Addressing the Suffering of Palestinian Christians

December 4, 2025

12:00 AM

Launch of Kairos Palestine II in Bethlehem.png

The launch of Kairos Palestine II in Bethlehem, West Bank, Occupied Palestinian Territory, November 14, 2025

United Methodist Kairos Response | Nov. 27, 2025

BETHLEHEM — Five United Methodists from different parts of the connection were present in Bethlehem when Palestinian Christians launched Kairos Palestine II, “A Moment of Truth: Faith in a Time of Genocide” on Nov. 14, 2025. This document issues a comprehensive and urgent call to Christians around the world to stand with Palestinian Christians and all Palestinians to address the violence and suffering experienced in Gaza and increasingly in the West Bank and Israel, thereby joining them in steadfast perseverance, or in Arabic, “sumud.”

See the Kairos Palestine II document, English version.

The main presenters of the Kairos Palestine II document were Palestinian Christian leaders representing Catholic, Protestant and Orthodox Christian communities in Palestine. The five United Methodists in attendance were Ofelia Cantor, National Coordinator of the Philippines Ecumenical Peace Platform; Carol Garwood, Co-Chair of the Steering Committee of United Methodists for Kairos Response (UMKR); Rev. Dr. Jin Yang Kim, Global Ministries' Liaison for Peace and Justice and the Middle East; Rev. John Wagner, former Co-Chair of the UMKR Steering Committee; and David Wildman, UMKR Steering Committee Member and former Executive Secretary for Human Rights & Racial Justice with the UMC’s General Board of Global Ministries. They were joined by Christians from nearly 30 countries in Africa Asia, Europe, Oceania and the Americas.

The preamble to Kairos Palestine II states: “We live in a time of genocide, ethnic cleansing and forced displacement unfolding before the eyes of the world. This moment demands from us a new stand, unlike any before it.” They go on to request a more “costly” solidarity. This means doing the hard word of pressuring governments and the international community to implement Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS), fostering dialogue with Jewish voices that are now questioning Zionist ideologies, forming alliances with other religious groups and rights movements, and preserving the Christian presence in Gaza.

In the days prior to the launch of the document, the international Christians attending visited places in the West Bank including East Jerusalem and witnessed conditions and events that corroborated the reports of Palestinians on the ground.

Visitors hear a report by refugees from Jenin Refugee Camp, a West Bank community that has been under assault by the Israeli military. (Refugees' identities are protected for their security.)

Carol Garwood shared: “On November 11, we traveled to the northern West Bank, and heard from people who were expelled from the Jenin Refugee Camp by the Israeli military in January. 19,000 people were displaced from the camp in one night and were given no means to live. We heard many of their stories, but the words of one 12 year old Palestinian girl were the hardest for me to hear. It was obvious that she was severely traumatized by what she went through that night and is continuing to experience. She said this: ‘You cannot separate the body from the soul, and yet my soul remains in the only home I’ve ever known – our refugee camp. It breaks my heart that it has been destroyed. The only weapon I have in my life to combat this injustice is to go to school, become educated, and do my best to make a difference as I grow up.’”

Ofelia Cantor remarked on “the massive and continuing land confiscation by the Israeli government, land that will be awarded later to the illegal Jewish settlers.” But Cantor was also impressed by Palestinians’ “resolve and steadfastness in their struggle for self-determination without violent retaliation.” International participants like Carol and Ofelia also met a Jewish Israeli who was serving as “protective presence” in the last viable village in Area C in the West Bank. He told them that Israel is increasingly focused on removing Palestinians from the land, and doing so through forcible removal from their homes, various forms of intimidation, and increasingly, through settler violence that is killing up to 60 Palestinians per day.

In a village near Bethlehem, a Palestinian farmer declared, “I’m one of many who are repeatedly attacked by Israeli settlers. We need international protection - these attacks are systemic, not random. We can only defend ourselves and our land with our words and cameras. Your visit brings us hope, but we have to ask, what are you doing back home with your governments that will keep our hope alive?”

There were repeated requests to engage in costly solidarity from Palestinian Christians leaders like Rev. Dr. Munther Isaac, the director of the Bethlehem Institute of Peace and Justice, and Rifat Kassis, General Coordinator of Kairos Palestine. They told the assembled Christians that in this critical moment in history when people of conscience are being called to take a stand, the worldwide church must be willing to take genuine risks. Sometimes physical risks through protective presence and solidarity delegations, but also the risk of alienating those around us in order to speak the truth and embody it through nonviolent actions like BDS – boycott, divestment, and sanctions.

Seeing it for Yourself

For many international observers present in Bethlehem, including the five United Methodists, a key to their understanding of what’s really going on has been participating in pilgrimages that go beyond popular tourist packages. Palestinian Christians refer to it as the “Come and See” invitation, and it is highlighted in both in the 2009 and 2025 Kairos Palestine documents. This resonates deeply with long-standing United Methodist commitments. For decades, The United Methodist Church has urged Holy Land travelers to move beyond traditional tourism and engage directly with indigenous Christian communities, to listen to both Palestinian and Israeli concerns, consult the Methodist Liaison Office, visit UMC-supported mission partners, and use UMC advocacy and educational materials to understand the realities on the ground. The new Kairos Palestine call renews what the UMC has long affirmed: that true discipleship in this land comes through relationship, encounters, informed solidarity, and walking with the “living stones” who bear witness to Christ in the midst of ongoing struggle.See Holy Land Tours, 2024 Book of Resolutions, #6031 and https://www.kairosresponse.org/tours.html

The UMC’s Response through Nonviolent Actions

Palestinian and international participants made specific reference to the good example set by The United Methodist Church. That example took a leap forward in 2010, when United Methodists came together to begin a grassroots initiative named for the original Kairos Palestine document: United Methodists for Kairos Response (UMKR). Since that time, the clergy and laity in this movement have worked to move the denomination beyond words of concern to the meaningful actions of solidarity that Palestinians have called for, divestment and boycotts in particular. There have been set backs, but also successes.

In 2014 the UMC’s board of pensions, Wespath, divested from an international private prison company operating in Israel that abused Palestinian political prisoners. Eventually that company, G4S, stopped all their operations in that part of the world. In 2015, Wespath barred investment in five Israeli banks that finance illegal settlements, and this year – responding to the UMKR divestment resolution adopted by the 2024 General Conference – Wespath announced it would cease purchasing the bonds of Israel and other governments maintaining oppressive prolonged military occupations. The United Methodist Church blazed new trails in taking these actions. Also, throughout the last fifteen years, dozens of annual conference resolutions have been passed that call for divestment, boycott, an end to U.S. arming of Israel, and other meaningful acts of solidarity.

Besides divestment actions, the church also has stepped up to support boycotts for Palestinian rights. In 2014, the General Board of Church and Society joined the SodaStream Boycott, a campaign that succeeded in persuading that company to stop manufacturing on stolen land in the illegally occupied West Bank. This year, the GBCS board has joined the global boycott of Chevron Corporation “in solidarity with United Methodist Kairos Response and other United Methodists in this boycott campaign, until the company terminates all contracts with Israel that allow it to profit from the military occupation of Palestine and ceases operations in the gas fields off the coast of Palestine/Israel.”

John Wagner said, “In Palestine this month, we were repeatedly thanked for our church’s actions, for standing behind our previous resolutions. But United Methodists must build on this record.”

In that vein, Carol Garwood named some of UMKR’s priorities for the coming year: “grassroots education and organizing in our congregations and conferences, engagement with government leaders, solidarity trips, public witness, annual conference resolutions, further boycotts and divestment from complicit companies … this is the solidarity Kairos Palestine calls us to.”