Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas called Jesus a role model for the Palestinians, in a Christmas message from the West Bank Monday.

Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas – Photo AP

Referring to Jesusas “a Palestinian messenger,” Abbas said that “as we Palestinians strive for our freedom two millennia later, we do our best to follow his example. We work with hope, seeking justice, in order to achieve a lasting peace.”

He criticized Israeli restrictions on the entry of Palestinians living abroad into the West Bank, as well as Israel’s controversial West Bank security barrier, which cuts off Bethlehem, which he charged “steals land.”

“We celebrate Christmas in Bethlehem under occupation,” he said in the Christmas statement from Ramallah.

Abbas, scheduled to attend Christmas in Bethlehem on the southern West Bank Tuesday, Christian Arabs were not a minority in Palestine, but “an integral part of the Palestinian people.”

The vast majority of Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza, however, are Sunni Muslims.

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas attends the Christmas midnight Mass 2011 at the Church of the Nativity

He expressed hope that the upcoming visit of Pope Francis to the Holy Land in March would be “a good opportunity for Christians from all over the world to come closer to their sisters and brothers in Palestine, and for His Holiness to spread the message of justice and peace for the Palestinians, as for all peoples of the world.”

Abbas said he was committed “to bringing a just peace to the region” through negotiations with Israel by ending the occupation and the establishment “of a fully independent and sovereign Palestinian State on the 1967 border with East Jerusalem as its capital.”

The annual traditional Christmas procession from the Christian Quarter in Jerusalem’s Old City to Bethlehem, led by Latin Patriarch Fouad Twal, is scheduled to leave shortly after 12 A.M.

The traditional Christmas mass is scheduled to start at 11:30 P.M.

Meanwhile, a video posted on YouTube on Monday by a user called PLOMEDIA1 depicts what appears to be the pope travelling through Israel and the West Bank. With a mournful version of Silent Night playing in the background, the pontiff passes by scenes of Palestinian suffering.

The end credit says that the video was created by NAD – possibly a reference to the PLO’s Negotiations Affairs Department.

View original HAARETZ publication at: http://www.haaretz.com/news/middle-east/1.564989