Posted on May 17, 2022, by ICAHD UK & filed under ICAHD statements, News.
Within the Church of England, the Bishop’s Disciplinary Tribunal for the Diocese of Winchester is holding a tribunal concerning The Revd Dr Stephen Sizer between Monday 23 – Friday 27 May. It arises from a complaint made by the Board of Deputies of British Jews against the Revd Dr Sizer in 2018. The Tribunal will be held at St Andrew’s Church Centre Holborn, Central London which Sizer insists happens in public. This is the second time he has been hauled before a religious Tribunal at the instigation of the Board of Deputies, the organization claiming to represent British Jewry. A previous complaint was resolved by conciliation in 2013.
Dr Stephen Sizer was ordained as a priest in the Church of England nearly 40 years ago. He is one of the world’s experts on Christian Zionism, his books presenting a comprehensive overview of its roots, its theological basis, and its political consequences. Sizer is just one of scores of people who have falsely been accused of being anti-Semitic and what is unique about him is that he is a member of the clergy who has sought to stand with Palestinian Christians while the leadership within the Anglican church has remained silent.
But the issue of Dr Sizer’s being tried by Tribunal because of his legitimate criticism of Israel is a matter that should concern us all. What is known as the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict is more than just a political issue, important as that is on the global scene. It is also a moral test, not only for governments (who consistently fail their moral tests and from whom we expect little) but for those who actually hold themselves up as our moral guardians and guides, organized religions and their clerical establishments. This applies particularly to Jews and Christians.
Zionism, after all, was a Jewish movement whose settlers came to Palestine at the start of the twentieth century with the expressed intention of transforming an Arab country into a Jewish country. With the help of the international community that largely happened. The League of Nations denied the Palestinians their right to national self-determination and instead gave Palestine as a colonial “mandate” to the British. The British government and Mandate authorities proceeded to promote the establishment of a Jewish National Home in Palestine by force and governmental fiat. The UN in 1947 gave the Jews 56% of Palestine and after the 1948 war allowed Israel to keep the 78% of the country it conquered, while failing to enforce its own international law by enabling the 750,000 Palestinian refugees of the war to return home. And over the past 55 years, since the Occupation began in 1967, the US, Britain, France and other major powers have allowed Israel to conquer and keep the rest of Palestine. They continue to support its ongoing occupation and displacement of Palestinians – all resulting in what Amnesty International documents describe as an apartheid system. For its part the organized Jewish community also supports Israel’s violent assault on the Palestinian people, even though it reflects the tragic and somewhat similar experience of the Jewish people itself over its history.
And the Christians? Palestine is the very crucible of Christianity, and no one in the world has stood with the besieged Christians of Palestine more than Dr Sizer. He has given voice to their distress when the Church of England has been silent. The fact that the Church has gone to the extreme of accusing Dr Sizer of anti-Semitism because he speaks up in defence of Palestinian Christians only compounds the sin. It is morally grotesque that the Church of England is submitting Dr Sizer to a medieval Tribunal (euphemistically called a “Clergy Discipline Measure”) at the instigation of the organized British Jewish community instead of examining its own role in facilitating Israel’s persecution of Palestine’s Christians. And it is equally outrageous that Jews even consider participating in religious Tribunals given what Jews experienced in the Inquisition. “Support for Israel,” it seems, is exposing the immorality and cynicism of the highest figures in our major religions.
The following statement of support comes from ICAHD, the Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions. It is written in a more personal way, however, by Dr Jeff Halper, ICAHD’s Director, because he wanted to protest not only the politics, immorality and illegality of trial-by-Tribune in the 21st Century, but to express his own outrage that Jews would be part of such a process, as if they learned nothing from their own trials-by-Tribune during the Inquisition.
ICAHD calls on you to #StandWithStephen.