The barbaric attack on Israel, committed by terror group HAMAS on October 7th 2023, has brought the Palestinian issue back into the headlines. To this very day, December 30th 2023, the conflict rages on. Not just physically, but also intellectually. As it often does - though this time on a far larger scale - the conflict has brought out large numbers of keyboard warriors, attention seekers, and people, in general, who have absolutely no idea what they are talking about.
Chief among the aforementioned supporters of the "freedom fighters"...
Ok, fine, chief among the supporters of the freedom fighters, freedom rapists, and freedom butchers, are those who claim Jesus was Palestinian. This claim is asinine for a number of reasons, demonstrating ignorance on every relevant level.
Perhaps the greatest irony of the claim is the simple fact that it contradicts the entire "Palestinian" narrative. According to the pro-Palestinian side, the Jews are the occupiers of a land to which they have no right. It's not their land, it is claimed. They have no right to even be there, much less defend themselves against the "freedom fighters"
Sorry, freedom rapists, of HAMAS. According to the narrative, once upon a time, there was a small, peaceful region called Palestine, where everyone danced and sung Disney tunes every time the sun came up, until one day, in 1948, the evil Jews arrived and started bombing random people. No word yet on where this mysterious race actually came from (though I'm told there's this tatty old book that claims they came from a mystical land called "Israel"), but the long and short of it is, the Jews don't belong there, the Palestinians do, and that's why it's totally acceptable for HAMAS to kill 1400 people, then immediately cause a global demand for a ceasefire.
So, how does Jesus being a Palestinian conflict with the narrative? Simply because Jesus is Jewish. Now of course, I say "is", because unlike anyone else in the history of humanity, including the false prophet Muhammad, Jesus actually got out of His grave. Jesus was actually killed in the land of Israel in roughly the 30s A.D. He was killed by two specific groups of people: The Romans, who invaded the land in 63 B.C. and held it up to this point, and the Jews, because at this point Israel was considered a "vassal state". That is, a state with some degree of control over its own internal affairs, but ultimately being subject to a greater state.
At this time, there was no such thing as a "Palestinian". In fact, there was no such thing as "Palestine". Israel was Israel, the Jews were Jewish, and they (rightly) saw the Romans as oppressive invaders with no right to the land. They looked forward to a time when God would restore the Kingdom to them, and this was actually a major expectation of the Messiah. Jesus was even asked if He was going to restore the kingdom to Israel at that time (Acts 1:6). But Jesus' response was that it wasn't for them to know the times or periods the Father had set by His own authority (Acts 1:7).
Of course, we today know that Jesus did not restore the kingdom to Israel at that time. In fact, in 70 A.D., the second temple, the epicentre of Jewish worship at the time, was utterly destroyed. This was followed by emperor Hadrian's outlawing of circumcision in 132 A.D., which lead to the Bar Kokhba revolt between 132-135 A.D. This was a brutal uprising with an equally brutal conclusion. The leader of the revolt was killed, many Jews were slaughtered, and the revolution was crushed. As a result, the Jews were barred from Jerusalem, except to observe Tisha B'Av, and the area of Judea was renamed Palestine as an insult to them in 136 A.D.
What we see, then, is that, far from being Palestinian, neither Jesus, nor anyone alive at His time, would ever have heard of Palestine. It simply did not exist. When it finally did come to exist, it was as an insult to the already existing, already present Jews, who even at that time had the only legitimate historical claim to that land. Therefore, whenever you claim, against all sanity, that Jesus, as a Jew, was a Palestinian, you are actually admitting that the region of Palestine legitimately belongs to the Jews.
And of course, this is factually true in every sense. By every reasonable standard, "Palestine" belongs to Israel. If you want to use the native dweller's argument, the Jews own the land because it is their ancestral home. If you want to go by "capture the flag" logic, the Jews have held control of the land for a collective total of 1411 years (a whopping 321 years longer than the closest competitor, the Muslims). If you go against current cultural standards and say the conqueror has the most legitimate claim, that right again goes to the Jews, because Britain took the region from the Ottoman Empire in 1918 A.D., and willingly handed it back to the Jews in 1948 A.D.
Thus, by every human metric, other than "we want the land, give it to us or we'll fire rockets made from water pipes at you", the Jews have the absolute, incontestable right to the land of Israel.
But what about non-human metrics? What if we remove the human element, not caring who is the native population, ignoring the claims of the conqueror, and skipping over the king of the hill logic? Well, ironically enough, not even the Muslim religious book supports HAMAS' opposition to Israel. According to Qur'an 5:20-26, Allah gave the land to the Jews, not only commanding them to invade, but punishing their refusal to do so with a 40 year trek around the wilderness.
The Qur'an, of course, is not divine revelation. Nevertheless, I feel little trepidation in suggesting its origins are not entirely human, either. In fact, I dare suggest the Qur'an comes by power of the devil himself, yet not without oversight from Yahweh. See, as we see in the book of Job, God both provides Satan with his power, but also limits it, so he may not do everything he desires. It is no surprise, therefore, that while the Qur'an is filled to the brim with great evil, it nevertheless affirms the Christian Scriptures as authoritative and incorruptible revelation from God. Thus, aside from occasionally getting things right, the Qur'an also commands us to believe the Bible when the Qur'an gets things wrong.
But ultimately, regardless of what the Qur'an says, the whole world, Jew, Christian, Muslim, or anyone else, should look to the Bible, simply because it is the word of the Living God, Creator of Heaven and Earth, and final judge of humanity. Therefore, even if we ignore the rights of the natives, the rights of the conquerors, or the rights of the occupiers, we have one final proof that the land of Israel belongs to the Jews: Holy Writ.
The land of Israel belongs to the Jews, ultimately, because God has decreed it so. Indeed, not only is it theirs by right, but ultimately, by inevitability. No man can stand against the purposes of God, and so just as the Jews returned to their land, as His word foretold, a time will come when the devil himself will be incapable of breathing a word against Israel.
But it was never an issue of land.
See, during the time of Jesus, the land of Israel was indeed unjustly occupied by a hostile foreign power. The Romans, while they were significantly more civilised than HAMAS, had no right to the land, and they were unacceptably oppressive to the Jews. Nevertheless, when He was questioned about this situation, Jesus never once took focus away from His ultimate mission: "Render therefore to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and to God the things that are God’s." (Matthew 22:21).
Ultimately, everything belongs to God. As the Lord Himself declares in Job 41:11, "Who has preceded Me, that I should pay him? Everything under heaven is Mine." Who, then, has the right to oppose Him? Who dares tell Him "your people do not own this land"? But more importantly, what right have sinners to continue in our rebellion? We stand in opposition to Him on a daily basis, our hearts full of pride, our lips spewing forth blasphemies, our flesh endlessly indulging in gluttony, sloth, sexual immorality, and many such things. Our very hands are stained with blood, our feet rush to evil, our fingers grasp what we do not own. We look at God and demand our "freedom", not realising that we brought nothing into this world, and when our numbered days are over, we shall also bring nothing out.
We look at this world as if we own it. As if it was designed to serve us, and we were designed to subdue it. It's ours, we claim, and we get to decide who owns what. But in the end, we have no more control over the day of our death than the day of our birth. And when that day comes, we will face the final, irreversible judgment. Will we be rewarded in eternity, or condemned to everlasting punishment? Will our feet tread on streets of gold, or will we flail helplessly in a lake of fire and brimstone? Will we be kings and queens in the Kingdom of Heaven, or will we share Satan's doom in God's inescapable prison?
It all comes down to one man. One Jewish man. That man, of course, is Jesus. On our own, we are in trouble. The wages of sin is death, and all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. Therefore, all of us are owed an all expenses paid, everlasting trip to Hell. But praise be to God, He loves us, and so rather than condemn us as He ought, He sent Jesus to be born in due time, and in due time, to die on a cross. On that cross, Jesus received the full wrath of God for sin, and in fact the Bible says He became sin, that we may become the righteousness of God in Him (2 Corinthians 5:21).
My Jewish brethren, there is your Messiah! No mere human revolutionary could do it. But this Jesus, Son of David, Immanuel, was pierced for our transgressions, and by His wounds we are healed (see Isaiah 53).
My Muslim friends, there is Jesus, Son of Mary, and contrary to your Qur'an, the Son and flesh incarnation of God. He did indeed die, and did indeed rise, and as your Qur'an admits, He did bring us the Gospel.
But ultimately, that Gospel is a double edged sword. "For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God." (1 Corinthians 1:18). Is the message of the cross foolishness to you? Then the Gospel is of no comfort, for this life is the closest you will ever get to the Kingdom of Heaven. But if you repent, confess Him as Lord, and believe in your heart God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved, and this life is the closest you will get to Hell. The choice is your own; repent and be saved, or rebel, and face His wrath. The choice seems obvious to me.