From the Liveblog of
Tuesday, December 26, 2023
Ocasio-Cortez blasted for Christmas message comparing Jesus to Gazans
Critics blast New York Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez for a Christmas message comparing Jesus to the Palestinians, with at least one saying it invoked the historic charge that the Jews killed Jesus.
Drawing parallels between Jesus’ persecutors and present-day Israel, Ocasio-Cortez wrote in an Instagram post on Sunday that Jesus was born in “modern-day Palestine” under a government carrying out “a massacre of innocents.” According to the New Testament, Jesus was a Jew who lived within the modern borders of Israel and was killed by the Roman forces ruling the territory at the time.
“He was part of a targeted population being indiscriminately killed to protect an unjust leader’s power,” Ocasio-Cortez wrote. “Thousands of years later, right-wing forces are violently occupying Bethlehem as similar stories unfold for today’s Palestinians.”
The New York lawmaker, a member of the so-called “Squad” of outspoken progressives in Congress, referred to Jesus’ family as “Jewish Palestinians.”
The text in the post was superimposed over an image of a baby doll in a pile of concrete rubble, a variation of the traditional nativity scene that became a motif for pro-Palestinian activists ahead of Christmas. Christian leaders in Bethlehem, traditionally seen as the birthplace of Jesus, called off Christmas celebrations this year to express solidarity with Palestinians in Gaza.
In a second Instagram post yesterday, Ocasio-Cortez posted a video of Reverend Munther Isaac, a Lutheran cleric in Bethlehem, delivering a sermon with a similar message. Ocasio-Cortez wrote in the post, “When we justify the bombing of children, Jesus is under the rubble.”
Former Anti-Defamation League leader Abraham Foxman calls Ocasio-Cortez’s initial post “hateful and dangerous,” citing the historic libel claiming that Jews are collectively responsible for killing Christ, or deicide. The charge, refuted by the Catholic Church since the 1960s and rejected by some other Christian denominations, has fueled antisemitism in Christian communities for centuries.
“She invoked the charge that the Jews are again killing Jesus,” Foxman writes on X, formerly known as Twitter. Foxman served as the national director of the ADL from 1987 to 2015.
Former US ambassador to Israel David Friedman calls the post “a reinvention” of history.
US Representative Ritchie Torres, a New York Democrat and vocal advocate for Israel, criticizes comparisons between Jesus and the Palestinians in a post that doesn’t directly mention Ocasio-Cortez.
“It is antisemitic to compare Israelis to the Romans who murdered Jesus. Associating Jews with the murder of Jesus is antisemitism,” Torres writes on X.
