The Anglican Church of South Africa: PSC Resolutions declaring Israel an apartheid state and on pilgrimages to the Holy Land. The following resolutions were approved by Provincial Standing Committee at its 2023 meeting on Wednesday.
On Israel as an Apartheid State
a. Many global human rights bodies including Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch have now declared Israel an apartheid state;
b. The SACC National Executive Committee has now also declared Israel an apartheid state;
c. The Dutch Reformed Church Western Cape synod has now also expressed its opinion that Israel should be declared an apartheid state and has asked its church’s National synod to consider this at its October 2023 Synod;
d. Most Palestinian civil rights bodies consider this to be true;
2. This PSC Resolves to:
a. Endorse the position taken by the SACC national executive committee declaring Israel an apartheid state;
b. Respectfully request the Archbishop to inform the Primate of Jerusalem and the Middle East of this decision;
c. Pray for our Anglican brothers and sisters in Palestine and to express our solidarity with them;
d. Express support for the upcoming global anti-apartheid conference on Palestine to be held in Tshwane in November 2023.
Archbishop Thabo Makgoba issued the following statement on the decision by Provincial Standing Committee to declare Israel an apartheid state.
“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 are opposed not to the Jewish people, but to the policies of Israelis’ governments, which are becoming ever more extreme.
For Christians, the Holy Land is the place where Jesus was born, nurtured, crucified and raised. Our hearts ache for our Christian brothers and sisters in Palestine, whose numbers include Anglicans but are rapidly declining. People of all faiths in South Africa have both a deep understanding of what it is to live under oppression, as well as experience of how to confront and overcome unjust rule by peaceful means. 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 the land we call holy, for an end to the occupation of Gaza and the West Bank and for full recognition of the Palestinians’ inalienable right to self-determination.
We yearn for peace and the wholeness of God to be made manifest in Palestine, in Israel and among their neighbouring countries. I pray the prayer we adopted at the last meeting of the Provincial Synod, the ruling body of the Anglican Church of Southern Africa:
Lord God,
Bless the people of the Middle East;
Protect their vulnerable children;
Transform their divided leaders;
Heal their wounded communities,
Restore their human dignity,
and give them everlasting peace. Amen.”
Peacemaker Trust 