Palestinian Political Columnist: West ‘Stole Christianity from Us,’ Jesus Was ‘First’ Palestinian

The West “stole” Christianity from the Palestinian people, according to an influential Palestinian author and leading columnist in Jordan, who falsely claims Jesus was the first Palestinian, while attacking U.S. support for the Jewish state.

In an essay published on Christmas Day in both the Jordanian Ad-Dustour and Palestinian Al-Quds newspapers, Jordan-based Palestinian political observer Hamadeh Faraneh asserts that the West has appropriated Christianity, comparing the move to British colonialism facilitating the establishment of Israel on Palestinian land through the Balfour Declaration. 

Excerpts of the remarks were translated by the Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI), which specializes in covering media in the region.

While describing Jesus as a “Palestinian,” Faraneh makes no mention of the origin of the term “Palestine,” which stems from the Roman term “Palaestina.” It was introduced in 135 CE to replace “Judea” after the Jewish revolt, marking a deliberate effort to erase the Jewish connection to the land.

 The significant Arab migration into Israel and the Palestinian territories primarily began in the 7th century, hundreds of years after Jesus, during the early Islamic conquests.

The article, titled “They Stole Christianity from Us,” goes on to accuse the West of ignoring the plight of Palestinians, while criticizing the support provided to Israel by Western powers including the United States and its churches.

They [the Westerners] stole the Christian religion from our land, just as they stole Palestine [itself], and that is why they have not come out against the horrific violent takeover, the killing and the destruction [wreaked by Israel against the Palestinian] people and the residents of the cities, villages and neighborhoods of the Gaza Strip. [The Israelis] did this before, in 1948, but without being scrutinized, filmed and monitored. They inherited this behavior from their predecessors, for they did to the Palestinians what Tsarist Russia, German Nazism and Italian Fascism did to them.

Faraneh, a former Jordanian member of parliament and who is also a member of the Palestinian Central Council (PCC), continued: “They [the Westerners] stole the Christian religion from us, and that is why the patriarchs and archbishops [of the Western churches] have not stood up against what the [military] forces of the [Israeli] colony are doing to the Christians and Muslims in Palestine, the land of Jesus.”

The piece concludes by comparing the Palestinians’ struggle to the life and sacrifice of Jesus, portraying him as the first Palestinian guerrilla who embodies resistance and sacrifice.

Previously, Faraneh has called for the U.S.-designated Islamic terror group Hamas, whose charter calls openly for the murder of Jews and the elimination of the Jewish state through relentless jihad, to be part of a unified Palestinian nationalist coalition.

The terror organization perpetrated the worst terrorist attack in Israel’s history in October, when roughly 3,000 terrorists invaded Israel, causing over 1,200 deaths and 5,300 injuries through brutal violence, paralleling Nazi-era atrocities, and took 241 hostages, with the majority being civilians, including Americans.

The essay comes as part of a history of attempts to associate Jesus with the Palestinian struggle against the Jewish state.

The Palestinian Authority’s Al-Hayat Al-Jadida has published articles portraying Jesus as a Palestinian hero, likening his struggle to their national fight against Israel. 

One depicted Jesus as a martyr and the first “fidai” (self-sacrificing fighter), while another described him as a symbol of national liberation against “fanatic Jews” and Zionism, supported by the West. 

Last month, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) claimed the story of Jesus Christ’s birth paralleled the plight of today’s Palestinians, inverting the facts about both Jesus and contemporary Israel.

“Christ was born in modern-day Palestine” as “part of a targeted population indiscriminately killed to protect an unjust leader’s power,” Ocasio-Cortez wrote on Instagram.

“Thousands of years later, right-wing forces are violently occupying Bethlehem as similar stories unfold for today’s Palestinians,” she claimed, adding that Jesus and his family would be “Jewish Palestinians” if Christianity’s central figure had been born today.

Additionally, in an appearance on CNN, Father Edward Beck referred to Jesus as a “Palestinian Jew born into a time when his country was occupied.”

While Beck said that Jesus preached “love your enemies,” he failed to acknowledge the lack of a “parallel” to Palestinian attitudes toward Israel today.

Last week, conservative Middle East analyst and commentator Caroline Glick noted that, today, Jesus wouldn’t dare reside in Bethlehem due to entry restrictions on Jews.

“If Jesus were alive today, he wouldn’t be living in Bethlehem because no Jew is allowed to enter Bethlehem today, and Jesus was of course Jewish,” she said. “So there’s no way he would be in Bethlehem.”

She also highlighted how, since the Palestinian Authority’s takeover of the Nativity City in 1996, the Christian population has drastically declined due to persecution, with many being forced out of their businesses and properties, significantly altering the city’s demographic and cultural landscape.

In fact, the Christian majority in Bethlehem, which was 87% in the 1950s, dwindled to just 20% in 2001, and 12% by 2016. Since the Palestinian Authority assumed control of Bethlehem in 1995, the Christian population has significantly decreased, with only about 10,000 Christians currently residing in the city of roughly 75,500 people today.

In reality, she continued, Christians in Bethlehem are “terrified” of Palestinian terrorists from the Palestinian Authority who would “slaughter” them over any pro-Israel sentiment.

Father Patrick Desbois, a French Catholic priest renowned for his Holocaust research, recently suggested that if Jesus were alive today, he’d likely be a hostage kidnapped by Hamas in Gaza. 

Criticizing the politicization of Jesus’s identity in Bethlehem, Desbois noted that while Hamas officially supports Christians, the reality in Gaza is different.

In November, conservative radio legend Michael Savage noted that the Jewish people have populated Israel for nearly 4,000 years, as he slammed “the biggest lie of our time” that Jews have no connection to, or right to reside in, their ancient homeland.