Church of England backs study of Palestinian Christian document accusing Israel of genocide

The Church of England’s legislative body votes to encourage churches across England to engage with a document produced by Palestinian Christians that accuses Israel of genocide, despite requests from Jewish organizations and Britain’s chief rabbi to reject it.

The document is titled “Moment of Truth: Faith in a Time of Genocide” and is also known as Kairos II, after the Palestinian Christian movement Kairos Palestine that produced it. It describes Israel’s military campaign in Gaza following the Hamas-led October 7, 2023, attack as a genocide, states that Israel is a “colonial enterprise built on racism,” and says decades of “occupation,” “apartheid” and “settler colonialism” are at the heart of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

The vote does not adopt the accusations as church doctrine but says the church should hear the documents as “heartfelt expressions of the lived experience of Palestinian Christians,” and to engage with them in order to better understand the conflict.

Ahead of the debate in York, several Jewish organizations expressed concerns, and Chief Rabbi Sir Ephraim Mirvis asked members to reject the amendment. Mirvis called Kairos II “deeply concerning” and that it “risks undermining decades of careful relationship-building” between Christians and Jews.

“It is truly shocking that a document which purports to speak in the name of truth contains so much falsehood,” he said.

Afterward, Phil Rosenberg, president of the Board of Deputies of British Jews, an umbrella Jewish organization, issues a statement calling the passage of the motion “highly problematic.”

“Kairos Palestine may come from a place of genuine pain, but the falsehoods and distortions of Kairos II, including its erasure of Jewish identity and experience, is a prescription for more division and not the answer to conflict in the Middle East,” he says.

The Archbishop of Canterbury, Sarah Mullally, acknowledges both sides in a speech opening the debate at the Synod.

“This document reflects the pain and trauma of the Palestinian people. As a pastor, I hear the cry of our Palestinian Christian sisters and brothers — a cry that rises from the ruins of Gaza, and from the violence and oppression of the West Bank,” she says.

She adds, ”I also hear the concerns of the chief rabbi, the co-leads of the Movement for Progressive Judaism, and the Board of Deputies, and I thank them for their honesty.” She says the church remains opposed to antisemitism and committed to safety for Israelis as well as Palestinians.