‘What is the Christian word in the face of genocide?’: new Kairos Palestine document calls for repudiation of Zionism

Last month, 300 people-led by the Patriarchs and Heads of Churches in Palestine- gathered in Bethlehem to launch the second Kairos Palestine document: A Moment of Truth: Faith in a Time of Genocide . 140 Palestinians and 160 internationals spent the day unpacking the theological and political descriptions of the conditions that Palestinians face and attending to the indigenous church’s call for Palestinian resistance and Christian solidarity. The conference was hosted by Kairos Palestine , the largest Palestinian Christian ecumenical nonviolent movement for freedom and justice. Mays Nassar, Kairos Palestine staff, introduced the 14-page document, saying, “With the beginning of the genocidal war on Gaza and the worsening reality of apartheid and ethnic cleansing in the West Bank, we reached a decisive moral and theological turning point. Our hearts were compelled to reflect on the meaning of faith in such a time of horror. We asked ourselves what must we say to our people now? What is the Christian word in the face of genocide?” Kairos II doesn’t mince any words. In the first part of the document, “The Reality: Genocide, Colonization and Ethnic Cleansing”, the authors lament, “We raise this cry from the heart of the assault on Gaza - a war that has left behind hundreds of thousands of martyrs and wounded, and nearly two million displaced people. Many were buried beneath the rubble, burned alive, tortured to death in prisons or forcibly displaced more than once. Others endured starvation, targeted even as they ran in search of food. Tens of thousands of children were killed in the most horrific ways. Gaza’s health, education, economic, and environmental sectors-indeed, every component of life-have been destroyed.” “Exposed today,” the document states, “is the true face of Zionist ideology: a system that over decades has entrenched an organized and sophisticated regime of apartheid supported by advanced technologies that exercise total control over every aspect of Palestinian life-fragmenting the land, dividing its people, and turning Palestinian existence into an unbearable hell.” Genocide is both a cumulative process, according to the document, “one that began in the minds of the settler-colonial powers of Europe when they denied the image of God in others and legitimized death, domination and slavery,” and a “structural sin against God, against humanity, and against creation.” “We consider the State of Israel, established in 1948,” Kairos II maintains, “to be a continuation of that same colonial enterprise built on racism and the ideology of ethnic or religious superiority.” Authors of the document charge that “the genocidal war has laid bare the hypocrisy of the Western world, its hollow values and its empty boasts of commitment to human rights and international law. In truth, the Western world has sacrificed us, revealing racism and double standards toward our people.” Turning to the global reality of Christian Zionism, the document describes the ideology as a “theology of racism, colonialism and ethnic supremacy... a theology that has produced apartheid, ethnic cleansing and genocide of indigenous people.” “Christian Zionism calls on a tribal, racist...

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