Playing with the past, US Congresswoman unintentionally reveals a fact out of fiction.
By Jonathan Feldstein
Yes, that's right. I agree with AOC.
No, these were not words I ever expected I'd put together in the same sentence much less in that order. New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (AOC) is reckless, dangerous, factually-challenged, and a member of the extremist progressive wing of the Democratic Party. Other than the sun rising in the day and setting at night, and the existence of gravity (I assume she agrees), there's nothing I can think of that I ever would have agreed with her on. This highlights the saying that even a broken clock is right once a day, implying that even flawed or imperfect sources can occasionally be accurate.
Confused Cortez. US Rep. Ocasio-Cortez was slammed over her Christmas message comparing Jesus to Gazans.
Recently, just in time to be the Grinch to ruin anyone's Christmas, AOC raised eyebrows and ruffled feathers by referring to Jesus' family as "Jewish Palestinians".
Absurd, right? Jesus never heard the word Palestinian. It was not invented until more than a century after he was crucified, used by the Romans to belittle the Jewish communities of the Land of Israel, Judea, that they conquered and in which they put down a major revolt. Using the term "Palestine" was meant to be a complete vanquishing of Jewish sovereignty. (Join the Inspiration from Zion podcast episode about this here.)
AOC drew ridiculous parallels that would make one think she was a contortionist, not just a former bartender. "Naturally" she discovered and boldly shared in her social media that Jesus' persecutors then, and modern Israel, had unavoidable similarities. She wrote that "modern-day Palestine" was being persecuted by Israel, carrying out an alleged "massacre of innocents."
AOC wrote that Jesus "was part of a targeted population being indiscriminately killed to protect an unjust leader's power." Unable to resist a baseless slander of Israel she added, "Thousands of years later, right-wing forces are violently occupying Bethlehem as similar stories unfold for today's Palestinians."
"Silent Night". Conveniently overlooked by OAC, Bethlehem, the birthplace of Jesus was once a thriving Christian city of 80 - 90% Christian is now between 10-20% Chrisitan due to persecution and being driven out not by Israelis but by their Moslem neighbors.
Anti-Israel AOC surely meant that Israel was "occupying Bethlehem" which is unfounded, and overlooked the fact that Bethlehem, of all Arab cities that has such a central role in Christianity, and which used to be 80 - 90% Christian, is now only 10-20% Chrisitan. AOC conveniently overlooked that under the Palestinian Authority, Bethlehem's Christian Arabs have been persecuted and driven out by their Moslem neighbors.
Unsurprisingly, AOC neglected the season's "peace on earth" theme in her barrage of accusations against Israel, resembling a verbal and theological barrage of Hamas rockets at Israeli communities. She did not mention Hamas - or its brutal October 7 massacre, the slaughtering of some 1200 people that day, kidnapping of hundreds of hostages to Gaza, the theft of hundreds of millions of dollars meant for the wellbeing of Gazans, or the war crime of terrorists operating out of civilian areas including hospitals, schools, mosques, UN facilities, and residential neighborhoods. Oops.
Highlighting her horrifying slander, AOC's Christmas message was superimposed over an image of a toy doll lying in a pile of rubble, drawing ridiculous parallels between the war in Gaza with a Bethlehem nativity scene. The implication, as well as the image itself, was deliberately malicious, underscoring her allegation of Bethlehem being "occupied" by Israel, rather than controlled by the Palestinian Authority. For the uneducated AOC follower, her post allows one to believe the myth that Israel has carried out a war in Bethlehem.
On a redemptive note, AOC's neighboring New York colleague and fellow Democrat, Rep. Ritchie Torres, criticized AOC's comparison between Jesus and the Palestinians in his own post, but did not mention her directly. Torres wrote:
"It is antisemitic to compare Israelis to the Romans who murdered Jesus. Associating Jews with the murder of Jesus is antisemitism."
Correcting Cortez. US New York Rep. Ritchie Torres (above) criticized OAC's comparisons of Jesus and the Palestinians in a post saying, "It is antisemitic to compare Israelis to the Romans who murdered Jesus."
Using the Christmas season to make baseless and offensive statements about Jesus being a Palestinian are not unusual. Jesus' identity as an orthodox Jewish man in the Land of Israel, a Judean, is beyond dispute. Nevertheless, pro-Hamas "leaders" in congress like AOC, along with the terrorist leaders of the Palestinian Authority itself, have peddled this lie with no shame. They have referred to Jesus as "the first Palestinian" and a "Palestinian martyr" as if he had strapped on a suicide vest and blown himself up in a crowded Israeli bus or a café.
AOC surely added a new dimension to the Palestinian Jesus myth by referring to him and his family as "Jewish Palestinians". Of course, that's absurd. It's even more absurd than believing Santa Claus is real because its not based on just a myth, but a flagrant lie.
However, this is where the AOC clock is right just the one time, even though she intended it for slandering Israel and Jewish history, if not adding to the blood libel of the Jews killing Jesus. The term "Jewish Palestinian" is absurd in the sense she meant it. But there is truth to it. Before Israel declared independence in 1948, the Land of Israel was referred to by the British who controlled it as "Palestine". There was never a Palestinian state in any format, and Israel's restoration of Jewish sovereignty did not erase such an entity, because it never existed. Before the British Mandate in 1917, the Ottomans controlled the Land from the 16th century. But they didn't refer to it as Palestine, rather as administrative areas called "sanjaks". Again, there was never a Palestine anywhere between "the river to the sea" that ceased to exist in 1948.
Moreover, when the British controlled Palestine, their reference to "Palestinians" was not about the Arab population, but the Jewish population. When the British referred to Palestinians, they meant the Jews. This included my father and grandparents. Palestinian Jews.
That the term Palestine had not even been invented when Jesus was alive makes it factually impossible to ever refer to him as a Palestinian, any more than Elizabeth Warren is a Native American. So, referring to Jesus as AOC did is nonsense. However, by using the term "Jewish Palestinian", AOC accidentally stumbled on the truth that before 1948 the only people referred to as Palestinian were Jews. That term was hijacked and repurposed only in the 1960s when a new Arab ethnic group was created called Palestinian, regardless of whether they were indeed indigenous, or if they and their parents had immigrated from Egypt, Syria, and Arabia.
Thank you, AOC, for highlighting this truth, and the one time we agree. Now, back to your regularly scheduled fake programming.
About the writer:
Jonathan Feldstein - President of the US based non-profit Genesis123 Foundation whose mission is to build bridges between Jews and Christians - is a freelance writer whose articles appear in The Jerusalem Post, Times of Israel, Townhall, NorthJersey.com, Algemeiner Jornal, The Jewish Press, major Christian websites and more.
While the mission of Lay of the Land (LotL) is to provide a wide and diverse perspective of affairs in Israel, the Middle East and the Jewish world, the opinions, beliefs and viewpoints expressed by its various writers are not necessarily ones of the owners and management of LOTL but of the writers themselves. LotL endeavours to the best of its ability to credit the use of all known photographs to the photographer and/or owner of such photographs (0&EO).
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