This Christmas, baby Jesus becomes tool of Islamist propaganda
In any normal year Bethlehem would be filled with tourists celebrating the birth of Jesus. But for the second year in a row, the Christian leaders of Gaza decided to cancel Christmas, claiming allyship with the Palestinians in Gaza. If that wasn’t enough, some of the Christian leaders chose to reenact the story very differently.
In the new version, baby Jesus is no longer Jewish, but Palestinian. He was no longer laying in a manger, but in the rubble of a building in Gaza, wrapped in a keffiyeh. If that wasn’t enough, Pope Francis inaugurated a nativity scene in the Vatican that showed Jesus laying on a keffiyeh. The scene was eventually removed after tremendous backlash.
Appropriating the story of Jesus’ birth to fit modern social issues is a fairly common practice. But appropriating the story of Jesus to serve the interests of Islamists bent on driving out both Jews and Christians from the Land of Israel is both short-sighted and sacrilegious.
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There is a saying among Islamists: “First the Saturday people, and then the Sunday people.” Islamic terrorists do not hide their intentions: first, they will drive out the Jews and then they will drive out the Christians. This is a threat that we should all take very seriously. One of the most egregious examples of the Islamist’s success took place in Iraq. In 1948, there were 156,000 Jews and 5 million Christians. Seventy-five years later there are estimated to be 3-4 Jews and no more than 150,000 Christians.
The situation in Bethlehem is not much better. In 1948, Christians were 85% of the population of Bethlehem. Today, they are less than 10%. There are more Christians in St. Patrick’s Cathedral on Christmas Eve than there are Christians left in Bethlehem, a shocking statistic to consider. There should be no mistaking the cause for such a decline: radical Islamists hell-bent on destruction and religious persecution.
The Islamists use a variety of tactics to drive out Christians. The tactics range from general employment discrimination all the way to targeted killings. In 2014, a young woman from Bethlehem began speaking out about the suffering of Christians in Bethlehem. She came from a prominent family and was even featured in a major TV news series on the plight of Christians in Bethlehem. The more she spoke out about the plight of Christians in Bethlehem the more she and her family were attacked. She eventually had to flee for her safety. In a report from the Jerusalem Institute for Justice on Freedom of Religion her case is detailed:
“Christy, a young Palestinian Christian woman from Bethlehem, told of her uncle who did not want to pay al-jyziah, (the protection money paid by Christians) during the Second Intifada. He and other Christians started noticing that the so-called freedom fighters would stand next to Christian houses to shoot at the Israelis, and the ensuing response would thus mainly hit Christian houses. He stopped paying al-jyziah and was subsequently accused of being a traitor and put into prison. With no evidence against him, he was released, only to be shot and killed a few days later outside of his home.”
It's not surprising that the same tactic of hiding behind Christians and in churches remains one of the key tactics employed by Hamas in Gaza. The tactic of driving out Christians in Gaza has been going on for decades. In 2007, Rami Ayyad, the manager of the only Christian bookstore in the Gaza Strip was kidnapped and murdered by Islamists. Each year, many Christians flee Gaza and never return.
Often the Arab Christians who escaped would become vocal about their suffering. For others, the fear for their families left behind keeps them from speaking out publicly. Those that remain do their best to keep their heads down. The most despicable ones are those who use their positions of influence to provide cover for the Islamists.
Sadly, those who become mouthpieces for the Islamists often get showcased as the “Indigenous Palestinian Christian voices.” Many in the more mainstream media love a good cultural appropriation story if it furthers their anti-Jewish and anti-Christian bias. For example, take this part of Munther Isaac’s 2023 Christmas sermon featured by none other than the rabidly anti-Christian outlet, Democracy Now!:
“Here in Palestine, the Bible is weaponized against us our very own sacred text. In our terminology in Palestine, we speak of the Empire. Here we confront the Theology of Empire. A disguise for superiority, supremacy, chosenness, and entitlement it is sometimes given a nice cover using words like Mission and evangelism, fulfillment of prophecy, and spreading freedom and liberty. The Theology of the Empire becomes a powerful tool to mask oppression under the cloak of divine sanction.”
In his 17-minute sermon, there is no mention of the Jewishness of Jesus or the Holy Family. It takes a lot of mental gymnastics to omit the Jewishness inherent in the Nativity story. There is, however, a 17-minute raging attack on all those who fail to defend the Islamists of Gaza. In an advent message shared on his X account, Munther, sitting in a manger with Jesus in a keffiyeh in rubble, called on people to advocate for a ceasefire in Gaza. Rather than confronting the Theology of Empire, Munther Isaac is the Christian voice for the Empire of Islam, the very Empire that has ethnically cleansed the Middle East of both Christians and Jews. It is a tragic and cynical tactic to attempt to be the Christian mouthpiece for Islamic oppression, and aside from its immorality, it has been proven time and time again to be a losing strategy to protect Christian lives.
Christians should not only reject the appropriation of Jesus — they should reject the Christians defending it. The salvation for those who are suffering in Gaza will not come from the Palestinian Jesus in the rubble, but from Jesus of Nazareth who was born to a Jewish family in Bethlehem — The City of David.
Luke Moon is Executive Director of the Philos Project, and organization committed to promoting positive Christian engagement in the Near East.
