Bear Grylls called Mary a Palestinian refugee in a Christmas post to his followers on X [GETTY]
British adventurer Bear Grylls has been the latest target of Israel supporters after calling Virgin Mary a Palestinian refugee.
In a Christmas post to his followers across social media, the former SAS trooper shared the story of the birth of Jesus, from Mary’s perspective, where he referred to Mary as a “terrified Palestinian girl”.
“Maryam, a young, poor and no doubt terrified Palestinian girl, gives birth in a run-down animal pen to a baby who was foretold for hundreds of years,” Grylls said in his post.
The survivalist also mentioned that the story is set in “first-century Palestine, called Bethlehem”.
Grylls has since been receiving a flood of backlash from pro-Israelis, who branded the post as “historically inaccurate”.
Pro-Israeli organisation The Campaign Against Antisemitism said calling Mary a “Palestinian refugee, not only imposes modern terminology on ancient history but completely eradicates her Jewish identity”, describing the post as “historical nonsense, with an agenda”.
The organisation also said the region was not called Palestine until a century later after the Jews were “exiled”.
Former Conservative minister Zac Goldsmith called the post “stupid”.
The post also received a community note on X, which is owned by right-wing billionaire Elon Musk, describing the post as a “falsification of history”, saying: “He [Jesus] was born of a Jewish mother, in Galilee, a Jewish part of the world.”
Another community note claimed: “Mary and Joseph were both Jews from Judea. Jesus, King of the Jews, was born 135 years before the region was renamed Syria-Palestina by the conquering Romans.”
Following the initial pro-Israeli backlash, Grylls took down the post and reuploaded it, removing the word “Palestinian”, but it is still being targeted.
Bethlehem, where Jesus was born, is a Palestinian city in the occupied West Bank, currently under the control of President Mahmoud Abbas’s Palestinian Authority.
Israel has surrounded it with illegal settlements, and Christmas celebrations were cancelled there for the second year running recently in solidarity with Gaza, where Israel is killing dozens of people every day in indiscriminate strikes.
