By Richard Mather
It is not just Islam and the Left that are responsible for anti-Zionism
and the rise of antisemitism. Christians who have embraced Palestinian
replacement theology (which has disturbing echoes of the Nazis’ depiction of
Jesus-as-Aryan) must also be held to account for the propagation of anti-Jewish
hatred.
In recent decades, the quest to revive Jesus’ Jewish identity has
yielded much fruit. Geza Vermes, Robert Eisenman, E.P Sanders, James Tabor, R.
T. Herford, George Foot Moor and Hyam Maccoby are among those who have
highlighted Jesus’ Jewish identity and origins. Combined with the shared
interest in the Dead Sea Scrolls, Jews and Christians have found common ground
in the exploration of the Jewish roots of Christianity.
As most people know, Jesus was born of a Jewish woman in the Judean town
of Bethlehem, and was given the Jewish name of “Yeshua,” literally “Joshua.” He
was circumcised, attended synagogue services and the Temple, wore tzitzit, was
referred to as “Rabbi,” and observed the Sabbath, Passover and Sukkot. He quoted from the Tanakh and reiterated the
importance of the Shema (“Hear O Israel the Lord is our God, the Lord is One”).
He also made it clear that he had “come for the lost sheep of Israel” and that
“Salvation is of the Jews.”
The historical exploration of the Jewish Jesus has helped many
Christians understand the Hebrew origins of their faith, and in so doing, has
helped heal the rift between Judaism and Christianity, which led to the
genocide of six million Jews in the 1940s. But there are some Christians (and
Muslims) who, for highly questionable political and theological reasons, want
to bury Jesus’ Jewish identity and resurrect him as a Palestinian martyr.
Jesus was not a Palestinian. There is no reference to Palestine in the
New Testament for the simple reason that the land of Israel was generally known
as Judea and Galilee until 135 CE. The Gospel of Matthew, which was written
around 80 CE does, however, mention “the land of Israel” and the “cities of
Israel.” The term Palestine is rarely used in the Tanakh, and when it is, it
refers specifically to the southwestern coastal area of Israel occupied by the
Philistines who had disappeared as a distinct people by the time of the
Babylonian Captivity in 586 BCE.
Christians throughout the centuries have tended to imagine Jesus
according to their peculiar prejudices. One of the most outlandish was the
Jesus-as-Aryan theory. During the Third Reich, some German Protestant
theologians redefined Jesus as an Aryan and Christianity as a religion at war
with Judaism. The Institute for the Study and Eradication of Jewish Influence
published books defaming Judaism (including a dejudaized version of the New
Testament) and a catechism proclaiming Jesus as the saviour of the Aryans.
Since the 1960s, a number of Christians (and Muslims) have revived and
revised the Aryan Jesus myth as a tool for propagating antisemitism and
anti-Zionist propaganda. Jesus the Aryan is now Jesus the Palestinian martyr
living “under occupation.” The Jews are depicted as a cruel and oppressive
people who have merited everlasting exile. And the Hebrew Bible is
“de-Zionised” and/or radically reinterpreted by writers and teachers in order
to downplay what they say is Jewish “exclusivity” in the Tanakh (the words
“Zion” or “Israel” are removed from the Psalms, for example).
The founding document of Christian Palestinianism is the 1967
Arab-Christian memorandum entitled “What is Required of the Christian Faith
Concerning the Palestine Problem.” The document, which had the blessing of
Catholic and Orthodox clergy, declares that it is “a total misunderstanding of
the story of salvation and a perversion of God’s plan for a Christian to want
to re-establish a Jewish nation as a political entity.”
In one of its most audacious passages, the memorandum reads: “The
Christian conscience should always discern what is the authentic vocation of
the Jewish people and what is the other side of the coin, that is, the racist
State of Israel.” In fact, the
memorandum calls for a permanent exile of the Jews on the grounds that “the
Jewish race was chosen to serve the salvation of humanity and not to establish
itself in any particular religious or racial way.”
The Christian Palestinianist movement was given a fresh impetus in 2009
with the publication of the Kairos Palestine Document. Subtitled “A moment of
truth: A word of faith, hope and love from the heart of Palestinian suffering,”
the paper claims to speak on behalf of Christian and Muslim Palestinians, who
apparently share a “deeply rooted” history and a “natural right” to the land.
In contrast, the State of Israel is viewed as an alien entity, and only
exists because of Western guilt over the Holocaust. Israel is even associated
with the words “evil” and “sin.” According to the text, the so-called Israeli
occupation “distorts the image of God in the Israeli who has become an
occupier.”
One of the most vocal Christian Palestinianists is Naim Ateek, who was
born in Beth She’an in what is now northern Israel. He was ordained as a priest in the Anglican
Church in 1967 and was (until recently) a cleric in St. George’s Cathedral,
Jerusalem.
In 1989, Ateek published Justice and Only Justice: A Palestinian
Theology of Liberation, which drew much of its strength from South American
liberation theology. Five years later, Ateek founded an organisation called
Sabeel – the Palestinian Ecumenical Liberation Theology Center.
Ateek, who believes the Torah is a “Zionist text,” uses the account of
King Ahab and Naboth in 1 Kings 21 to underpin his replacement theology. Ateek
teaches how Israel’s King Ahab and his Jezebel murdered Naboth for his land and
how the Lord sent Elijah the prophet to them to pronounce judgment on them.
Their eventual death provided the divine justice Naboth deserved.
Ateek’s interpretation of 1 Kings 21 portrays King Ahab as the modern
State of Israel, murdering Naboth and stealing Palestinian land. The
Palestinians, of course, are cast as Naboth. According to Ateek, the day is
coming when God will judge and punish Israel.
The version of liberation theology espoused by Ateek is that of Jesus as
“a Palestinian living under an occupation.” In his 2001 Easter message, Ateek
spoke of Jesus as “the powerless Palestinian humiliated at a checkpoint” and he
used antisemitic language to evoke the image of Jews as Christ-killers:
“In this season of Lent, it
seems to many of us that Jesus is on the cross again with thousands of
crucified Palestinians around him. It only takes people of insight to see the
hundreds of thousands of crosses throughout the land, Palestinian men, women,
and children being crucified. Palestine has become one huge Golgotha. The
Israeli government crucifixion system is operating daily.”
Yasser Arafat also played on the theme of Jesus as a Palestinian martyr.
When he made his first Christmas appearance in Bethlehem in 1995, he invoked
the Christian nativity by crying, “Glory to God in the highest and on earth
peace, goodwill towards men.” To which the crowd responded, “In spirit and
blood we will redeem thee, O Palestine!”
Bethlehem obviously held a special place in Arafat’s heart. Not because
he had any special love for Jesus and Christianity but because it was a
political rallying point. Bethlehem, according to Arafat, was the “birthplace
of the first Palestinian Christian, Jesus Christ.”
Other times, Jesus is referred to as a Shahid, a holy martyr of Islam.
Arafat often referred to Jesus as the first Palestinian martyr, which is not
only historically incorrect, it is at odds with Islamic tradition. There are no
references to Jesus as a Shahid in Islamic works, and it is impossible for
Jesus to be a martyr if he did not die on the cross, which is the view of the
Quran.
Of all the anti-Israel discourses that exist today, Christian
Palestinianism is perhaps one of the most disturbing because it resurrects the
notion of Jews as accursed Christ-killers who deserve permanent exile. As with
all antisemitic ideas, Christian Palestinianism is about resentment. It is a
projection of a sense of inferiority onto an external scapegoat –the Jews.
Egyptian Jewish writer Bat Ye’or believes that the concept of Jesus the
Palestinian is symbolic of a growing religious trend – Palestinian replacement
theology and the gradual Islamisation of Christianity. Christian
Palestinianists, according to Ye’or interpret the Bible from an Islamic point
of view and “do not admit to any historical or theological link between the
biblical Israel, the Jewish people and the modern State of Israel.”
Ye’or also points to the similarity between Palestinian replacement
theology and Marcion gnosticism, which was a second century Christian heresy.
Marcion gnostics rejected the Hebrew Bible and believed that the God of Israel
was inferior to the God of the New Testament.
Likewise, Christian Palestinianists want to “de-Zionise” the Tanakh,
strip Jesus of his Jewish heritage and neutralise prophetic statements relating
to Jews and the land of Israel.
As well as being politically
motivated, Christian Palestinianism is a religious assault on Judaism and
should be seen in the context of centuries of anti-Jewish persecution and
ridicule by both Christians and Muslims who are embarrassed and frustrated by
the continued existence of the Jewish people.
Make no mistake. The cultural-economic boycott of the Jewish state draws
a great deal of strength from Christianity. Much of the anti-Zionism emanating
from West can be traced back to faith-based organisations who are either
ambivalent about Israel or downright hostile. Christian Aid, the Quakers, the
Church of England, the Church of Scotland and the Presbyterians are among those
who are guilty of demonising Israel.
And then there are individuals such as Reverend Dr. Stephen Sizer (a
prominent and notorious Anglican vicar in England) who believes that Jerusalem
and the land of Israel “have been made irrelevant to God’s redemptive
purposes,” and that Jews were expelled from the land because “they were more
interested in money and power.”
In other words, it is not just Islam and the Left that are responsible
for the ostracism and demonisation of the Jewish state. Many Christians,
especially those who have embraced the new antisemitic replacement theology
known as Christian Palestinianism, should be held to account for rekindling the
same anti-Jewish prejudices and hatreds that resulted in the Holocaust.
Richard Mather is a writer and journalist based in Manchester, UK. He
is also the editor of the recently-established Jewish Media Agency.
