With Christmas approaching, Tis the season to be jolly. Or, if you are antisemitic “comedian” Amer Zahr, Tis the season to claim Jesus was “Palestinian.”
Like a dog to a bone – or (allegedly) like Amer Zahr to a woman – he can’t help himself.
When faced with the understandable backlash for making the claim, Zahr’s response is that “Palestinian” encompasses Jews as well:
This is a highly disingenuous argument.
In Jesus’ time, the Romans – the occupiers – called the Roman province of Judaea “Syria Palaestina.” That’s Judea, what the Israel-haters and ignoramuses now refer to as part of the “West Bank,” and from where the word “Judaism” derives. In other words, Zahr is using the occupiers language. When he speaks of Jesus fighting “occupation and tyranny”, he is speaking of the occupation and tyranny of the Romans, the very people using the term Syria Palaestina to describe what was a Jewish area!
Using the same logic, Zahr – who believes Israel is occupying those he calls “Palestinians” – should refer to them as Israelis.
Note what else he does. He writes you can be Jewish and Palestinian and American and Palestinian. In other words, “Palestinian” not only encompasses all those who lived in the area when it was called “Palestine” (or some derivation of that), it also encompasses those who claim to be descendants of Arabs who colonized the area. Talk about a wide definition.
And let’s not forget that for all of his admissions that Jesus was a Jew, he not once mentions this in his video claiming he was Palestinian.
If the “Jesus was Palestinian” claim wasn’t ridiculous enough, Zahr claims “Palestinians are Christmas” – whatever that means. And he doesn’t stop there, dialing up the batsh*t crazy with his closing statement “Like us today, he shouted one important thing to everyone who would listen...the truth. And it doesn’t get more Palestinian than that.”
As Zahr shows with this video – and in fact palestinian Arab propaganda as a whole shows us – it doesn’t get less Palestinian than that.