jpost.com
>“The claim that Jesus was a Palestinian is so bizarre that the question becomes what one gains by making that allegation,” Cooper told The Jerusalem Post. “For people who have no theological or historical rooting, the idea that Jesus was a Palestinian creates a new narrative for Palestinian history, which otherwise does not date back very far. If one can say that Jesus was Palestinian 2,000 years ago, then that means the Jews are occupying Palestinian land.”
>Cooper said that for people who “don’t like Jews to begin with, it is a deadly combination of the Jews killed Jesus and now they are doing the same to his progeny,” he continued. “From a political and propaganda point of view, there is something to be gained.”
>The myth that Jesus was a Palestinian dates back to the days of Yasser Arafat, when his trusted Christian-Palestinian adviser Hanan Ashrawi made the claim. Since then, the idea resurfaces now and again, according to Cooper.
>“The absurdity of it is breathtaking,” Cooper said of Jesus being a Palestinian. “Jesus was born in Bethlehem, think about who is parents were – his mother, Mary, was betrothed to Joseph, a carpenter. In the Gospels, there is no mention of Palestine, only Judea, which is where Jews lived.”
>Cooper said that if the Palestinians admit that Jesus was a Jew, then the idea that the Jews only arrived in Israel in 1948 and occupied Palestinian indigenous land becomes an absurdity.
>He said Omar “knows this narrative is false but also that it has an inherent power to it,” said Cooper. “The ‘Benjamins,’ the big lie of dual loyalty, Jesus is a Palestinian - it is all rewriting history to plant in people’s minds that the Palestinian people go back thousands of years."
