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At best, the iconic keffiyeh is a provocative symbol of Palestinian resistance and solidarity with Palestinian nationalism. At worst, the checkered black-and-white scarf made most famous by the late Yasser Arafat is synonymous with the headgear worn by Islamic terrorists and antisemitic mobs baying for Jewish blood.
But last Saturday, the keffiyeh became the swaddling clothes for the baby Jesus to lie on in His cradle as a wheelchair-bound Pope Francis prayed before a politicized “Palestinian” nativity scene in the Vatican’s Paul VI Hall.
Jews and Christians erupted with outrage, both reminding the pope that depicting Jesus as a “Palestinian” when he was born a “Jew” was not only historically inaccurate, but a display of partisanship with the antisemitic terrorist organization Hamas.
Earlier today, the controversial nativity scene was removed from the Paul VI Hall with no explanation.
Associating Jesus with Violence
“There are no words to describe how much of an unholy desecration this is,” wrote Elica Le Bon, an attorney, singer, activist, and speaker of Iranian extraction, blasting Francis for unveiling “the nativity scene with baby Jesus in a keffiyeh.”
“This symbol has nothing to do with Jesus who lived 2,000 years ago in Judea,” she remarked, explaining in a lengthy social media post how the “keffiyeh emerged as a symbol for [the] Arab revolt against the Ottoman Empire beginning in the early 1900’s” and “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,” Le Bon observed.
“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.”
Islamic scholar Robert Spencer agreed.
“The worst aspect of it is that Pope Francis is endorsing a bloody and genocidal jihad that does not allow for the existence of a Jewish state,” he said. “‘Palestinian’ leaders have made it clear that no Jew will be allowed to live in their ‘Palestinian’ state. So what will be done with the seven million Jews in Israel? This is the real genocidal intent in the region.”
Symbol of Terrorism
In his paper “Stitched together, torn apart: The keffiyeh as cultural guide,” published in the International Journal of Cultural Studies, Evan Renfro, associate professor of political science at the University of Northern Iowa, found that Western media more frequently links the keffiyeh to terrorism than to social justice.
According to Google, the keffiyeh is the preferred headgear for terrorists. In 2021, the search engine listed the garment as the top search result for the query: “what types of headgear or scarves do terrorists wear?”.
Nadim Nashif, executive director of The Arab Center for Social Media Advancement, hit back at big tech for its “racist and dehumanising” association of a “historical headdress of Arabs and Palestinians” with terrorism. The keffiyeh originated with farmers and later became a symbol of Palestinian nationalism, Nashif noted.
Arafat, who founded Fatah (a group advocating armed rebellion against Israel) and was chairman of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) from 1969 to 2004, helped popularize the keffiyeh around the world by almost always wearing one in public.
Leila Khaled, a Palestinian militant who took part in hijacking a plane flying from Rome to Tel Aviv in 1969, turned the keffiyeh into a symbol of Palestinian “feminist” resistance after a journalist shot a photo of her holding a rifle while styling a keffiyeh like a woman’s headscarf.
Vatican Plays Pro-Palestinian Politics
The keffiyeh-draped crib is one of a series of nativity scenes collectively titled “Nativity of Bethlehem 2024,” designed by artists Johny Andonia and Faten Nastas Mitwasi, both Palestinians from Bethlehem, Vatican News reported.
The representation blends the traditions of local artisans with contemporary elements. The materials used include iron for the main structure, olive wood for the statues of the Holy Family, and mother-of-pearl, stone, ceramic, glass, felt, and fabric for the keffiyeh.
The nativity scene was organized by the Higher Presidential Committee for Church Affairs in Palestine (HPCCAP, an organ of the Palestine Liberation Organization) and the Palestinian embassy to the Vatican, along with Dar Al-Kalima University and the Beitcharilo Center.
Part of the HPCCAP’s mission is to bring attention to “Israeli atrocities and violations against the Palestinian people, while countering misinformation and propaganda campaigns directed at Muslim and Christian institutions, particularly in Jerusalem,” the outfit claims on its website.
PLO executive committee member Ramzi Khouri featured prominently at the dedication joining Francis in presiding over the nativity’s dedication.
Khouri conveyed “warm greetings” from Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas and expressed “deep gratitude for the pope’s unwavering support for the Palestinian cause and his tireless efforts to end the war on Gaza and promote justice,” according to a PLO press release.
Two Arab children presented the pope with a “Star of Bethlehem” plaque bearing peace messages in Arabic and Latin during the ceremony.
“The Pope should just keep quiet,” Jewish columnist Gila Isaacson noted. In an article titled “Pope Francis’s latest blunder: Jesus was Palestinian,” she wrote: “One would think that the Pope, of all people, would know that Jesus was a Jew who lived and died under Roman rule in Judea.
“The term ‘Palestine’ wasn’t even applied to the region until after the Bar Kokhba revolt, when the Romans deliberately renamed Judea to diminish its Jewish character.”
Belittling the Holocaust
Francis’s pro-Palestine virtue-signaling comes days after The Associated Press published incendiary anti-Israel excerpts from his forthcoming book, Hope Never Disappoints: Pilgrims Toward a Better World.
In the book, Francis asserts that the Israel Defense Force’s actions in Gaza “should be carefully investigated to determine whether it fits into the technical definition of genocide as formulated by jurists and international bodies,” The Stream has previously reported.
Edith Bruck of Rome, a 93-year-old Holocaust survivor, rebuked Francis for misusing the term “genocide.” The Hungarian-born Jew who survived incarceration in the Auschwitz, Dachau, and Bergen-Belsen concentration camps stressed that despite what Francis says, Israel is not attempting to eliminate the entire Palestinian population.
“This is how he downplays the historical significance of the Shoah,” Bruck told Italian daily La Repubblica. “Genocide is something else. When a million children are burned to death, then you can talk about genocide.”
Rather, committing genocide is “something Hamas wants to do,” she said, noting that Hamas has said it “wants to wipe out all the Jews in the entire world.”
The Combat Antisemitism Movement (CAM) slammed the pontiff’s remarks, warning that “Israel is currently facing a war of intended annihilation on seven fronts, and these remarks look like a possible opening of an eighth front, from of all places, the Vatican, which can also lead to the spilling of Jewish blood around the world.”
Francis has remained silent against perpetrators of genocides against Christians in China, Nigeria, and other parts of the Islamic world, as well as Azerbaijan, as The Stream has previously noted.
In May, Francis refused to condemn Islamic extremist Tawakkol Karman for accusing Israel of “genocide” while addressing an audience at St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome.
The Israeli Embassy to the Holy See said it was “outraged and shocked” to learn that “the place was contaminated by a flagrant anti-Semitic speech” Karman delivered at the Vatican-sponsored “World Meeting on Human Fraternity.”
“When one invites someone to his home, they expect the invitee not to abuse the good will and hospitality — and if this unfortunately happens, to respond properly and promptly,” Raphael Schutz, former Israel’s ambassador to the Holy See, told The Stream at the time.
Keffiyeh Banned in Multiple Places
In November 2023, Berlin state authorities banned the keffiyeh in schools, classifying it as a direct symbol of Hamas or Hezbollah, but one that does “not yet reach the limit of criminal liability.”
“Any demonstrative behavior or expression of opinion that can be understood as advocating or approving the attacks against Israel or supporting the terrorist organizations that carry them out, such as Hamas or Hezbollah, represents a threat to school peace in the current situation and is prohibited,” Education Senator Katharina Guenther-Wuensch stated in a letter to schools.
In April, Ted Arnott, who is speaker in the Provincial Parliament of Ontario (Canada), barred lawmakers from wearing keffiyehs inside the legislative building, noting that “having done the research, it appeared to me that the keffiyeh is being worn to make a political statement.”
Keffiyehs remain banned there after a motion that would have permitted the scarf failed to pass days later.
In May, the parliament of the Australian state of Victoria banned MPs from wearing the keffiyeh. In a joint ruling, both chambers said the scarf was a “political” symbol. Days after the ban, Victorian Legislative Council President Shaun Leane asked four Green Party lawmakers who had been wearing keffiyehs to remove them.
Yes… the satanic catholic fake church worships the fake god of allah of satanic islam…
They teach it in their satanic CCC… #841
And now they have it on display…
Every so called catholic needs to denounce the satanic catholic fake church…
The satanic quran says that the fake god allah has no son’s…
Thus… worshiping the fake god allah as the same god means they have no need for Christ Jesus…
They have the Poop… with the fake god allah… pushing to do good deeds and maintaining them every day for their salvation…
Earning points so they don’t have to go to Purgatory Prison… <<< A fake place that doesn't exist. But designed to dupe catholics…
Ugh…
Red Francis sitting in front of a depiction of Jesus laying on a keffiyah is predictable, and no more affects my life or my belief in Jesus any more than you braying at me for what you think I am. And you have a lot of fantasies.
Is your faith in Jesus and God so weak that you have to get so predictably upset every day of your pathetic life? I feel like I am watching an episode of some horrible television series about 7th graders. It’s so easy to set you off. And I get a good laugh at the caricature you have created of yourself.
I drew up a list of all of your bugaboos. The Catholics, the Lutherans, the Muslims. How about the Amish, the Mennonites, the Presbyterians, and the Methodists? Anglicans? Calvinists? Are Christmas trees OK in your world? Christmas presents? Christmas dinner? Christian hymns? How about all of the liturgies recited in churches all over the world?
Look doofus. I’m not changing a thing about my religious practices, no matter how many voices you think you hear speaking directly to you. No matter how many faux childish insults you hurl at me. There will always be religious nut cases like you pretending to be the one with God’s true message and crying out in the wilderness.
There is medication for all of the medical issues you have. I suggest a psychiatrist……again.
Islam is a
Disease of the human mind-their
Jesus has nothing to do with the real Jesus Christ-and your 12th Imam is our anti Christ. Muslims better start reading the Holy Bible or you will be lost
This Pope is as authentic as a 3 Do;;lar Bill the Vatican Blew this one sky high
what else can you expect from a FAKE POPE that is a Communist and does not even believe in CHRIST
Francis is clearly not a Catholic, nor even a Christian; he’s a South American Marxist who has defiled the Church and destroyed the moral and doctrinal authority and dignity of the Papacy.
He is, and has shown himself to be, an antipope.
I will remain a Fallen Catholic, and delay my planned and hoped-for return to Communion with the Church, until Francis has left the Chair of St. Peter and descended to the netherworld to serve his real Master more directly than he already has here on Earth.
The Cardinals better get it right this time and resist the obvious coup that put Red Francis in power.
That is what babies wear when just before Palestinians throw them in the ovens, or use them as shields.
King Herod was Palestinian like that too, wasn’t he. That “ king of the Jews” wasn’t Jewish though.. He definitely is the spiritual father of the Palestinians for sure, killing babies just like a Gazan.
Designed by Palestinians from Bethlehem, it is a good reminder that the Christians of the Levant tend to be as antisemitic as Moslems, even if more subdued in expressing their hearts with violence.
I don’t care for “ the levant” used to avoid saying Israel and Jews. I know some ‘historians use it, but “middle east’ is preferable.
I have to wonder if the pope has ever read Matthew 7:21-23. Jesus makes I pretty plain in these verses. I don’t know how the Catholics continue to listen to this false teacher/leader who is appointed to shepherd them.
Good reply, it got me thinking, years ago after touring around India then later on going to Italy to visit the Vatican it reminded me of India & all the idol worshiping going on inside the Vatican, all very strange.
Then I did some research, & the found the answer.
Here are the Catholic Ten Commandments:
1.I am the LORD your God. You shall worship the Lord your God and Him only shall you serve.
2. You shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain.
3. Remember to keep holy the Sabbath day.
4. Honor your father and your mother.
5. You shall not kill.
6. You shall not commit adultery.
7. You shall not steal.
8. You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor.
9. You shall not covet your neighbor’s wife.
10. You shall not covet your neighbor’s goods.
You have a great and important name. It would benefit many professing believer’s if they learn and understand that the apostle Paul is God’s spokesman today in this dispensation of grace (Eph. 3:1-9). It would also benefit these folks if they understood that the sermon on the mount, Matt. 5-7, pertained to Israel and their kingdom on earth that the Lord Jesus Christ was talking to them about. The kingdom Israel was looking for is the literal, physical, Davidic kingdom which will be on earth. When it does come, after this time of grace and Daniels 70th week, Christ will reign over earth in Jerusalem. David will reign over Israel in Jerusalem, and the 12, including Peter, will sit on 12 thrones judging the 12 tribes in Jerusalem. Those Gentile nations which made it through Daniels 70th week, will submit to Israel. Where will Paul and the church the body of Christ be? Will leave that question for pondering.
I certainly don’t listen to him!
Do we need to ask “Is the Pope Catholic?” anymore?
As a practicing Catholic with Jewish roots, I’m beyond appalled. I was taught in the days of John Paul II that Catholics are to love and respect Jews as their spiritual “elder brethren” and that salvation came through the Jewish people—and that those who curse the Jewish people will be cursed, and those that bless them will be blessed.
All I can say is that I hope we get a new pope soon whose real faith is Catholicism, not leftism, really soon.
John 4:7,9 “There cometh a woman of Samaria to draw water: Jesus saith unto her, Give me to drink…Then saith the woman of Samaria unto him, How is it that THOU, BEING A JEW, askest drink of me, which am a woman of Samaria? for the Jews have no dealings with the Samaritans.”
Revelation 5:5 “And one of the elders saith unto me, Weep not: behold, the Lion of the tribe of Juda, the Root of David, hath prevailed to open the book, and to loose the seven seals thereof.”
This lion, of the tribe of Judah, was the infant in the manger.
Quick history. Jesus was born ostensibly on year 1 CE. He was crucified at around 32-33CE. The country he was born in was called Judea. Jesus was a Jew. When the Romans destroyed the second Jewish temple in 70CE, the Romans minted coins in celebration of that event with the inscription “Judea Capta..” The name Palestine hadn’t been invented yet.
In 132CE the Jews of Judea revolted again against the Romans, the “Bar Kochba rebellion,” and it took the Romans three years to put down that very fierce rebellion. After their second “victory” against the Jews, Emperor Hadrian decided that he had enough. He renamed Judea “Paelestina” after the Jews’ long gone enemies, the Philistines, and he also renamed Jerusalem “Aolia Capitolina” Essentially Hadrian did what today’s so called Palestinians want to do – and apparently with this pope’s blessings – which is to de-Judaize the historical land of Israel. History be damned.
The ONLY positive thing about that photo is that the fake pipe is in a wheelchair.
“ISN’T IT IRONIC… that Com-Left Vampires, who always cringe at the sight of a Crucifix, love this pOPE?” SC
I knew from the beginning that this Pope is himself a holy desecration.