Embarrassment for King Charles Looms as the Anglican Church He Heads Adopts ‘Shocking’ Anti-Israel Document

The overwhelming vote on Monday by the Church of England’s governing body, the General Synod, to encourage members to “engage with” a document that accuses Israel of genocide adds to the sense that antisemitism is growing in the realm of King Charles III. The document, Kairos Palestine II, could also add to the troubles of the monarch.Kairos Palestine II — produced by a movement of Palestinian Arab Christians, Kairos Palestine — declares that “the genocidal war on Gaza is the continuation of the Zionist project to seize all of Palestine, emptied of its Palestinian people.” It also calls Israel a “colonial, settler, and exclusionary entity” and describes Palestinians as the “indigenous people of this land.” It excuses the atrocities of October 7, 2023, as “born out of decades of injustice, oppression and displacement.”The report, released last year, asserts that Israel’s “claim of ‘self-defense’ cannot stand. How can a coloniser defend itself against those it has colonised and expelled from their land?” It also calls on the Anglican Church to “distinguish between dialogue with Jews and dialogue with Zionism” and to engage in “repentance” for antisemitism and the “situation now affecting the Palestinian people.”Britain’s chief rabbi, Sir Ephraim Mirvis, calls the document, also known as “Moment of Truth: Faith in a Time of Genocide,” a “shocking” dispatch that contains “so much falsehood” that it “can only harm the cause of peace.” The ruler of Britain has been the Supreme Head of the Church of England since 1534, when Parliament passed the Act of Supremacy following the refusal of Pope Clement VII to annul the marriage of King Henry VIII to Catherine of Aragon, who had previously been engaged to Henry’s older brother, Arthur. Henry wanted to be free of Catherine due to her failure to produce a male heir — and on account of his infatuation with Anne Boleyn. Long before Henry’s break with Rome an earlier pope, Leo X, had granted him the title of “Fidei Defensor,” or “Defender of the Faith.” The king earned that honor after he wrote a treatise defending the traditions of the Catholic Church against the heresies of a rebel monk, Martin Luther. The pope rescinded the honorific after London split with Rome, but in 1544 Parliament restored the title to King Henry and all of his royal successors in perpetuity.While the king is the Supreme Governor of the Church of England, its spiritual leader is the Archbishop of Canterbury. A former holder of that seat, Baron Carey, reckons that “as supreme governor of the Church of England, and patron of the Council of Christians and Jews, the King could, through no fault of his own, find that the Church he represents is now committed to promoting a document” shot through with antisemitism.The vice president of that council, Elizabeth Harris-Sawczenko, writes that Kairos II “seeks to demonise and deny the very legitimacy of the modern state of Israel and the enduring historical and spiritual connection of the Jewish people to Israel, integral to Jewish identity.” Britain is facing a surge in antisemitism, which His Majesty’s government declares a “crisis.” Officials counted some 3,700 instances of antisemitism last year. The number of British Jews decamping for Israel hit a high in 2025 not seen since the 1980s. The current archbishop of Canterbury, Sarah Mullally, notes that “the situation in the Holy Land demands that we have difficult conversations” and that her church must hear the “heartfelt expressions of the lived experience of Palestinian Christians.” She adds that “as a pastor, I hear the cry of our Palestinian Christian sisters and brothers — a cry that rises from the ruins of Gaza, and from the violence and oppression of the West Bank.”According to the Church of England, the House of Bishops supported the resolution by 25 to zero with five abstentions; the House of Clergy by 115 to 20 with 30 abstentions; and the House of Laity by 113 to 27 against 35 abstentions. The debate over the document occurred at York, the site of a notorious pogrom in 1190 of the common era that followed an early accusation of a blood libel. The entirety of York’s Jewish community was confined to a royal tower, where most committed suicide. While Monday’s vote does not adopt Kairos II as official church doctrine, it does “encourage the Church of England at all levels to engage with those documents as part of a quest for greater understanding of the situation.” The seal of approval, though, means that the king himself — the highest level of the Church — could now face pressure to opine on Kairos II.British Jewry’s opposition to Kairos II could trouble a king who has long enjoyed warm ties to the Jews of his realm. He was a close friend of the previous Chief Rabbi, Lord Jonathan Sacks, and is the royal patron of both the Community Security Trust, which aims to provide security to British Jews, and World Jewish Relief. The king made an appearance at the heavily Jewish London neighborhood of Golders Green in May after a spate of antisemitic attacks there.King Charles could be undertaking a royal review of his role atop the Church. The House of Windsor’s financial report released last month retains reference to the sovereign as the “Defender of the Faith” but also emphasizes the protection of “the space for faith within the multi-faith nation.”

Embarrassment for King Charles Looms as the Anglican Church He Heads Adopts ‘Shocking’ Anti-Israel Document

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