On Sunday evening, General Synod debate the Carlisle Diocesan motion (which they had passed in 2021) asking us to ‘receive’ the Kairos II Palestine document, which you can read here. The debate did not finish in time on Sunday evening, so (to some howls of protest) was adjourned until Monday morning, when the debate concluded, and Synod voted in favour of the motion, amended to add some more words of listening to both sides, and changing ‘receive’ to ‘hear’ the Kairos document—though as Philip North said in his speech of opposition, that nicety will make no difference to its impact.
The vote was Laity: 113 for, 27 against, 35 abstentions; Clergy: 115 for, 20 against, 30 abstentions; Bishops: 25 for, 0 against, 5 abstentions.
I was called fourth, which meant that I had five minutes to speak, though I had planned a speech of three minutes. This is my text, though you can see from the YouTube video below that I improvised some additions.
“This motion raises some awkward and challenging questions for us.
How can we claim to speak for ‘a just and lasting peace’, when we are listening to the pain of one side only in this complex, contested conflict, which we must — but we refuse to hear from the other—the bereaved and the maimed of 7th October and the second intifada? Why was the other voice not invited? If it is good enough for our archbishop, why not us?
How do we avoid the charge of hypocrisy, when we meet Palestinian Christian leaders as our brothers and sisters in Christ, as we should, yet stay silent while some of those same communities celebrate terrorist violence, and their children post that celebration online?
How can we claim to stand against antisemitism when para 3.3: “We consider the State of Israel, established in 1948, to be a continuation of that same colonial enterprise built on racism and the ideology of ethnic or religious superiority.” IHRA bishops antisemitism. ‘the existence of the State of Israel is a racist endeavour.’
How do we avoid the charge of anti-Israel bias, when we single out for censure the one democracy in the region — the only one that protects the rights of women and of gay people — yet have never once debated the oppression of women in the Arab world, the suffering of the Kurds, the Yazidi, the Uyghurs, the Yemenis, or the Christians of Nigeria?
How can we call this ethnic cleansing, when Israel’s first leaders urged Palestinians to stay and build a shared state, when 2.1 million Palestinians hold full democratic rights in Israel today—and when Jews were ethnically cleansed from every inch of the Palestinian Territories, and 900,000 more driven from neighbouring Arab states? As a Synod we were silent then. Did we protest then? Did we propose a debate, or a diocesan motion?
And how do we live with ourselves in a country where Jewish schoolchildren are jeered at daily — “you have no place here, leave the country” — and we say nothing?
When you head to the station on Tuesday, you will pass the castle tower, where the last Jews of York died in 1190, prior to the expulsion of all Jews from Englandin 1290.
What will we say when the last Jew leaves Britain this time? Will we listen to them then?”
Read it all in Psephizo