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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.