What if Jesus was Born Today in Bethlehem?
“If Christ were to be born today, he would be born under the rubble.” This is what Reverand Munther Isaac of the Lutheran Church in Bethlehem said in his Sunday sermon on Christmas during the Gaza Genocide.
“I invite you to see the image of Jesus in every child killed and pulled from under the rubble,” he added.
The Patriarchs and Heads of the Churches in Jerusalem declared the cancellation of Christmas celebrations on November 10. All of Bethlehem’s churches, including the Church of Nativity, have canceled Christmas festivities, put away their Christmas decorations, and, instead of displaying the normal nativity scene, baby Jesus is now placed on top of a pile of rubble, draped in the Palestinian kuffiya.
Rev. Isaac explained that while the nativity scene represents the reality of Palestinian lives, it also reflects hope as the infant Jesus is born in the rubble, a new light amidst pain.
Joseph & Mary, being from Nazareth in the heartland, would have Blue IDs (Israeli passports).
Born in Bethlehem in the West Bank, Jesus would get a “Green ID”.
What does this mean?
Under Israeli apartheid, Palestinians are stratified into different tiers with different levels of rights, depending on which geographic unit they’re born in. Palestinians born in the heartland get the Blue ID, granting them the highest tier of rights a Palestinian can get – but still lower than Jewish Israelis, because of their ethnicity.
Palestinians born in the West Bank get the Green ID, an even lower tier with few rights, subjecting them to harsh restrictions in every aspect of their everyday lives.
This means that Jesus would need an Israeli military permit to visit his family in Nazareth. But permits are often denied with no provided reason, and even those holding permits can be denied entry at checkpoints for reasons as arbitrary as the Israeli soldier’s bad mood. Applying for a permit is a long, unreliable, and humiliating bureaucratic process.
Even if Jesus eventually got a permit, he’d have to go through a military checkpoint because Palestinians have no freedom of movement.
He’d most likely go through the infamous Bethlehem checkpoint, one of the worst Israeli checkpoints.
Palestinian workers wake up at 3am to go to the Bethlehem checkpoint because it takes hours. Overcrowding is so bad that fainting & suffocating from a lack of airflow is a near-daily occurrence. The pressure of the crowd pushing forward has broken people’s ribs.
But this analysis ignores a crucial fact: Jesus was born Jewish.
Israeli law classifies all Jews as “Jewish nationals” who are entitled to residence, Israeli citizenship & unrestricted movement between the heartland, Jerusalem, and the West Bank, simply due to their ethnic and religious identity.
So actually, Jesus wouldn’t have to apply for a permit. He wouldn’t have to spend hours in overcrowded checkpoints. He wouldn’t get a Green ID & face harsh restrictions in housing, residence, movement, water, employment & more. He wouldn’t have inferior rights. Because he was Jewish.
This reveals the principle underpinning Israeli apartheid: It’s not about where you’re born. It’s about whether you’re Jewish or not. Your ethnicity determines your rights & level in the racial hierarchy.
Israel is an exclusive ethnostate, established to serve one ethnic group at the expense of another.
It’s not a merry Christmas. Because Gaza, home to one of the oldest Christian communities in the world, is being exterminated as you read this.
Because Christians across Palestine, descended from history’s first Christians, have cancelled all Christmas celebrations in the face of genocide against their people.
Because Palestinians of all religious backgrounds are being massacred in their churches and in their mosques, in their homes and in their hospitals, in their streets and on their beaches.
How can anyone celebrate Christmas while the land in which Christianity was born is soaked in blood?
Image source: StableDiffusionWeb
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