During his speech to the Church of England’s General Synod last Tuesday, the Archbishop of Jerusalem, Dr Hosam Naoum, did not mention Hamas once or its savage massacre of Jews in southern Israel on October 7th 2023.
His comment that food distribution systems for Palestinians in Gaza were like The Hunger Games, a reference to the dystopian novels and films in which children are forced to fight to the death to avoid starvation, was widely reported in the UK media. Also widely reported was his call for ‘no ethnic cleansing that is presently being discussed by the Israeli and US governments’.
His speech earned a protracted standing ovation from the mainly English middle-class members of the C of E’s legislative body gathered in the York University Central Hall.
The Church Times reported his comments at a Synod fringe event last Monday organised by Christian Aid in which he apparently did mention Hamas: ‘Dr Naoum condemned violence “from whichever side it comes, whether from Hamas or Israel”. Hamas did not represent all Palestinians, he emphasised. “Extremism on both sides is like fire,” he said, and paraphrased Ezekiel: “the fire consumed both the green and the dry”.’
But why does he seem to believe that Hamas and Israel are morally equivalent? Why did no one at the fringe event challenge him on that?
Arguably a more morally-robust perspective was given by the US Secretary of State, Marco Rubio, when he was a senator. In late 2023, after Israel began its military operations against Hamas in Gaza, a video went viral of Rubio being confronted in the halls of Congress by an American peace activist.
She asked him whether he would call for an immediate ceasefire. He replied: ‘No I will not. On the contrary. Are you filming this? I want you guys to get this. I want them (the Israelis) to destroy every element of Hamas they can get their hands on. These people are vicious animals who did horrifying crimes.’
‘What about the civilians who are being killed?’ Rubio was asked.
He replied: ‘I blame Hamas. Hamas should stop hiding behind civilians, putting civilians in the way…Hamas should stop building their military installations underneath hospitals.’
‘So, you don’t care that 15,000 died. You don’t care about the babies that are being killed every day,’ the peace activist said.
‘I care,’ he said. ‘I think it’s horrifying. I think it’s terrible. I think Hamas is 100 per cent to blame. That’s what I think. Make sure you post that please.’
Has the Archbishop of Jerusalem or any other Anglican bishop called for the removal of Hamas from the government of Gaza? Do they believe Gaza should continue to be run by a terrorist organisation? If they do, should they not be honest and say so?
But how can Gaza become ‘godly and quietly governed’, to quote the Book of Common Prayer, unless Israel defeats Hamas militarily?
It was surely ironic that Marco Rubio was confronted by a peace activist. Very arguably, the route to making Gaza a less violent place is through Israel defeating Hamas, which Rubio supports. Why do the middle-class Anglicans at the General Synod not seem to get that?
Julian Mann, a former Church of England vicar, is an evangelical journalist based in Lancashire, UK.