Monday, February 3, 2025

Renate Künast causes outrage with tweet about "Palestinian Jesus"

WELT Renate Künast causes outrage with tweet about "Palestinian Jesus" 1 month • 2 minutes reading time With a tweet about the "Palestinian Jesus", the Green Party politician Renate Künast wants to criticize deportations. But it goes wrong. Criticism is also coming from within her own ranks. A tweet by the Green Party politician Renate Künast about the origins of Jesus is causing outrage. The Bundestag member had posted this in connection with criticism of migration policy. On Sunday she wrote on X: "On these days everyone celebrates the birth of a Palestinian Jew whose parents are wandering around penniless. After that the race starts again to see who can deport most mercilessly and publicly harass migrants effectively." She was quoting the publicist and historian Nils Minkmar, who wrote this in his newsletter. Criticism was particularly aroused because of her description of Jesus as a "Palestinian Jew". Author Andreas Hallaschka wrote: "Every sentence by Renate Künast is wrong. Jesus was a Jew from Judea. The Roman province was not called Palestine until over 100 years later. Joseph was anything but poor, namely a craftsman and landowner. Jesus' parents did not move around either, but traveled from their home in Nazareth to Bethlehem." Criticism also came from within his own party: Künast's Green Party colleague Volker Beck called the statement an "embarrassing slip-up in the theological tradition of Kairos Palestine and German Christians, who want to write Jesus' belonging to the Jewish people out of history." "Sorry, Jesus was not a Palestinian Jew," he wrote. Beck is president of the German-Israeli Society. He thereby indirectly accused Künast of anti-Semitism. "So that it fits into the world view" He pointed out that at the time of Jesus' birth the name Palestine did not yet exist in this form. Former Green politician Jutta Ditfurth also expressed criticism. "It is dangerous that many leftists and left-liberals know little about the history (and present) of Christian anti-Judaism, which is how it can grow," she wrote, among other things. In addition, there was no Palestine at the time of Jesus' birth. The Romans first named this region (...) Muslim inhabitants of Palestine only existed from the 7th century onwards." Lawyer Arnd Diringer wrote: "Every year the same fake news (also) on X (formerly Twitter): The Christmas story is remade so that it fits into one's own worldview. This no longer works thanks to #CommunityNotes. It doesn't help to limit the number of responses, Renate Künast." Künast's post occasionally contained added context notes, "Jesus was Jewish" or "The parents were not penniless. No national border was crossed."