Activities

• Kairos Palestine is a “Christian Palestinian movement, born out of the Kairos Document.” The Kairos Palestine document calls for BDS (boycott, divestment, and sanctions) against Israel; denies the Jewish historical connection to Israel in theological terms; and rationalizes, justifies, and trivializes terrorism, calling it “legal resistance.”(See below for more information regarding the Kairos Palestine Document.)
• In February 2022, Kairos Palestine published a statement “welcom[ing[“ Amnesty International’s report accusing Israel of apartheid. According to the statement, “We appreciate Amnesty International’s courage in publicly documenting what for decades Palestinian human rights organizations and, more recently, prominent Israeli and international human rights groups have concluded: Israel’s laws, policies and practices constitute an apartheid state.”
• In October 2021, Kairos Palestine was a signatory on a joint statement condemning the decision by the Israeli Ministry to designate six Palestinian NGOs as terrorist organizations. The statement called for the international community to “reject and condemn this decision, prevent the Israeli occupation state from moving forward with these arbitrary and illegitimate practices in violation of international laws, to pressure Israel to revoke the decision; and to continue to support the right of Palestinians to justice, freedom, and dignity.”
• In May 2021, in the context of the 2021 Gaza conflict, Kairos Palestine called on the Holy See and the World Council of Churches to “put pressure on Israel to immediately stop the deadly air strikes and ground attacks against civilians in Gaza and to stop its ethnic cleansing policies that target Jerusalemites” (emphasis added).
• In April 2021, Kairos Palestine signed a joint statement welcoming the decision of the International Criminal Court to launch a formal investigation into alleged war crimes committed by Israel in the “State of Palestine.” According to the statement, “This is a long-awaited and a critically important step towards ensuring the rule of law and ending impunity, while ensuring accountability for Israel’s crimes within the jurisdiction of the Court.”
• In March 2021, Kairos Palestine called to “Join the Palestinian Christians: Resist the Ethnic Cleansing of East Jerusalem.” 
• In June 2020, in the context of Black Lives Matter protests in the United States, Kairos Palestine published a statement that gave “thanks for the many expressions of Black-Palestinian solidarity over decades. The oppression of both our peoples is rooted in the sin of settler-colonialism and the disinvestment of resources in the well-being of our people and communities.”

BDS Activities

• According to its website, “Kairos Palestine supports the global campaign for Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions…By advocating for BDS, Christians worldwide should be mobilized to engage in, at least one or more of BDS activities and objectives, and to investigate the investment funds of their churches in order to put nonviolent pressure on companies and governments through adopting advocacy campaigns for BDS.”
• In December 2020, Kairos Palestine launched a “BDS Toolkit: Boycott,Divestment, Sanctions: Resisiting Apartheid & Racism” for the purposes of “providing important information and educating people about why economic actions are needed to make change in Israel’s record of human rights violations against Palestine.”
  • The toolkit contains numerous resources including BDS “through a legal lens,” a collection of BDS stories from around the world, and a page on how to “overcome the challenges to BDS.”
• In July 2020, Kairos Palestine published a “Cry for Hope: A Decisive Call for Action,” which called on Christian supporters to “take actions to end Israel’s occupation, including boycotts against Israel.”
• In May 2019, Kairos Palestine was a signatory on a statement calling on the German Bundestag to revoke a joint resolution defining BDS campaigns against Israel as antisemitic.
• In June 2017, Kairos Palestine was a signatory to an “Open Letter” from the National Coalition of Christian Organizations in Palestine to the World Council of Churches that accuses Israel of “Discrimination and inequality, military occupation and systematic oppression.” The letter calls upon the WCC to “recognize Israel as an apartheid state,” and “unequivocally condemn the Balfour declaration as unjust, and that you demand from the UK that it asks forgiveness from the Palestinian people and compensates for the losses.” The letter also defends “our right and duty to resist the occupation creatively and nonviolently,” through “economic measures that pressure Israel to stop the occupation…in response to Israel’s war on BDS. We ask that you intensity those measures.”

Kairos Palestine Document

• In 2009, a group of thirteen Palestinian Christian clergy, many of whom are anti-Israel activists and pro-BDS campaigners, drafted the Kairos Palestine Document. 
• The Document called for churches to “stand against injustice and apartheid…[and] revisit theologies that justify crimes perpetrated against our people and the dispossession of the land,” and “an economic and commercial boycott of everything produced by the occupation.”
• The Kairos Palestine Document also drew criticism for rationalizing, justifying, and trivializing terrorism, calling it “legal resistance,” and ignoring Palestinian terror, rejectionism, and legitimate Israeli security concerns. Joseph Puder, founder and director of the Interfaith Taskforce for America and Israel, has referred to the Kairos Palestine Document as “essentially a copy of Hamas and Fatah ‘talking points’ wrapped in religious packaging.”
• The Document continues to be used by numerous NGOs as a tool to target Israel and bolster BDS campaigns worldwide. (Click here to read NGO Monitor’s Key Issue on “The Kairos Palestine Document.”)

Staff

• Rifat Kassis, the General Coordinator for Global Kairos, also served as Defense for Children International – Palestine’s (DCI-P) General Director.
  • On September 23, 2014, Kassis spoke at a memorial service for Hashem Abu Maria, the coordinator of Defense for Children International-Palestine’s community mobilization unit, organized by the PFLP. The memorial service also featured speeches by leaders of the PFLP. The courtyard where the memorial service took place was decorated with PFLP flags, posters, and pictures of prominent PFLP figures, such as founder George Habash and former leader Ahmed Sa’adat. Nearly all of the audience is dressed in PFLP apparel.
    • Following Hashem Abu Maria’s death, he was hailed by the PFLP as a “leader,” which issued an official mourning announcement.
  • In a 2011 op-ed, Kassis promoted the antisemitic canard that Uri Rosenthal, at the time the Jewish Foreign Minister of the Netherlands, has dual loyalties, rendering him “so blind, so brazen, so hypocritical and so unjust,” and claiming that he “makes his own country a partner” in “Israel’s injustices.”