Bernard Spiegal

The Church of England’s General Synod – the Church’s highest governing body, essentially its Parliament – is meeting in York from 10 to 14 July 2026. It has a key, controversial, question to address, namely, will it ‘receive’ – not ‘approve’ – the Kairos Palestine – Palestinian Christian Initiative A Moment of Truth: Faith in a Time of Genocide (also known as Kairos 11.)

The document is a heartfelt, yet cogent, rendering both of the suffering of Palestinians under Israeli occupation, in particular Christian Palestinians, and a political and historical analysis of the situation as it pertains in Palestine today. It also calls on the Church to review its investment policy, especially following the International Court of Justice advisory opinion that Israel’s occupation of the Palestinian Territories is illegal.

The Jewish Establishment response

The document has, unsurprisingly, proved uncongenial to the Jewish Establishment: Chief Rabbi Mirvis, the Board of Deputies, and the execrable, ill-named Campaign Against Antisemitism, all of whom have been vocal in opposing the document, and urging synod to do the same. More of this anon.  

A slight break in the clouds perhaps worth noting, is Rabbi Charley Baginsky – co-leader of the Movement for Progressive Judaism and a president of the Council of Christians and Jews – who recognised that the Church of England has ‘absolute prerogative to discuss the suffering of Palestinian Christians’, but questioned whether Kairos II provided ‘the right tools by which to have that discussion’. This might be characterised as a liberal position, synod no doubt being delighted that at least one Jewish institutional leader thinks it OK for the Church of England to discuss matters that affect it and its adherents.

Kairos 11

Turning now to the Kairos document, a few, relatively long, extracts will give a clear impression of its position and thrust.

‘We raise this cry from the heart of the assault on Gaza — a war that has left behind hundreds of thousands of martyrs and wounded, and nearly two million displaced people. Many were buried beneath the rubble, burned alive, tortured to death in prisons or forcibly displaced more than once. Others endured starvation, targeted even as they ran in search of food. Tens of thousands of children were killed in the most horrific ways. Gaza’s health, education, economic, and environmental sectors — indeed, every component of life — have been destroyed. It will take years to recover from the devastation and catastrophe that have befallen us as a people.‘

‘Human rights organizations, legal institutions and international experts have been unequivocal: the statements of Israeli political leaders and Israel’s actions in its assault on Gaza constitute genocide.‘

‘Zionists do not want us to remain on our land. Their plan for us is displacement, death or submission. The genocidal war on Gaza is the continuation of the Zionist project to seize all of Palestine, emptied of its Palestinian people. Ethnic cleansing and the denial of the right of return to those forcibly displaced are ongoing policies practiced in Jerusalem, the West Bank, Gaza and the territories of 1948. The Nakba of our people is our daily reality.‘

‘This genocide has been carried out by Israel after decades of apartheid, settler colonialism, political repression and the deliberate policy of killing any possibility of a political solution — including the two-state solution.‘

‘Exposed today is the true face of Zionist ideology: a system that over decades has entrenched an organized and sophisticated regime of apartheid supported by advanced technologies that exercise total control over every aspect of Palestinian life — fragmenting the land, dividing its people, and turning Palestinian existence into an unbearable hell. Israel’s so-called Nation-State Law enacted in 2018 embodies Zionist racism and arrogant Jewish supremacy in Palestine, making apartheid a lived reality. Israel’s decision to annex the West Bank has further exposed the true intent of this colonial project.‘

At the head of this article, I characterised A Moment of Truth: Faith in a Time of Genocide as ‘heartfelt and cogent’. I now add ‘accurate and true’.

 It’s worth noting that, perhaps out of deference to Jewish Establishment (JE) sensibilities, the motion to accept the document asks only that Synod ‘receives’ the report, not, at least at this stage, to endorse it.  The Methodist Church has already agreed to ‘receive’ it.

Jewish Establishment: An Israeli propaganda outfit, a counter-truth regime

The Board of Deputies of British Jews (BOD), along with the Chief Rabbi (who represents only between 30% – 40% of UK Jews), along with the execrable Campaign Against Antisemitism (CAA), all condemn Kairos 11 and urge the Synod not to receive it, but to reject it.  

What the Jewish Establishment’s response to Kairos 11 exposes is just how wrong it is that these bodies and people should have any role in representing UK Jews, for that is not the role they fulfil. Rather, they act as Israel’s and Zionism’s ambassadors in the UK. A role they fulfil with some alacrity, along with a certain predilection to defend the indefensible when it comes to Israel.   

A familiar discordant tune is played in the very first point the BoD makes in its criticism of Kairos 11 (Bold emphasis is in the original):

‘If this motion is implemented, it will have immediate harmful consequences for British Jews and do potentially lasting harm to Jewish-Christian relations. The Kairos documents, especially Kairos II, spread a toxic narrative about Jews. They do so at a time when antisemitic rhetoric, incitement and violence have surged in Britain following the horrors of 7 October, and in the context of the devastating multi-front war that followed with Iran and its proxies.’

The rooted insistence on conflating – equating – Judaism with a rogue state and its apartheid doctrine, distorts the religion and, by implication, tars all Jews by implying that we all think alike; ‘alike’ meaning uncritical support for a genocidal state. Here’s a further example of the tendentious conflation that the JE manufactures and disseminates:

‘Specific distortions and falsehoods in Kairos II are too numerous to be detailed here. However, a central libel of this text – that Zionism is a settler-colonial movement built on “Jewish supremacy” and with genocidal intent – is so false and destructive that the only responsible action is to reject it.‘

‘This central claim is not an attack on Israeli government policy or military action but a libel against Jews everywhere. It erases and distorts not only the history of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, but Jewish faith and identity and Jewish historical experience both ancient and modern. It is not antisemitic to criticise Israeli government policy or military action. But it is antisemitic to erase and distort Jewish history and identity.‘

The Kairos 11 characterisation of Zionism is not a libel against Jews. It is a searing critique of a political philosophy, now translated into murderous realisation by the Zionist Israeli state. 

The wilful equating of Zionism with Judaism is precisely what introduces religion into an already sensitive environment. This contrasts with Paragraph 2.2 of the Kairos 11 document:

‘We warn against giving our national struggle a religious character or turning it into a religious issue that pits religions against one another.‘

Would that the Jewish Establishment had such insight and sensitivity.

False God

Among what may be a significant proportion of Anglo-Jewry, is the deification of Israel, the Jewish Establishment fulfilling the role of priests and inquisitors, self-authorised to patrol the boundaries between acceptable and unacceptable Israel-focused speech. This extending to advising other denominations – in this case the Church of England – on what it may write, what it might say, what it might support, or what it might reject.

Anglo-Jewry needs to release itself from the bondage to which it has subjected itself. For some, for too many, have made a god out of a state; and that state, Israel, believing indeed it might be a God, or at least authorised by God, has played havoc, death and destruction upon thousands upon thousands of innocent Palestinians of all faiths and none.

And in so doing, has shamed us all.