The Ongoing Palestinian Genocide and the First Christmas in Occupied Bethlehem

Manger scene at the Evangelical Lutheran Christmas Church in Bethlehem, occupied West Bank (Image credit: Munther Isaac)

As of posting this, over 20,000 Palestinians have been systematically murdered by Israel. The overwhelming majority of the dead are civilians, with well over half of the total number being women and children. Gazans have also been exiled from their homes, sent on what is essentially a death march. Along with the destruction of houses, apartments, hospitals, and shops, the Israeli millitary, in its attempt to cleanse Gaza of the very culture of its indigenous Palestinian population, has targeted libraries, schools, monuments, and places of worship.

In early December, the Great Mosque of Gaza, the oldest and largest mosque in the city, was, with the exception of a single minaret, razed to the ground by an Israeli bombardment. Earlier, the Greek Orthodox Church of St. Porphyrius, which had been sheltering 400-500 Palestinians, was also bombed. Even when places of worship are not targeted for large-scale destruction, believers are still murdered in cold blood, such as when an Israeli sniper shot and killed Nahida and Samar Anton, a mother and daughter, at the Catholic Church of the Holy Family. 

With Israel perpetrating genocide in Gaza, Christians in the occupied West Bank city of Bethlehem have cancelled Christmas festivities in solidarity with their fellow Palestinians. While the sacred church services marking the birth of Jesus Christ will still take place, the usual cheerful decorations, music, and parties are nowhere to be found in the holy city. Al Jazeera recently highlighted one particularly moving manger scene in Bethlehem constructed by the Lutheran pastor Rev. Munther Isaac.

The scene depicts the infant Jesus swaddled in a keffiyeh, lying amidst rubble as the Virgin Mary, St. Joseph, and the other figures stand near the outskirts of the destruction, seemingly searching for the holy child. The display powerfully connects Jesus’s birth with the countless Palestinians in Gaza who are currently searching the rubble for their missing loved ones. Rev. Isaac states, “Some people in the West forget the existence of Palestinian Christians. This war affects everything Palestinian, whether Muslim or Christian. It is our responsibility now to raise our voices as a nation to stop this war.” He also references disheartening conversations he has had with Americans who have tried to justify Israel’s brutal war on Palestine as “self-defence.”

The above reminded me of a video clip I saw a few years back from another one of Palestine’s prominent Christian leaders, Archbishop Atallah (Theodosios) Hanna. In the clip, the Greek Orthodox hierarch states that Christians who do care about the occupation of Palestine should not even bother to celebrate Christmas. While this may surprise Western Christians who have been conditioned by their leaders and media to ignore and even justify Palestinian suffering, Archbishop Atallah’s position should come as a moral wake-up call.

St. Maria Skobtsova, who was martyred in a Nazi concentration camp for protecting Jews during the Holocaust, writes, “[Jesus] puts an equal sign between himself and anyone in need.” Along with faith in God, there is nothing more important according to the Gospel than love for others, particularly those suffering. In fact, Jesus says that those who help those in need, help him, and those who do not help those in need, do not help him. And it is this criterion that the Lord will use to judge each person in the hereafter (Matt. 25:31-44), and it is the same criterion that Christians must use today to determine whether or not they are truly following God. For as we will soon see, the parallels between the Bible’s account of Jesus’s birth and the suffering Palestinian people are so apparent that there is no excuse for a Christian to fail to recognize Jesus in them and their struggle.

However, before examining some of the parallels, something must be said about the very terms “Palestine” and “Israel,” since anyone familiar with the nativity accounts found in Matthew and Luke will know that the term “Israel” is often used to denote the Holy Land. In fact, both the Bible and the Qurʾan often portray the Jewish people synonymously with the term. The Qurʾan, for instance, says that Jesus was sent to the “Children of Israel” (3:49). Yet, it is important to keep in mind that the name Palestine has been associated with the Holy Land long before the Roman conquest. Even in the fifth century BC, the Greek historian Herodotus referred to the region as Palestine. While the concept of Israel as the sacred land of the Jewish people has an undeniably long and important religious history, the founding ideology of the modern state of Israel, Zionism, has far less to do with Judaism than it does with settler colonialism. Moreover, while Jews have a right to also live and worship in Palestine, nobody has a right to establish an apartheid state and to systematically exterminate the indigenous population. For ultimately, it is the Palestinians, and the Palestinians alone, who possess unbroken continuity with the ancient land of Palestine and its capital of Jerusalem.

Greek Orthodox icon of the Nativity of Jesus Christ (Image credit: Orthodox Church in America)

Jesus himself was born a Jew in Roman-occupied Palestine. The Gospel of Luke tells of how Joseph and the expecting Mary are forced to travel to Bethlehem in order to register in the Roman census (2:1-5). We can see right away that Jews, like the other peoples of first-century Palestine, were not in control of their own lives but were subjected to the whims of the Roman occupier. While in Bethlehem, the couple is unable to find shelter anywhere suitable and so after giving birth, Mary places the newborn Jesus in a manger (i.e., a feeder for animals) (Luke 2:6-8). Moreover, it is also worth noting that while the Qurʾan does not say exactly where Jesus was born, it portrays Mary as giving birth far away from home and with great difficulty (19:22-7).

In the Orthodox Christian iconographic tradition, the manger spoken of in Luke is depicted to resemble a coffin, and the infant Jesus himself is swaddled in white grave clothes. The icon reminds the viewer that Jesus’s path would be one of suffering, and this is reflected in the scripture as well. For when the forty-day-old Jesus is brought in accordance with the Law of Moses to the Temple in Jerusalem, St. Simeon, foreshadowing Jesus’s crucifixion at the hands of the occupying Romans, tells Mary that a sword will pierce through her soul (Luke 2:22-35).

The Gospel of Matthew’s account goes into some detail regarding the reaction of Rome’s client king of Judea, Herod, to Jesus’s birth. It tells of the Magi—perhaps a reference to Persian Zoroastrians—travelling to Jerusalem in search of the King of the Jews, i.e., the newborn Jesus. However, the Magi’s presence alerts Herod to the arrival of the prophesied Christ, or Messiah, causing him to fear for his throne. Having learned from the chief priests and the scribes that the Messiah, the liberator, is to be born in Bethlehem in Judea, Herod attempts to trick the Magi into bringing the holy child to him. However, Mary and Joseph are warned in a dream to flee with Jesus to Egypt (Matt. 2:1-15).

While the holy family takes refuge in a foreign land, Herod, in his quest to be rid of any potential threat to his power, has all the male children two years of age and under in Bethlehem and its surrounding regions put to death. In response to the shocking slaughter of innocent children, the evangelist quotes the Prophet Jeremiah:

A voice was heard in Ramah,
Lamentation, weeping, and great mourning,
Rachel weeping for her children,
Refusing to be comforted,
Because they are no more (Matt. 2:16-8).

Christians refer to this tragic event as the Massacre of Innocents and revere all of its young victims as holy martyrs. Nevertheless, following Herod’s death, the holy family returns to Palestine, but having been warned in a dream that Judea is still unsafe, they settle in Nazareth in Galilee (Matt. 2:19-22).

The parallels between the Bible’s account of the nativity and the Palestinian genocide are striking. Similar to Mary, who was forced to give birth away from home and in squalid conditions, thousands of pregnant Palestinian women in Gaza are fleeing, often on foot, from Israeli bombs and soldiers, with most survivors being forced to give birth in unsafe and unsanitary spaces. Even those women who have been able to deliver their children in a hospital have had little guarantee of their or their newborn’s survival. For instance, on November 11, Israel laid siege to Gaza’s largest hospital, al-Shifa. Because of the lack of electricity due to the Israeli bombardment, incubators could no longer function, and premature babies died despite being given the best care possible by Palestinian doctors and nurses, who themselves were often targeted by the Israeli military. Moreover, Israel has now murdered one or both parents of over 25,000 Gazan children, forcing many kids to seek shelter from the Israeli military all alone.

Fulfilling the role of the biblical King Herod is Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Like Herod, who had sought to destroy Jesus in order to keep hold of his power, massacring thousands of children as mere collateral damage, Netanyahu will forever be remembered as a monster. The Israeli leader has already killed over 8,000 Palestinian children, with thousands more severely injured. Of course, with the United States continuing to give its full support to the genocide, the total number of Palestinian children killed and injured, along with adults, will only continue to dramatically increase.

Orthodox icon of Rachel weeping over the Holy Innocents (Image credit: Holy Nativity Orthodox Church)

It is also important to note that Netanyahu was indicted in Israel in 2019 for bribery, breach of trust, and fraud, and that his trial is still ongoing. So he sees the genocide not only as a means to further the goals of Zionism, but also as a way to secure his political power and avoid prison. That Netanyahu can avoid legal repercussions at home by committing war crimes against Palestinians further demonstrates the moral bankruptcy of the Israeli system. It also reveals the corruption of its Western allies, particular the US, since they enable Israel’s crimes against humanity by shielding it from accountability before international law. For if the standards that the US and the West applied to their enemies were applied to Israel, its brutal occupation of Palestine would have ended long ago.

Again, similar to Herod, whose plot to murder the infant Jesus forced Mary and Joseph to flee with the child to Egypt, Netanyahu has continually forced Gazans into exile from their homes and has even attempted to convince Egypt to accept Palestinian refugees as part of his plan to ethnically cleanse the country. On October 13, the UN responded to Netanyahu’s demand for 1.1 million Gazans to move south in order to be spared from Israeli terror by stating that it was impossible to relocate such a large population “without devastating humanitarian consequences.” Sadly, we have been witnessing the devastating consequences of this forced exile, from famine to disease, for months now. Moreover, Palestinians know that even if the Egyptian, or any other, government did provide refuge for them, they would never be permitted by Israel to return home. Besides, refugees worldwide are treated by host countries as “invaders” and are often forced to essentially live as prisoners in isolated camps with little to no hope of ever restarting their lives. So why would Palestinians agree to a new form of indefinite imprisonment and exile?

This Christmas must be treated differently. For decades, Palestinians, both Muslim and Christian, have pleaded with Western Christians to stop supporting Israel’s occupation of their country. Their pleas have mostly fallen on deaf ears, and this has to change. As we celebrate the birth of Christ this year, we must honour him in the Palestinian people, who, whether Christian or Muslim, have for centuries honoured his miraculous birth in their land. We need to pray for them, but we must also act. We can do so in many ways: writing government officials to demand a ceasefire, protesting, boycotting brands that support the genocide, donating to Palestinian charities, and sharing reports with others online or in person regarding what is happening in Gaza as well as the brutal history of the Israeli occupation.

Faith without works is dead (James 2:14-7), and Jesus teaches us that the most important work that one can perform is to help those in need. Personally, I cannot think of a clearer example of people in need than the over 2.2 million Palestinians of Gaza who at this very moment are being bombed, shot, exiled, starved, and abducted by the brutal and lawless Israeli regime. If we truly believe in Jesus and the story of the first Christmas, then we will stand firm with those who in their suffering and martyrdom bear his image.