By A.J. Nolte, Jules Gomes and Gerald McDermott, Christian Post
The July 13, 2026 vote of the Church of England’s General Synod that effectively declared Israel to be guilty of genocide and settler colonialism denies both history and facts on the ground.
The majority of world Anglicans already separated themselves from Canterbury in their 2023 Ash Wednesday Statement and in recent years have shown sympathy for Zionism for reasons about which Canterbury is clueless. This shameful vote against the Middle East’s only democracy ignores Anglicanism’s signal role in the origins of the world’s only Jewish state.
Not one Church of England bishop voted against the motion to “hear” the Kairos II manifesto entitled “A Moment of Truth: Faith in a Time of Genocide.” The manifesto alleges that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza, that Israel’s war on Hamas is not self-defense, that Palestinians are the “indigenous” people in the land and Jews are “settler colonialists,” and that Christian Zionism has produced “apartheid” and “ethnic cleansing.”
We will examine each allegation in turn and then argue that this recent vote is profoundly un-Anglican.
The word “genocide” comes from the Greek genos for “tribe/race/nation” and the Latin caedere “to kill.” In 1948, the United Nations defined genocide as “acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial, or religious groups” (emphasis added).
If Israel has been intending to destroy Palestinian civilians in Gaza, why has it regularly sent Arab-language warnings before attacks? Why did it repeatedly evacuate civilians through humanitarian corridors? Why does it use foot soldiers on dangerous missions in booby-trapped areas when it could kill far more from the air with bombs? As British Colonel Richard Kemp told the BBC in the midst of the war, “I don’t think there’s ever been a time in the history of warfare when any army has made more efforts to reduce civilian casualties and deaths of innocent people than the IDF is doing today in Gaza.”
No genocidal government delivers humanitarian aid to a people it intends to destroy. Recent reports calculate that Israel has facilitated the delivery of 1.78 million tons of food into Gaza, triple the amount of nutrition necessary for daily requirements according to the World Food Program.