Nearly half of the Palestinians killed in Gaza during this conflict have been children. The bombing must stop immediately. Proud to join @RepAOC & @BettyMcCollum04 in this effort. Read our full letter below 👇
Nearly half of the Palestinians killed in Gaza during this conflict have been children. The bombing must stop immediately. Proud to join @RepAOC & @BettyMcCollum04 in this effort. Read our full letter below 👇
@RepMarkPocan @RepAOC @BettyMcCollum04 That’s bullshit invented by Hamas.
@RepMarkPocan @RepAOC @BettyMcCollum04 Provide links (nothing from Gaza/Hamas) to substantiate
Thank you Mark and your colleagues for your leadership in calling for a robust bilateral ceasefire, your recognition that this crisis cannot be resolved militarily, and for zooming in on the senseless suffering and death of children and need for immediate and adequate humanitarian aid. The killing has to stop!
As Christmas approaches, I'm seeing a lot of posts about how "Jesus was Palestinian" - even from friends I would otherwise consider academics. I'm also seeing pics of nativities where baby Jesus is wrapped in a Keffiyeh (I have feelings about that). So, I'm taking the rare step of chiming in because this actually is my wheelhouse (my two degrees being in Religious Studies and Genealogy). First, let me say the (hopefully) most obvious part out loud: Jesus was a Jew. This is actually not up for debate. The real, historical Jesus (actual name: Yeshua ben Yosef) was a Jew born in the Roman province of Judea (translate: "Land of the Jews") to a Judean Mizrahi Jewish father (Yosef) and a Galileean Mizrahi Jewish mother (Miriam). We know that he wore the tzitzit and was well-versed in Torah - enough so that his followers called him "Rabbi". We also have an extensive genealogy that traces his lineage to King David of the Tribe of Judah (we cannot prove this to current genealogical standards, but even without the genealogy we can solidly say Jesus was a Judean Jew). I get it. Bethlehem, the birthplace of Jesus, lies in what is NOW the Palestinian West Bank. That does not make him magically, retroactively, a Palestinian. Actually, the words "Palestine" and "Palestinian" would have been meaningless to Jesus and his contemporaries, as the moniker "Syria-Palestina" was not placed on the region until approximately 100 years after Jesus' death - and it was only done by the Roman Empire as an insult to the Jews and in an attempt to alienate them from their homeland. Furthermore, the term "Palestinian" used to refer to a cohesive ethnic identity didn't occur until the 1960's. Just to be clear, that's about 1,930 years after Jesus' death. Let me put it this way: saying "Jesus was Palestinian" is like saying "Pocahontas was a citizen of the United States of America". It's not only historically inaccurate, it's also pretty offensive. Now, bear with me because I'm about to get even more genealogical on you. The people we currently call "Palestinians" trace their heritage back to the Bronze Age Canaanites. By the Iron Age, the region was split into the Kingdom of Israel and the Kingdom of Judea (both ethnically-religiously Jewish). In the 7th century BCE, the Assyrian army captured a portion of the Kingdom of Israel, known as Samaria. This is where we start to see a clear ethnic schism. The population of Samaria mixed heavily with the Assyrian conquerors and became distinct (genetically and religiously) from their Jewish neighbors. This brings us to the time of Jesus. While Jesus was very clearly NOT a Samaritan, having no Samaritan relatives and not being born nor raised in Samaria, modern day Palestinians, you might have guessed, can trace much of their heritage to the Samaritans. But it goes even further than that. About 600 years after the death of Jesus came the Muslim conquests of Israel. At this time, a great deal of Arab and Persian influence (cultural, linguistic, and genetic) entered the region while the Jews were pushed out (violently, if they did not flee of their own accord). In much needed summary, the Palestinians are descended from the indigenous Samaritan population mixed with the Arab conquerors. Mizrahi Jews remained as an ever-constant presence in Israel and the Levant, albeit under heavy oppression, while the Jews of the exile mixed to an extent with their host countries (giving us the Sephardic Jews and Ashkenazi Jews). So, regardless of where Bethlehem now lies geo-politically, Jesus was not a "Palestinian". You cannot retroactively change someone's identity based on ever-flowing political boundaries. Not ethnically, not regionally, not re
@RepMarkPocan @RepAOC @BettyMcCollum04 Pentagon -> IDF👇🏽
@RepMarkPocan @RepAOC @BettyMcCollum04 Pentagon -> IDF👇🏽
@RepMarkPocan @RepAOC @BettyMcCollum04 Forward this message to Hamas
@RepMarkPocan @RepAOC @BettyMcCollum04 On what basis do you make that statement? The 'Gaza Health Ministry' statistics (i.e., Hamas)? Not only are those statistics unreliable, but Hamas sends 14-16 year olds into combat w/ weapons and then when they are killed by IDF soldiers in self-defense Hamas calls them children.