I Was Palestinian Like The Iroquois Were ‘New Yorkers’

by Jesus of Nazareth

Jerusalem of the Heavens, February 16 – OK, this is a relatively new one. I’ve been called all manner of things, and I’ll be the first to acknowledge no all those things are consistent with “Son of God” and good connotations. But I’m especially irked by the recent effort – it’s only been a few decades, but hasn’t faded – by various propagandists to characterize me – a proud Jew from Judea, whose followers branded him King of the Jews, a descendant on his mother’s side of King David himself – as “Palestinian.” It makes as much sense to call the Mohawk or Lenape indigenous peoples “New Yorkers.”

I never hear of “Palestinians” until recently – first it meant Jews, since Arabs of the Land of Israel identified either by tribe or as ‘Arab Syrian,’ “Palestine” being a name imposed by outsiders: first by the Romans, supplanting the too-Jewish name for the land “Judea;” and later, on and off, by various European powers, the last of which was the British, under their League of Nations Mandate. Scattered references to the land as “Palestine” occur in various other sources, of course, but all of those monikers come from foreigners, and the earliest, a Greek passage in the writings of Herodotus, might well be just a translation of “Israel” – in keeping with the Greeks’ practice of translating, rather than transliterating, the toponymies of their subjects. Only about sixty years ago did anyone think to transform “Palestinian” into a term of Arab identity. So no, I never saw myself as Palestinian.

Oh, me, I can’t believe I had to say that.

As I said, it’s the same rhetorical device as referring to the First Nations of North America by names of places that genocidal European conquerors imposed. Imagine the reaction among the Cherokee if you called them “North Carolinians” or “Georgians.” Same thing.

All the more irksome since all the hullabaloo about “today, Jesus’s parents wouldn’t able to get to Bethlehem because of the Apartheid Wall” kind of glosses over the fact that my parents, as Jews, would meet quite the violent welcome in today’s Bethlehem. I didn’t go through crucifixion on behalf of mankind so I could be held up as an avatar for a cause I’d never support, least of which because it’s so bound up in a religious movement that denies my actual followers’ received traditions. Kind of like looking at Christianized tribes of the Americas and identifying them as such back into pre-Columbian history.

No, I will NOT turn the other cheek on this.

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