The @NYTimes @NickKristof whitewashes Palestinian Christian antisemitism ~ Elder Of Ziyon

Thursday, April 10, 2025

The @NYTimes @NickKristof whitewashes Palestinian Christian antisemitism

Nicolas Kristof writes in the New York Times:

In the face of this American Christian enthusiasm for crushing Palestinians while saying it is God’s will, I wondered what Palestinian Christians thought. So I visited Bethlehem and asked them.

I didn't quote the beginning of the article where he sarcastically attacks American Christians who support Israel as hypocrites. Let's focus on the main part of his article.

First of all, every single person Kristof spoke to is an anti-Israel activist. He did not speak to random Christians but professional haters. (And I mean "professional" literally. Every one of them makes money from their anti-Israel positions.)

“Do we feel betrayed?” mused Mitri Raheb, a Lutheran Palestinian pastor who is president of Dar Al-Kalima University and, like many Palestinian Christians, against annexation. “Yes, to some extent. Unfortunately, this is not new for us.”

Raheb wrote a book based on the lie that Israel is guilty of "settler colonialism." He does not accept that Jews have any historical, legal or moral rights in their ancient homeland.

He loves to promote the propaganda lie that Jesus was a "Palestinian" and not a Jew from Judea.

Moreover, Raheb is a leader behind the Palestinian Kairos document which uses supersessionist language, the antisemitic idea that the Christian church has replaced Jews as the Chosen People. (Even though most Lutheran churches have rejected Martin Luther's explicit antisemitism, the Palestinian churches do not seem to have done so in practice.) And he embraces the antisemitic Khazar theory, denying Jews are really Jews.

Fewer than 2 percent of West Bank Palestinians today are Christian, but they are an influential minority who endure the same land grabs and hardships as the majority Muslim population.

Funny how Kristof ignores the reason why there are so few Palestinian Christians left compared to 1948. As with the rest of the Middle East, it was Muslim hate for them that forced them out. Seems like a relevant point.

Daoud Kuttab, a Palestinian Christian writer and the author of the new book “State of Palestine NOW,” says that far-right American Christians have embarrassed the Christians who actually live in the holy land.

“When the Bible is used to justify land theft and war crimes against civilians, it puts the faithful in an awkward position,” he said.

Kuttab himself justifies terrorism against Israeli Jews, even in Tel Aviv. In 2016, after a shooting attack at a cafe that killed four people, he claimed that the attack was a natural reaction to Israel rejecting some forgotten French peace plan: "overdone live @cnn coverage of Tel aviv attack but not a single word on the CONTEXT of the situation, the israeli rejection of french plan?" And he followed up with another post that evoked "context" saying that the attack was Israel's fault.

So this Christian quoted as a moral authority by Kristof justifies war crimes against Jewish civilians. Awkward!

One group in the West Bank where biblical themes of love and justice do prevail is Tent of Nations, a Christian community that promotes nonviolence and declares, “We refuse to be enemies.” It operates on the farm of an old Palestinian Christian family, the Nassars, who have used their property to hold youth camps and advocate peace toward all.

That attitude has not been reciprocated.

Tent of Nations and Daoud Nassar are not exactly supportive of the themes of "love and justice" when it comes to Israeli Jews. Nassar, also a Lutheran, does not reach out to Israeli Jews; he doesn't condemn Hamas attacks like October 7 as far as I can find. His idea of "peace" is a Palestinian state that only has Jews living in fear like most Christians do under Muslim rule.

I am not trying to justify any crimes that may or may not have been done by Jewish settlers against these people. I trust the Israeli judicial system to determine who owns specific lands based on evidence and law, not emotion. But this op-ed goes out of its way to canonize these Palestinian Christians and their antisemitism while attacking American Christians who have shed theirs.