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 May 2025, Kairos Palestine sent a letter to the new pope calling on him to “Speak loudly against the occupation, against the genocide and ethnic cleansing of Gaza, against the weapons that destroy our homes, schools, churches, and mosques.”
• In December 2024, Kairos Palestine called on European countries to “Publicly repent of previous inaction, silence, and acceptance of theologies that support apartheid, discrimination, and genocide itself, and renounce previous statements to this effect.”
• In October 2024, on the one year anniversary of the October 7th Hamas massacre, Kairos Palestine published a statement: “In the face of the ongoing Nakba—defined by further ethnic cleansing, illegal occupation, an openly racist apartheid regime, and an accelerated genocide of the Palestinian people, funded in large part by the U.S. administration and enabled by Western powers—we pause on this one-year anniversary of October 7th to acknowledge and mourn the suffering and devastating loss of life of our siblings in Gaza and all those who are victims of war and violence…We call upon the International Criminal Court to hold accountable those who have and are committing war crimes.”
• In October 2024, Kairos Palestine shared a statement alleging, “Our catastrophe did not begin on October 7, 2023. The cycles of violence have been unending, beginning in 1917, peaking in 1948 and in 1967, continuing ever since, until today…Israel’s massive military force can destroy and bring death, it can wipe out political and military leaders and anyone who dares to stand up and oppose occupation and discrimination. However, it cannot bring the security that Israelis need. The international community must help us by recognizing that the root cause of this war is the negation of the right of the Palestinian people to live in its land, free and equal.”
• In May 2024, Kairos Palestine participated in the “Global Anti-Apartheid Conference” in South Africa that “aimed to strengthen the global solidarity movement for Palestine and intensify action to dismantle the policies of apartheid, settler colonialism and genocide practiced by Israel against the Palestinian people.”
• In October 2023, in the aftermath of the brutal October 7th attacks, Kairos Palestine was a signatory on a statement claiming, “we categorically reject the myopic and distorted Christian responses that ignore the wider context and the root causes of this war: Israel’s systemic oppression of the Palestinians over the last 75 years since the Nakba, the ongoing ethnic cleansing of Palestine, and the oppressive and racist military occupation that constitutes the crime of apartheid.”
• In October 2023, Kairos Palestine published a statement claiming, “This war came to say, it is time for everyone to wake up and know the truth about what is happening in Palestine and Israel, that Israel has settled in a land that belongs to the people of Palestine and has deprived the people of Palestine of their freedom. This situation needs to be corrected. Correcting it is not difficult. International law and international standards are acceptable to the Palestinians. Let’s agree on it.” 
• In April 2023, Kairos Palestine and BADIL published an Easter Alert claiming that “Apartheid on its own, is an insufficient framework to scrutinize the realities Palestinians face, as it is only a manifestation of the colonial agenda followed by Israel since its creation. Indeed, without acknowledging the colonial nature of Zionism and the Israeli regime, we fail to account for the domination of a people, the Palestinians, and their land, through the implantation of a settler community, and the ongoing denial of the internationally recognized right to self-determination of Palestinians on their land. Accordingly, apartheid is just one tool, albeit a significant and central one, of the Zionist settler-colonial project in Mandatory Palestine.”
  • The alert also called for individuals to “Join in the economic, academic, and/or performance of boycotts of Israel” and to “Enjoin someone in conversation, discussing what Israel’s colonial policies and practices have in common with the colonial policies and practices that established the United States and/or are in place in other parts of the world.”
• In July 2022, Kairos Palestine published “A Dossier on Israeli Apartheid – A Pressing Call to Churches Around the World” to learn about “the crime of apartheid and why Palestinians and a growing number of churches and human rights organizations are using the word to describe Israel’s oppression of Palestinians.” According to the dossier, “To call Israel an apartheid regime, is not a political epithet, nor does it require comparisons with South Africa, but an examination of the actual facts on the ground, which fulfills the legal elements established for the crime of Apartheid.” Kairos Palestine also urged people to “Affirm the Palestinians’ right to resist the occupation, dispossession, and abrogation of their fundamental rights, and join the Palestinians in their creative and nonviolent resistance. The 2005 Palestinian call for Boycott Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) provides a framework for economic, cultural, and academic measures and for direct political advocacy as nonviolent means to end occupation and oppression.”
• 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 2024, Kairos Palestine published a statement calling on “governments tosuspend (sic) all arms sales, and impose sanctions on Israeli government ministers and on trade with Israel” and for “Churches todivest (sic) from all companies profiting from the illegal occupation and war in Gaza.”
• In October 2024, Kairos Palestine urged people to “embrace the nonviolent strategy of Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions against Israel.”
• In May 2024, Kairos Palestine called on governments to “take concrete measures, including diplomatic and economic sanctions, and immediate (sic) freeze the weapons and arms trade with Israel.” 
• In November 2022, Kairos Palestine published a statement calling to “Engage in the Palestinian call for Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS), including calling on churches, denominations and church-related organizations to ensure that their financial investments do not support Israel’s apartheid but rather support Palestinians in their work for justice and peace.”
• In December 2020, Kairos Palestine launched a “BDS Toolkit: Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions: Resisting 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.”