| THE LIE Mary was a Palestinian woman. |
| THE TRUTH Mary lived in Galilee, kept the Torah, and raised her son as a Jew. She belonged to the Jewish people of Judea. Nobody called that land Palestine until Rome renamed it generations later. |
| BACKGROUND On July 10, 2026, Rama Duwaji — wife of New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani — co-hosted an Islamic women’s “spiritual wellness” retreat on the French island of Corsica. (Fox News) The event framed the Virgin Mary as a “Palestinian woman” living under occupation. |
| TRUTH EXPLAINED Mary, mother of Jesus, was a first-century Jewish woman born in Nazareth, Galilee. She later lived in Judea, where she gave birth to Jesus in Bethlehem. Galilee, Judea, and Samaria — the regions that made up the Roman-occupied land of Israel at the time — were Jewish territories. No “Palestine” existed. (FIRM), (Sage Journals) Mary and her husband Joseph, a descendant of King David, are described throughout the New Testament as Jews who observe Jewish law, Temple practices, and the Sabbath. (FIRM), (Sage Journals) Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea and raised in Nazareth of Galilee. Both regions were Jewish, and both were ruled by Rome through Jewish client kings. The name “Palestine” did not exist during Mary’s lifetime. (Matthew), (BibleHub) Rome renamed the province “Syria Palaestina” around 135–138 CE, more than a century after Mary died, following the defeat of the Bar Kokhba revolt, a major Jewish uprising. The renaming invoked the ancient Philistines, non-Semitic enemies of ancient Israel, as a deliberate move to sever the region from its Jewish identity. (BibleHub) No historical record shows anyone before 1967—and certainly no one in Mary’s lifetime—referring to themselves as “Palestinian.” The “Palestinian” identity was invented by the Soviet Union after the Six-Day War to delegitimize Israel and weaken America’s influence in the Middle East. It has no distinct national history, culture, or language. Even prominent Arab leaders have acknowledged that the “Palestinian” identity was created solely to delegitimize Israel. (Informing Science), (Israel Reclaiming the Narrative), (Wikiquote), (Middle East Forum) Calling first-century Jews “Palestinians” imposes a punitive Roman administrative label — and a false national identity — onto people who never used or knew that term. |
| QUOTES “When the time came for the purification rites required by the Law of Moses, Joseph and Mary took him to Jerusalem to present him to the Lord (as it is written in the Law of the Lord, ‘Every firstborn male is to be consecrated to the Lord’), and to offer a sacrifice in keeping with what is said in the Law of the Lord: ‘a pair of doves or two young pigeons.’” — Luke 2:22-24 “Every year Jesus’ parents went to Jerusalem for the Festival of the Passover.” — Luke 2:41 “The Palestinian people does not exist.” — Zuheir Mohsen, Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO) leader “There is no such thing as a Palestinian people, no such thing as a Palestinian entity, there is only Syria!” — Former Syrian President Hafez al-Assad |
| TAKEAWAY Mary and Jesus were Jews. They lived in a Jewish land, kept the Torah, and belonged to the Jewish people. Rome attached the name “Palaestina” to that land around 135 CE, a century after Mary lived, precisely to sever the Jewish people from their homeland. Calling Mary and Jesus “Palestinian” erases their Jewish history, which is Rama Duwaji’s goal.Palestinian nationalism has no history or culture of its own, so it must resort to stealing someone else’s—grafting itself onto Jewish figures and Jewish scripture to fake a claim to legitimacy it doesn’t have. It didn’t exist then. Rewriting both the Torah and the New Testament to pretend otherwise is blatant disrespect. |
