Synod’s silence on Gaza amounts to complicity

A letter to the Church of England’s Synod secretary-general, William Nye, from the Christian Palestinian organisation Kairos Palestine, sent late last month, says: “Neither history nor future generations will forgive the silence of the Church.” Read more on this story below.

Reported in the Church Times on 10/07/25:

Synod’s silence on Gaza amounts to ‘complicity’ says priest

PALESTINIAN Christians are “grieved and disappointed” by the decision not to schedule a debate during the General Synod’s sessions in York, which begins on Friday.

A letter to the Synod’s secretary-general, William Nye, from the Christian Palestinian organisation Kairos Palestine, sent late last month, says: “Neither history nor future generations will forgive the silence of the Church.”

The letter refers to a Carlisle diocesan-synod motion that has not been chosen as an item of business. The motion, carried in 2021 and endorsed by the diocese of Sheffield in 2024, calls on the Church’s investment bodies to review their policies, and to ensure that there is no investment in “any entity or corporation with a persistent, on-going, and direct business involvement in severe human rights violations or violations of international law as part of Israel’s military occupation”.

In an interview after her return from a visit to Jerusalem and the occupied West Bank, the Bishop of Gloucester, the Rt Revd Rachel Treweek, called the decision not to timetable the debate “quite shocking” (News, 6 June).

Criticising the decision, the letter asks: “If the Church cannot find the time or courage to debate justice for Palestinians now, amidst such devastation, when will it?”

The Rector of St Andrew’s, Ramallah, in the West Bank, the Revd Fadi Diab, told the Church Times this week that “when the General Synod claims it does not have time to discuss the motion, it is effectively saying that Palestinians — and Palestinian Christians in particular — do not matter. It communicates that our suffering, our displacement, and our cries for justice are not worth the Church’s time.”

The decision not to debate the motion was “not a neutral act”, Fr Diab said, but an “act of abandonment”.

“In moments like these, silence is not an option. It is a form of complicity. When genocidal aggression is not a priority for the Church to debate, the Church is in deep mess.”

We stand in solidarity with our partner Kairos Palestine as they challenge the silence of the UK Churches. You can read the letter to General Synod here: Kairos Palestine letter to The Secretary General Synod of the Church of England