Palestinian ambassador to UK claims Bible 'rewritten' to be used against people of the Book

A Palestinian diplomat recently claimed the Holy Bible has been "rewritten" to be used against Palestinians and that Palestinians are the "original Christians."

In a Sept. 3 public forum with Humza Yousaf, the former First Minister of Scotland, at the Bradford Literature Festival 2026 at Bradford University, Palestinian Ambassador to the U.K., Husam Zomlot, said the history of the Palestinian people "has been stolen" and that they are the "people of the Book." MEMRI later circulated a clip of the remarks.

“Yes, our history has been stolen. We are the people of the Book. Palestine is so sacred to Islam, Christianity and Judaism, and we are proud of that,” Zomlot said. “But all of them are Palestinians. All of them are Palestinians and we are so proud of that preciousness of our history.”

Zomlot used the platform to assert a deep historical connection between the Palestinian people and the foundational texts and figures of the Abrahamic faiths. He stated that the land now known as the state of Israel holds sacred significance for Islam, Christianity and Judaism alike, and that the people associated with those traditions are themselves Palestinian.

“The book, the Bible, is a Palestinian book and it has been used against us. It has been rewritten to be used against the people of the Book,” he claimed. “We are the original Christians. All the names that you see here, all the saints that you hear about came from my land. And I’m so proud about that, spreading Jesus’ message worldwide.”

Earlier in the discussion, Zomlot described a private audience that the British Foreign Office had arranged for him with Queen Elizabeth II in which he recounted how he told the Queen that Jesus was the Palestinians' "gift" to the world.

Queen Elizabeth II died in 2022. It’s unclear when the meeting Zomlot described took place.

“The Foreign Office was very kind to arrange for me what they call a private audience. So you have time alone with the queen," Zomlot recalled. "I said, ‘I come from Christmas land. Remember Bethel?’ She said, ‘Yes, oh yes.’ I said, ‘And also Jesus is our gift to you, Your Majesty, and to the rest of the world.’ And a whole lot of conversation began. We were supposed to stay a few minutes. It went on and on and on, the conversation.”

Zomlot, who has served as the Palestinian Authority’s (PA) representative in London since 2018, became ambassador in January and is a senior member of Fatah and a strategic adviser to Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas.

He made his claims against the backdrop of a documented and steep decline in the Christian population living under PA and Hamas governance. 

His remarks come amid a decline in the Palestinian Christian population documented by an Israeli think tank, which attributes it to socio-economic hardship, instability and discrimination and harassment by Muslim Palestinians and the PA.

A December 2024 study by the Israeli think tank Jerusalem Center for Security and Foreign Affairs found that Christians constituted 11% of the population of geographical Palestine in 1922, numbering 70,429 people. The report says Christians now make up about 1% of the population in areas under PA and Hamas rule. The PA's own censuses recorded Christians at 1.5% (40,055 people) in 1997 and 1.2% (42,565 people) in 2007, according to the JCFA.

In Gaza, the Christian community numbered around 5,000 people before Hamas seized control of the territory in 2007. By October 2023, the number had dropped to roughly 1,000, according to the same report. 

According to the JCFA, Bethlehem and its surrounding villages, long regarded as a Christian stronghold, were 86% Christian in 1950. The last census conducted in 2017 recorded the Christian share at about 10%, the report says, according to The Christian Post.