The Church of England’s General Synod has managed to turn “hearing all sides” into an ecclesiastical form of putting Israel on trial. Its July 13 vote to engage with Kairos Palestine II gives institutional standing to a document whose treatment of Zionism, Israel and Jewish history is so tendentious that calling it theology feels charitable.

The procedural defence has already been prepared. The synod did not formally “endorse” Kairos II. The original motion asked the Church to “receive” it; an amendment substituted the softer verb “hear.” The final resolution described Kairos II and three earlier Palestinian Christian declarations as “heartfelt expressions of the lived experience of Palestinian Christians.” It encouraged every level of the Church to engage with them, called for a review of Church investments connected with the “occupied Palestinian territories” and asked Church financial bodies to report on their policies. The motion passed comfortably in all three houses: bishops voted 25–0, clergy 115–20 and laity 113–27, with abstentions in each.

“Hear,” however, is doing the work of a cathedral buttress.........

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