The Church of England’s decision to hear Kairos II, a document that portrays Israel as an inherently racist enterprise and challenges its very legitimacy, has provoked deep concern within the Jewish community. Chief Rabbi Sir Ephraim Mirvis called the Synod’s vote “shameful”, warning that the document is “full of falsehood” and “can only harm the cause of peace”.
In her support for engaging with Kairos II, the Archbishop of Canterbury has rightly stressed the importance of hearing Palestinian voices and recognising their anguish. No responsible engagement with the conflict can ignore the devastation of war or the plight of civilians caught within it.
But that is not the question raised by the General Synod’s decision to hear Kairos II. The question is why, from among the many Palestinian Christian perspectives, the Church of England chose to elevate one of the most extreme manifestos.
The document does not merely criticise the policies of the Israeli government but depicts the Jewish state as founded upon genocide, ethnic cleansing, apartheid, racism and Jewish supremacy. It denies that the conflict involves two peoples with legitimate rights, presenting it instead as the straightforward oppression of blameless victims by an inherently illegitimate and racist coloniser. It rejects the Jewish people’s historic and indigenous connection to the land and, in substance, denies Israel’s right to exist as a Jewish state.
Criticism of Israeli policy is not antisemitic, and no serious defender of Israel claims otherwise. But the IHRA definition of antisemitism, which the Church of England has itself adopted, identifies denying the Jewish people their right to self-determination – including by claiming that the existence of Israel is a racist endeavour – as an example of modern antisemitism.
The Church has therefore chosen to confer standing upon a document whose central claims are in direct tension with its own declared understanding of antisemitism. Indeed, it is precisely this kind of demonisation of Israel that has fuelled antisemitism in Britain and across the West.
Kairos II is especially troubling in its treatment of October 7. By presenting Hamas’s massacre within the context of the occupation, even though Israel withdrew from Gaza in 2005, it comes perilously close to an apologia for the sadistic mass murder, torture, kidnapping and sexual violence inflicted upon Israeli civilians. The Hebrew Bible teaches that God created humanity in his image, a belief Christianity inherited from Judaism, and one that confers upon us all moral worth as well as moral agency. Any serious effort to understand Palestinian suffering must include an equally serious discussion of Islamist extremism and Palestinian rejectionism.
The document’s opposition to dialogue with Zionist voices is equally troubling, as it would exclude most of this country’s Jewish community. A text that demands to be heard while declaring most Jewish interlocutors morally disqualified is a poor foundation for reconciliation.
In his response to criticism of the Synod’s decision to engage with Kairos II, which we published today, the Reverend Robert Thompson is plainly sincere in his concern about antisemitism, his belief in Israel’s right to exist in peace and security, and his desire that the Church should hear the testimony of Palestinian Christians. Those convictions deserve to be acknowledged in the same spirit in which they are expressed.
Reverend Thompson points to amendments that he himself introduced, intended to place the Synod’s engagement alongside a call for repentance for the Church’s historic contribution to antisemitism and a commitment to a deeper understanding of Judaism. Those amendments are welcome, but repentance is not merely a matter of acknowledging past wrongs – it also requires vigilance when ancient patterns reappear in contemporary language: the portrayal of the Jewish state as uniquely malign, Jewish self-defence as inherently criminal and Jewish national claims as fraudulent.
A document whose core message is to deny one side its history, legitimacy and humanity cannot be redeemed by critical analysis, and any effort by the Church to promote understanding is fatally compromised by choosing it as a starting point. By deciding to hear this document, the Synod did not engage with the “difficult truths” that friendship may sometimes require but with outright defamation.
The Church had an opportunity to promote understanding by hearing the full diversity of Christian voices from Israel and the Palestinian territories, especially those committed to coexistence and dialogue. Proper engagement would also have required hearing from Israeli Jews, as the Anglican theologian Ian Paul told the Synod. Instead, the Church chose to hear a document that reduces a conflict between two peoples to a morality play of absolute guilt and innocence.
The objection, then, is not that the Synod listened to Palestinian Christians but that it chose this document as the vehicle through which to do so. Listening to suffering is our shared duty – giving legitimacy to extremism is a serious misunderstanding of that duty.
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