By: The Wire Staff Published in:* The Wire* Date: December 28, 2025 Source: https://thewire.in/religion/a-moment-of-truth-palestinian-christians-urge-action-against-oppression
Kairos Palestine launches its second document, condemning apartheid, settler-colonialism and ongoing ethnic cleansing Last month in Bethlehem, 300 people – led by the Patriarchs and Heads of Churches in Palestine – gathered to launch Kairos Palestine’s second document <https://www.kairospalestine.ps/>, *A Moment of Truth: Faith in a Time of Genocide*. The document, issued by Palestinian Christian leaders to address the ongoing war in Gaza <https://thewire.in/world/how-the-war-in-gaza-is-reshaping-geopolitics>, serves as a renewed theological statement. It urges global churches to take a stance against oppression, advocates justice through resistance rooted in love and faith, and demands a spiritual response to horrific violence and displacement. According to a report in *Mondoweiss*, an independent news organisation focusing on developments in Palestine, Israel, and related U.S. foreign policy, this largest Palestinian Christian ecumenical nonviolent movement for freedom and justice brought together 140 Palestinians and 160 international attendees to address the theological and political realities facing Palestinians and heed the indigenous church’s call for resistance and global Christian solidarity <https://thewire.in/rights/how-the-resistance-of-palestinians-has-been-defying-israels-ongoing-nakba> . Mays Nassar, a Kairos Palestine <https://www.kairospalestine.ps/> staff member, introduced the 14-page document, explaining that the genocidal war on Gaza and the escalating apartheid and ethnic cleansing in the West Bank marked a “decisive moral and theological turning point”. The document also compels reflection on the “meaning of faith amid horror”. The first section, *The Reality: Genocide, Colonisation and Ethnic Cleansing* <https://mondoweiss.net/2025/12/what-is-the-christian-word-in-the-face-of-genocide-new-kairos-palestine-document-calls-for-repudiation-of-zionism/>, describes the assault on Gaza as leaving hundreds of thousands killed or wounded, nearly two million displaced, and entire sectors of life destroyed. The document labels the Zionist ideology as a decades-long apartheid system of total control, fragmentation, and suffering, describing the State of Israel (established in 1948) as a continuation of European settler-colonialism rooted in racism and ethnic/religious superiority. It further details settler violence in the West Bank <https://thewire.in/world/a-new-surge-of-settler-outposts-is-terrorising-palestinians-off-their-land> (often with army protection), ongoing discrimination against Palestinians inside Israel, denial of return rights and systematic displacement of Bedouin communities. It condemns the Western understanding of human rights as hypocritical, names Christian Zionism as a theology of racism, colonialism and ethnic supremacy that must be rejected and boycotted, and calls for ending religious dialogue with its adherents. The second section, *A Moment of Truth for Us*, turns inward, calling for national re-evaluation, unity, and a clear strategy within a legitimate framework, while warning against religious framing of the struggle. In powerful, lyrical language, it addresses Palestinian women as “the backbone of liberation”, the Palestinian Church <https://thewire.in/world/israeli-air-strike-hits-gaza-church-that-was-sheltering-christians-muslims> as “deeply rooted in the land and history”, youth as “the living Church” called to creative resistance and hope rooted in action, and the diaspora “to amplify Palestinian voices and steadfastness”. The third section, *A Call to Repentance and Action*, urges Christians worldwide to pressure governments to isolate Israel, prosecute war criminals, secure reparations, and support Gaza’s reconstruction. It invites people of conscience across faiths to form coalitions against injustice and calls for a global theological movement against colonialism, racism, and empire. The document welcomes Jewish voices opposing Zionism as partners in humanity and dialogue, clearly stating: “Not every Jew is a Zionist and not every Zionist is a Jew.” True solidarity, the document emphasises, is “costly”. “Either we live together –or we perish together,” it reads.The brief final section, *Faith in a Time of Genocide*, reaffirms Palestinian Christian steadfastness and insists that lasting peace requires acknowledging historic injustice since the Zionist movement and the Balfour Declaration, dismantling settler colonialism and apartheid <https://thewire.in/world/gaza-apartheid-israel-and-the-last-stand-of-settler-colonialism>, and building on justice, equality, and self-determination through international action. At the conference, *Mondoweiss* reports that Kairos Palestine board member Dr Muna Mushahwer spoke of righteous anger – likening it to Jesus cleansing the Temple – and framed the document as a cry of steadfastness amid pain.
