Anglican Church declares Israel an apartheid state

The Anglican Church of Southern Africa (ACSA) officially declared Israel an apartheid state last Thursday, 28 September.

Chief Rabbi Dr Warren Goldstein says this has been building up for a long time. In 2019, the church called for action against Israel by BDS (the Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions coalition). Then, in 2021, ACSA Archbishop Dr Thabo Makgoba described the situation in the Middle East as “evil”, placing all the blame on Israel.

Goldstein criticised this latest declaration, saying, “ACSA repeats its false accusation of apartheid against Israel at every one of its synods. But repeating a falsehood doesn’t make it true, no matter how often it does so.

“That’s perhaps why it has had minimal impact in South Africa and internationally on this issue. You can expect that at its next synod, it will repeat its politically-correct anti-Israel bias without reference to the actual facts on the ground.”

The resolution declaring Israel an apartheid state was made at the ACSA provincial standing committee (PSC). The ACSA PSC is the top decision-making body between its provincial synods.

However, it comes just a few weeks after the head of the Anglican Church, Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby, emphatically insisted that Israel wasn’t an apartheid state.

ACSA’s stance softened somewhat in August 2022, when it called for a two-state solution “where both states live in security, peace, and dignity”, and said “Israel is a state that deserves security and protection”. But now it has returned to its anti-Israel narrative, which it will dictate to its membership of about 3.5 million people across Southern Africa.

Speaking to the SA Jewish Report from Rome, Makgoba said, “The resolution doesn’t change our commitment to the existence of both Israel and Palestine in peace and security. Nor does it change our view on the ideal of a two-state solution.”

The ACSA PSC said that the decision to call Israel an apartheid state was made because many global human rights bodies and the South African Council of Churches (SACC) national executive committee have done the same, and “the Dutch Reformed Church Western Cape synod has expressed its opinion that Israel should be declared an apartheid state and has asked its national synod to consider this”.

“This PSC resolves to endorse the position taken by the SACC national executive committee declaring Israel an apartheid state,” it said, and it would “express support for the upcoming global anti-apartheid conference on Palestine to be held in Tshwane in November 2023”. It also said it would seek to promote “solidarity visits to Israel-Palestine” that focus more on “the military occupation of Palestine and the similarities to apartheid South Africa”.

Makgoba issued his own statement on the decision to declare Israel an apartheid state, saying, “As people of faith who are distressed by the pain of the occupation of the West Bank and Gaza and who long for security and a just peace for both Palestine and Israel, we can no longer ignore the realities on the ground. We’re opposed not to the Jewish people, but to the policies of Israel’s governments, which are becoming ever more extreme.

“People of all faiths in South Africa have both a deep understanding of what it is to live under oppression and experience of how to confront and overcome unjust rule by peaceful means,” he said. “When black South Africans who have lived under apartheid visit Israel, the parallels to apartheid are impossible to ignore. If we stand by and keep quiet, we will be complicit in the continuing oppression of the Palestinians.

“If we are to celebrate peace for Palestinians and security for the Israelis in in our time, we need to pray and work for an end to the occupation of Gaza and the West Bank and for full recognition of the Palestinians’ right to self-determination.”

But not all Christians agree with ACSA’s stance. Reverend John Atkinson is one of four local Anglican Church ordained ministers who spoke out against ACSA’s anti-Israel doctrine in 2021. Now, he says, “The PSC statement on Israel reflects not just a one-sided view but a desire to be in step with other haters of Israel. The resolution contains no evidence, but a hearsay justification based on what groups like the SACC have said.

“Their so-called concern for Palestinian Christians isn’t expressed in practical ways to help Palestinians with the problems in their own leadership and community, but rather by slandering the state of Israel,” says Atkinson. “It should be kept in mind that this is a group of Anglican leaders who are silent on the murder of their fellow Christians in Syria, Pakistan, sub-Saharan Africa, and elsewhere. According to a report by Open Doors, in the past year alone 5 621 Christians were murdered – 90% of whom were in Nigeria. So much for Christian concern!

“The resolution even suggests that ‘an Anglican priest or one approved by ACSA’ should accompany tour groups [to Israel],” says Atkinson. “This smacks of control. The fear stems from the fact that most people return convinced that Israel isn’t an apartheid state. This resolution seeks to destroy the reputation of an entire country without any concern for accuracy or integrity.”

Bafana Modise, the head of communications at faith-based organisation, the South African Friends of Israel (SAFI), says, “This is highly concerning as the decision portrays a false view of the conflict between the Palestinians and Israel. The Church didn’t engage with SAFI regarding its decision. This is concerning as SAFI is a well-established member of several church-based organisations across South Africa. In fact, SAFI has received appeals from members of the Anglican Church who are outraged at the decision.

“James van den Heever has written a thesis on this topic, indicating that repeated attempts by members to contact the church leadership on the subject have been ignored for years. This tells us that the views of the leadership don’t reflect those of its members. The majority of South Africans love the holy land of Israel, and would rather play a productive role in ending the conflict, as opposed to recycling the views of antisemitic organisations like the BDS movement.”

He says SAFI will meet South African churches over the next few months “to oppose this decision formally in numbers, and to provide a more educated view of the conflict. Furthermore, SAFI will continue to support individuals within the Anglican Church to share that this decision in no way represents the views of the majority of Anglicans in South Africa.”

The national chairperson of the South African Zionist Federation, Rowan Polovin, says, “It’s appalling that ACSA has officially adopted an antisemitic resolution designed to isolate, demonise, and delegitimise the world’s only Jewish state. The church hasn’t adopted an official position on any other country. The only logical explanation for ACSA’s bizarre preoccupation with Israel is that she is the Jew among nations.

“The International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance working definition of antisemitism, which has been adopted and endorsed by 43 countries and more than 1 100 global entities, including the Church of England, is that labelling Israel remains a ‘racist endeavour’, and having double-standards against Israel is antisemitic,” says Polovin.

“Israel remains the only democracy in the Middle East, offering equal rights to all her citizens, including freedom of speech and religion, and is the freest and safest place for non-Jews to live anywhere in the region.”