CHRISTMAS IS PART OF WAR IN WEST ASIA

On December 31, 2025 By rebelbreezeIn Catholic Church, Cultural Comment, Current Affairs Comment, Massacres, Middle East, Political Analysis, Popular Resistance, Religious Sectarianism, Traditions & Folk CustomLeave a comment

Diarmuid Breatnach

(Reading time: 5 mins.)

Writing about Christmas and war tends to focus on Christmas celebration as a counter to war,¹ or alternatively on how hard it is to be celebrating Christmas in the midst of war. However, in much of West Asia, Christmas is now very much a part of the war.

This is certainly the case in Lebanon, Syria, Gaza and the West Bank and even inside ‘Israel’.

Among the peoples of this majority Muslim region the festivities are primarily those of Christian communities. Yet the broad Muslim population has no issue with the religious aspect of the festival, nor even with the iconic symbolism of the Holy Family and the birth in a manger of Jesus Christ.

The latter, among Christians believed a human incarnation of God, is also revered among Muslims but as a prophet, though of course lower in ranking than their highest-ranking prophet, Mohammed (c. 570 – 8 June 632 CE), allegedly of the Banu Hashim clan of the Quaraysh Arab tribe.

Among the Judaic religion, Jesus Christ is also believed a prophet.

It is important – and not just for historical reasons – to note that the major perpetrator of religious persecution from the Middle Ages on has been Christianity, led by European Christian elites persecuting followers of Judaic and Islamic religions and employing the Inquisition² against them.

Earlier of course Christianity had its internal divisions resulting in one part of Christianity persecuting another (the East-West schism) and then later the split of the Reformation, with religious and temporal powers in war and in persecution of one another and of subject populations.³

The chief object of Christian religious persecution overall was the Jews and the objects of that persecution found sanctuary in many Muslim countries and, in general, within the Austro-Hungarian Ottoman Empire.

Leaders of a number of Muslim states today are traditionally at pains to demonstrate their acceptance of Christian communities and this Christmas both Mohammed Shia al-Sudani, Prime Minister of Iraq and President Masoud Pezeshkian of Iran once more did so publicly.

Mohammed al-Sudani attended a Christian service and Masoud Pezeshkian visited a Christian family.⁴

Of course, Christmas as celebrated generally across the West is more – and one might say also much less – than a Christian or even a religious festival, with emphasis on feasting, alcoholic consumption and expenditure on presents.

Much of the symbolism too owes more to pagan religion than to Christianity.⁵

With a number of those aspects, including consumption of alcohol (traditionally forbidden by and to Muslims), pagan symbolism and more than a nod to western imperialist culture, many Muslims may take exception but even then not at all to celebration of the alleged birth of Jesus Christ.

However, for those wishing to cause divisions in predominantly Islamic societies, or in imposing their sectarian absolutist rule on society, the celebration of Christmas has become a hostile target in Lebanon, Syria, Gaza, the West Bank and even inside ‘Israel’.

LEBANON

Lebanon is the most ethnically-diverse of the West Asian states, approximately one-third Christian, one-third Shia Muslim and a third Sunni Muslim. For years, Christmas has been celebrated not only by the Christian community but also, to varying degrees, by the other ethnic groups also.

It is extremely worrying therefore when a primary schoolteacher taught her girl pupils and filmed them not only renouncing Christmas as ‘non-Muslim’ but calling its celebrants the equivalent of heretics. There was widespread shock when she uploaded the video she had made of the girls.

Not surprisingly, the teacher was sacked but this too was orchestrated into a controversy with extreme religious sectarians coming on to the streets to protest, including former sectarian terrorist and ex-convict for bombing a church Samir Geagea of the sectarian Lebanese Forces militia).⁶

SYRIA

Under the new regime in Syria, celebrating Christmas can get people killed.The celebration was not controversial in the majority Islamic but secular state of Syria under al-Assad but that changed following that regime’s overthrow by western-supported Islamic fundamentalist jihadists.

During Christmas 2024 units of the fundamentalist jihadist coalition under self-appointed al-Julani (formerly Ahmed al-Sharaa of the Syrian chapter of ISIS) led attacks on Christians, forbade the erection of Christmas trees and knocked down and burned some that had been erected.⁷

Earlier this year Sayara Ahl Al-Sunnah, a Syrian terrorist organization split from the ruling Hay’at Tahrir Al-Sham (HTS) of al-Julani in February carried out a suicide attack on the Mar Elias Greek Orthodox church in Damascus, killing 30 Christian worshippers.⁸

Not just Christian communities are targeted in this ‘new democratic Syria’ so beloved of the Western powers but primarily really the Shia Muslim offshoots of Alawites⁹ and Druze¹⁰ communities. Both these communities are now mobilising in self-defence against the new rulers.

PALESTINE

In Gaza, blockaded and besieged, starving, flooded, homeless, cold, bombarded, even thinking of a festive celebration seems a crazy idea yet some have attempted to celebrate Christmas this year¹¹ although any gathering of Palestinians seems an invitation to an IOF raid or even bombing.

In the West Bank, the Christian pastor¹² in Ramallah, Isaac Munther, faced with the accelerating genocide in Gaza in 2023 declared there would be religious observation only and no Christmas celebrations of lights etc … but his sermon and Christ-nativity-in-rubble scene went ‘viral.’

Munther did the same during Christmas 2024 but this year the West Bank faces its own escalation of Palestinian home demolitions, army invasions, settler attacks on homes, livestock, farmland. However the IOF attacked some Palestinians who did try to celebrate a western-style Christmas.

Palestinians of other Christian denominations also tried to celebrate Christmas but met with repression and in Bethlehem there were clashes with Palestinians in Santa costume assaulted and arrested by ‘Israeli’ Occupation Forces.¹³

Occupied Palestine (‘Israel’ sic) also saw a Palestinian ‘Santa Claus’ being arrested by the IOF and Palestinian celebrants assaulted in Haifa.

As the supposed Holy Land where Jesus Christ was allegedly born, Christian tourism makes a significant contribution to the income of the Zionist state.¹⁴ But even so, Palestinian Christians and even tourists have complained of being menaced and spat at by militant Zionist settler youths.¹⁵

The Israeli Zionist state likes to promote itself as culturally representing the West much more than the East – which it certainly does – but seeing this repression of Christians even celebrating Christmas, one has to wonder what kind of ‘western society’ is this?

Meanwhile, in Rome …

Discussion of Christmas entails a mention of the majority sect of western Christianity, the Catholic faith and of its leader, the Pope. And the relatively new Pontiff – and first USA-born one – did in fact refer to Gaza in the traditional Papacy Christmas message from the Vatican.

Leo XIV’s message has been lauded by some in apparent ignorance of the political position of the Vatican and of its Papacy, which has been always to support western imperialism, or in his advocacy of Zionist colonisation in the western support for a two-State solution (sic) in Palestine.¹⁶

Republicans reject any religious role in the management of the state or of its institutions – including education¹⁷ – but should also protect the freedom to worship or celebration of festive period of any personal or organised religion — and indeed also the right to promote atheism or agnosticism.¹⁸

Anti-imperialist revolutionaries whether secular or not need to oppose religious sectarianism and promote unity in the face of imperialism. It is imperialism and colonialism that promotes inter-religious conflict and fosters fundamentalist sectarians in order to undermine anti-imperialist resistance.

End.

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FOOTNOTES

1For example the famous Christmas Day informal truce of 1914, when WWI hostilities between German and Allied troops temporarily ceased on parts of the Western Front and enemy combatants exchanged greetings and gifts. https://www.irishtimes.com/culture/heritage/the-1914-christmas-truce-fraternisation-of-an-extraordinary-kind-1.2048442

2Although it later became an instrument of Rome to ensure orthodoxy in religion, literature and science, the Inquisition was originally instituted in Iberia as a controlling agent over the forced conversions of Jews and Muslims to Christianity and later also operated as an instrument in control of the Spanish colonies.

3Of which we in Ireland have centuries of experience.

4 https://www.tehrantimes.com/news/522126/Top-officials-join-Iran-s-Christians-in-celebrating-Jesus-birth

5The ‘old man of the woods’ Santa Claus or God of thunder and lightning in a sky-chariot pulled by horned beasts (two of which are also allegedly named Thunder (Donner) and Lightning (Blitzen) and the Christmas Tree and/ or Yule Log, pagan symbols of a festival signalling the turn of the seasons.

6 https://youtu.be/b1yltoo3q6Q?t=150 almost from the beginning for part of the podcast.

7 https://www.jurist.org/news/2024/12/christmas-tree-burning-ignites-protests-in-damascus/

8This is the same group that carried out a suicide attack on the Imam Ali mosque in Homs this week, which left 8 people dead.

9Arabic-speaking ethno-religious minority group who primarily live in Syria and follow Alawism, a syncretic and esoteric offshoot of Shia Islam.

10Arabic-speaking ethno-religious minority in Syria, Lebanon, Israel and the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights.

11 https://english.almayadeen.net/news/politics/silent-christmas-in-gaza–grief–cold–and-a-genocide-that-w

12Of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Jordan and the Holy Land.

13 https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2025/12/25/christmas-under-occupation-israeli-attacks-against-palestinian-christians

14“While there is no precise figure for how much Israel earns specifically from religious tourism, estimates suggest that Christian holy sites alone generate around $3 billion each year to the Israeli economy under normal circumstances — with over half of all tourist arrivals coming from Christians — and a quarter of those visitors going to Christian holy sites.” https://religionunplugged.com/news/war-in-gaza-and-the-disruption-of-pilgrimages-to-jerusalem

15 https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/israeli-forces-arrest-santa-clause-raid-palestinian-christmas-celebration and https://www.instagram.com/reels/DSp2Cs6FDXW/

16 https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/pope-leo-palestinian-state-only-solution-israeli-conflict-2025-11-30/

17This is an issue in many lands including Ireland where the Irish State and the colony’s both pay the salaries of teachers employed in religious-ethos schools. People have a right to religious education for their children should they wish it but in no way should the State facilitate such and, on the other hand, all children are required to attend formal education supplied by the State.

18The 1916 Rising Proclamation: “The Republic guarantees religious and civil iberty to all …”

SOURCES

https://english.almayadeen.net/news/politics/silent-christmas-in-gaza–grief–cold–and-a-genocide-that-w

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2025/12/25/christmas-under-occupation-israeli-attacks-against-palestinian-christians

https://www.instagram.com/reels/DSp2Cs6FDXW/

https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/israeli-forces-arrest-santa-clause-raid-palestinian-christmas-celebration

Alawite protests and new Syrian state repression: https://thecradle.co/articles/syrian-govt-forces-supporters-attack-alawite-protesters-calling-for-end-to-killings-kidnappings

Part of new Syrian forces repression of Christmas: https://www.jurist.org/news/2024/12/christmas-tree-burning-ignites-protests-in-damascus/

Islamist sectarians whipping up anti-Christian hatred in Lebanon: https://youtu.be/b1yltoo3q6Q?t=150 (early part of podcast)

HO, HO – FATHER CHRISTMAS!

On December 17, 2023December 9, 2024 By rebelbreezeIn Cultural Comment, Folk Custom, Ireland, Satire, Song, Traditions & Folk Custom2 Comments

Diarmuid Breatnach

(Reading time: 6 mins.)

We now approach the festival called Christmas. A Christian festival, apparently, celebrating the birth of Christ, the baby Jesus. But are there darker aspects in its references?

Away in a manger
No crib for His bed
The little Lord Jesus
Lay down His sweet head

The stars in the sky
Look down where He lay
The little Lord Jesus
Asleep on the hay

Such a sweet, holy image.

But actually, when we look around us, it seems more like a festival of the pagan gods: of Bacchus, the god of alcohol and of Mammon, the god of wealth. Bacchus, because in non-Moslem countries, drinking of alcohol will be for most a big component of the festival.

Whiskey, brandy, wine and beer will be bought to stock up the house. Alcohol will be drunk at Christmas parties (including office parties, where for months afterwards some people will regret what they did or said – or even what they didn’t do or say).

Alcohol will be not just drunk but also put into some of the traditional food and even poured over it.

Then Mammon. Well, you can see the retail businesses stocking up for weeks or even months ahead of the festival which, after all, was only supposed to be a one or at most a two-day event.

Giving and receiving gifts has now become part of the festival and in most cases, gifts have to be bought. Which is a really big gift to the retail businesses and thence, really a sacrifice to Mammon.

In the Christian gospels of both Matthew and Luke, it is written that one “cannot serve both Mammon and God” — which goes to show how little they understood capitalism, where Mammon IS God.

A theologian of the Fourth Century saw Mammon as a personification of Beelzebub, which in his time was another name for Satan or the Devil.

Interestingly, Protestant Christianity, which some credit as having invented capitalism, at the same time regarded Mammon, or said they did, as “one of the Seven Princes of Hell”.

*Cartoon depiction of Mammon, God of Wealth* (Image sourced: *Internet*)

*Sculpture representation of Bacchus, God of Alcohol, in California winery, USA* (Image sourced: *Internet*)

SANTA

Now, Santa Claus is also a big part of the Christmas festival, especially in western countries, a much more acceptable face than that of greedy Mammon and alcoholic Bacchus, right?

But originally, the Christians saw him a representation of St. Nicholas, 4^th Century Bishop of the Greek city of Myra, a location now in Turkey. He was he patron saint of archers, repentant thieves, sailors and prostitutes. The prostitutes probably had to be repentant ones too, of course!

The sailors, who probably had at least as much recourse to prostitutes as had any other calling, were apparently not required to be repentant – to be in danger on the sea was deemed enough.

But St. Nicholas was also the patron saint of children, pawnbrokers and brewers, so we can see how close he was getting there to the modern spirit of Christmas.

GERMAN TRAPPINGS

Now, the Christmas Tree, der tannenbaum, so much a part of the symbolism of modern western Christmas, came to us from Germany, as did the sled and the reindeer.

The reindeer are not autochthonous or endemic in historic times to Germany, so they must have been brought in their myths from Scandinavia from where originally, the Germanic tribes came.

In turn, the Christmas Tree, Yule Log, reindeer and sled were exported from Germany to England in the reign of Queen Victoria, by her consort Prince Albert, who was German.

And since the English ruled all of us in Victoria and Albert’s time, the Christmas Tree came to us too, to the cities first and then slowly spreading through the rural areas.

*A representation of St. Nicholas (before he got the red suit makeover) looking more like a pagan god of the woods.* (Image sourced: *Internet*)

***

When you think about it, this German-English worship of the tree was a bit ironic, since the English had wiped out most of our forests already and were still cutting down our remaining trees in Queen Victoria’s time.

***

And Victoria, through Albert, gave us the Santa Clause we know and love today. A jolly man, well fed, white beard, twinkly eyes, dressed all in red with white trim ….

IN RED?

Now, wait a minute! It turns out he wasn’t always dressed in red. Originally, he was dressed in a brown, or green cloak. He was, originally among the Germanic people, a god of the forests – hence the evergreen Christmas tree.

And like any sensible woodsman, he dressed in appropriate colours, brown or green. Neither Albert nor Victoria ever represented him as dressed in red. So how did it become so that we are incapable of seeing him today in any other colour than red?

Well, it turns out that Coca Cola is the responsible party.

Yes, although it was the cartoonist Thomas Nast in 1870s United States who first portrayed Santa in a red suit with a belt but it was Coca Cola, in their advertising campaign of 1931 and onwards who made his clothes red world-wide.

Coca Cola is a drink served cold and almost undrinkable when warm but who needs a cold drink in cold weather? I guess Coca Cola needed a warm image to make it still attractive in winter. So therefore the warm, jolly man dressed in red, with a bottle of Coca Cola in his hand.

1931, Santa Clause first appears in red, in Coca Cola advertisement, USA. (Image source: Internet)

Coca Cola brand is worth about $106.1 billion dollars today,¹ far ahead of any other cold drinks product. Which I guess brings us back to …. yes, Mammon.

You can mix the drink with a number of alcoholic beverages too, so tipping a nod – and a glass – to Bacchus.

Now, the German Santa Claus, this originally woodland god, is also thought to have been something like Thor, a god of fire and lightning. So can it be any coincidence that two of his reindeer are called Donner und Blitzen, i.e “Thunder” and “Lightning”? Nein – of course not!

*A starry night over desert hills, like the Nativity scene but without the Guiding Star.* (Photo source: *Internet*)

INVISIBLE

Although we see the image of Santa Claus everywhere and even pretend Santa Clauses all over our city streets, everyone knows that nobody sees the real Santa Claus. Children have to be asleep when he arrives to distribute his presents and somehow adults don’t see him either.

Which I suppose is a good thing ….

I mean if you found an adult intruder in your house at night, not to mention near your children, you’d be liable to whack him with a hurley (that’s an Irish cultural reference) …. or a baseball bat (that’s a U S cultural reference) …. or stab him with a sharp kitchen knife (that’s an international cultural reference).

It was bad enough when somehow that portly – not to say fat – man could somehow come down your chimney and go up again, without waking anyone … but now he can get in your house or flat even when you don’t have a chimney.

Which is at least creepy, if not downright scary.

Oh, let’s lighten the mood and sing together:

You better watch out
You better not cry
You better not pout
I’m telling you why

Santa Claus is comin’ to town
Santa Claus is comin’ to town

He’s making a list
He’s checking it twice
He’s gonna find out
Who’s naughty or nice

Santa Claus is comin’ to town
Santa Claus is comin’ to town

He sees you when you’re sleeping
He knows when you’re awake
He knows if you’ve been bad or good
So be good for goodness sake

Yes, lovely but wait …

“You better watch out, you better not cry …” — Is it just me, or is that not downright threatening? And he knows when we’re sleeping or awake? He has our children under surveillance? In some kind of list?

HO! HO! HO! IN MORALITY PLAYS

Morality Plays were a genre of theatrical performances of the medieval and Tudor eras in which a character was tempted by a personification of Vice.

Now Vice (not unlike a lot of police Vice Squads), was often seen as the epitome of evil, corruption and greed – in other words, the Devil. The playwrights tended to portray the Devil as somewhat of a comical character, perhaps to keep their audiences entertained (or to disarm them).

So the character who played the Devil would announce his arrival with a stage laugh: “Ho, Ho, Ho!”

You can probably see where I’m going with this.

Nowadays, we tend to see the Devil portrayed in black but in earlier times, he was more often seen as coloured in red. The colour in which Coca Cola just happens to have dressed Santa too.

The German or Nordic Santa was originally a god of fire also, while even the modern Santa drives a magical chariot pulled by horned beasts and he is portrayed all in red. Traditionally, the Devil is seen as residing in Hell, a supposed place of eternal flames below ground.

What does Santa Claus give to children who have not been good? A lump of coal! In other words, a mineral from underground that can burn to make fire.

NICHOLAS

Santa Claus is supposed to be modelled on St. Nicholas …. and what is the popular abbreviated version of Nicholas, i.e the nickname? Yes, Nick.

And the common name for the Devil, Mammon, Beelzebub, Satan is ….. Old Nick!

We need to wake up! Guard our children!

HO, HO, HO!

End.

Footnotes

1 https://www.statista.com/statistics/326065/coca-cola-brand-value/