The pope unveils the nativity scene with baby Jesus in a keffiyeh. There are no words to describe how much of an unholy desecration this is. The keffiyeh emerged as a symbol for Arab revolt against the Ottoman Empire beginning in the early 1900’s. It subsequently became a symbol for Palestinian resistance after being popularized by Yasser Arafat in the 1960’s. Today, it is used as a symbol for solidarity with Palestinians in the Israel-Hamas conflict, and often worn by those advocating for the destruction of Israel and its replacement with an Arab/Muslim state, which was not the identity of the land Jesus was born in. This symbol has nothing to do with Jesus who lived 2,000 years ago in Judea, before these violent identity conflicts that began with the Arab identity conquering the land with the 7th century Muslim conquests, later conflicting with the Jewish identity returning to the land. To associate Jesus with violence and wars by forcing him to wear a symbol associated with one side against the other is abhorrent, and a complete misevaluation of Jesus’s teachings. He was a Jewish rabbi and a man of peace. He would have believed in peace between these two peoples and would never have engaged in the divisiveness of “picking sides” at the expense of another’s humanity. To force Jesus into a “side” with symbolism that repudiates Jesus’s teachings of peace because of your own personal politics is to bastardize his message and his legacy. Jesus wanted to bring the world together, not further drive it apart. This is where the term “sacrilege” comes from: the act of treating something sacred with disrespect or violation. This from the Pope? It not only undermines trust, but it is mentally taxing to watch actors at every trusted level collaborating against truth.
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