Christianity—the largest and the most widespread religion on earth—chiefly because large swathes of the world before the dark age of Islamic medievalism were ruled by Christian colonisers, was born.
Jesus was born in the city of Bethlehem, a town in Israel’s West Bank, which modern-day revisionists refer to as Palestinian lands under the occupation of the Jewish nation.
However, at around Christmas every year, like clockwork, claims that ‘Jesus was a Palestinian’ are bandied around, often by Palestine supporters and Islamists harbouring visceral hatred towards Jews, and Israel in particular.
Neo-Islamists often remain at the forefront in spreading such canards, given that they believe it serves to cement their loyalty to the Ummah by raising their voice for the Palestinians and against Israel, a nation they claimed had annexed the lands that purportedly belonged to the Palestinians.
Actor Swara Bhasker, who married politician Fahad Ahmad, is the latest among those peddling the fictitious claims that Jesus was a Palestinian. The actor took to X, formerly known as Twitter, where she keeps her mentions restricted, perhaps for fear of being exposed for her unfounded claims and propaganda posts, and shared a picture of a couple dressed in Middle-Eastern attire and holding a baby in their hands.
“Happy happy birthday to the world’s favourite Palestinian! #Christmas #Christmas2023 #JesusWasPalestinian” Bhasker tweeted along with the picture.
If that wasn’t enough, Bhasker tweeted another picture of an improvised crèche of a baby Jesus, wrapped in a keffiyeh, lying among the rubble of broken bricks, stones and tiles. The crèche was built at a Lutheran church in the West Bank city of Bethlehem, where Christmas celebrations are subdued over the ongoing Israel-Gaza war following the bloody pogrom by Hamas terrorists on October 7.
The image read, “Jesus was a Palestinian, born under occupation.”
Spreading such myths is quite appealing to the Islamists and their allies because it helps them deny the existence of a Jewish state, even though it existed long before Palestine came into being, and using a religious figure, revered by millions around the world, lends credence to their twisted claims.
But social media is where myths cannot hold for too long without being busted. This explains why propaganda pushers often restrict their mentions so that myth-busters can’t respond to them with facts and shatter the edifice of lies they are trying to build. X, however, still allows users to quote a tweet by a user who had restricted their mentions, and respond.
In Swara’s case, too, several X users descended on her timeline to quote her tweet and call her out for the lies disseminated by her.
“Such delusions do not change the history,” said an X user, adding, “Jesus was born as a Jew, which substantiates the fact that Israel, the West Bank, and the Gaza Strip traditionally belonged to the Jews.”
Imagine these folks ridiculing others as “WhatsApp University graduates”. Jesus was born as a Jew, which substantiates the fact that Israel, the West Bank, and Gaza Strip traditionally belonged to the Jews.
— Brutal Truth (@sarkarstix) December 25, 2023
Such delusions do not change the history. https://t.co/Z3M181r5Qt
Yet another user quoted Swara’s tweet and said: “Bimbo Jesus was a Jew who was born in the promised land Israel which was mentioned in the Bible there was never a place called Palestine. It is a geographical construct made for propaganda artists like you.”
Bimbo Jesus was a Jew who was born in the promised land Israel which was mentioned in the Bible there was never a place called Palestine. It is a geographical construct made for propaganda artists like you. https://t.co/TYRdNu1TkH
— proright (@Proright1) December 24, 2023
Still, another user pithily noted that Palestine didn’t even exist at the time of Jesus’s birth and Jesus was born as a Jew.
Palestine did not exist when Jesus was born https://t.co/0Uhy5QrSBy
— Bharat (@BharatHindustn) December 25, 2023
Social media fact-checking notwithstanding, it has done little to discourage Islamist propagandists like Swara Bhasker from peddling myths like ‘Jesus was a Palestinian’ and thereby co-opt the founder of Christianity to further their tenuous claims that the modern-day Israel belonged to the Palestinians.
With Israel and Gaza at war following the bloodcurdling raids conducted by Hamas terrorists on October 7, when a large number of Gaza residents intruded into Israeli border villages and massacred people in cold blood, the attempt to appropriate Jesus and use him to advance Palestinian interests demonstrates a depravity that is the hallmark of Islamists and their sympathisers.
Several Christian nations have been steadfastly backing Israel against its operation to stamp out Hamas from Gaza. This attempt to characterise Jesus as a Palestinian is an Islamist ploy to rally support from Christians and Christian countries and discredit Israel on its assertion that the lands historically belonged to the Jews.
While Islamists would have us believe that Jesus is a Palestinian, the reality is starkly different. In actuality, Jesus was a proud and devout Jew, residing in his native regions of Judea and Galilee throughout his entire life – from birth to burial. The notion that Jesus was Palestinian, strategically employed to garner Christian support for Palestinian nationalism, often leads to deliberate attempts to negate the historical roots, indigenous identity, and rightful sovereignty of Jews in Israel. Ironically, at a time when combating rising antisemitism is crucial for Jews, there exists an opportunity to clarify the narrative surrounding Christianity’s central figure.
According to Christian accounts, Jesus was born into the Jewish faith and lived within a Jewish realm that encompassed much of present-day Israel, where Jews have maintained a continuous presence for 3,000 years. Luke, one of his disciples, recorded that Jesus, like other Jewish boys, underwent circumcision on the eighth day (Luke 2:21) and later participated in synagogue activities (Luke 4:16). Mark described Jesus as a rabbi (Mark 10:51), and Matthew documented that Jesus’s final meal was a Passover seder (Matthew 26:17).
In essence, Jesus and the Jewish land existed long before Palestine or Islam came into existence. By this token, present-day Israel, including the West Bank and the Gaza Strip historically belong to the Jews. Yet, Islamists resort to gaslighting, manipulations, and mental gymnastics to claim that Israel is an occupying force on land traditionally belonging to them.
The ultimate Islamist goal of Dar-ul Islam: Whether it is Israel or Ram Mandir, Islamists claim their coreligionists have an implicit right to everything
There is a grotesque irony steeped in the repulsive appropriation of Jesus by the Islamists. The object of projecting Jesus as a Palestinian is to enlist the support of the Christian world for Palestine and against Israel, which they claim is illegally occupying Palestine lands. They believe their religious brethren in Palestine have a legitimate right on the Israeli lands, but they don’t want to do the same when others come asking for lands forcibly and illegally occupied by their ancestors.
To that extent, Islamists claim the land in Ayodhya, where the reconstruction of a magnificent Ram Temple is underway, always belonged to Muslims because it is being built after the levelling of the Babri structure. But they don’t want to admit to the evidence that points to the fact that the Babri structure was built on the ruins of a temple.
Similar is the case with the Gyanvapi mosque, whose structure still carries ample evidence to prove that it was built on the ruins of an older Shiva temple. Yet, the Islamists not only rubbish the evidence but are also against the survey of the complex, which would further cement the fact that it is built on the ruins of a temple.
This hypocrisy brings us to the ultimate Islamist goal of turning the entire world into Dar-ul-Islam or the House of Islam. They want to continue occupying the places of natives, citing ‘democracy’, ‘rule of land’, and legislations like the ‘Places of Worship Act’. But when victims like Jews reclaim Israel and Hindus reclaim Ram Mandir, the same Islamists quickly dismiss it as an ‘illegal occupation’, ‘religious intolerance’, ‘Islamophobia’, ‘death of democracy’ etc.
