ISRAEL has committed “genocidal acts” in Gaza, and the situation within the occupied West Bank amounts to “apartheid” and “ethnic cleansing”, the Archbishop of York has said.
Archbishop Cottrell used the terms in an interview with the Church Times on Monday evening, and repeated them in an address to a gathering of aid organisations on Tuesday morning.
“It gives me no joy in any way to make use of these words,” he said on Monday. But after his visit to the region last week, he had been left wondering, “what other words do you employ” to explain the situation within the West Bank?
“What’s happening within the West Bank is just not what happened in South Africa, but you’re left pondering: what other language do I exploit to explain such a two-tier system where one group of individuals is so persistently and systematically denied their human rights and having to live a parallel life?”
He continued: “What is occurring is deliberate and systematic, persistent and intentional, and its impact is devastating.”
While within the West Bank, Archbishop Cottrell was confronted by heavily armed settlers within the village of Umm al-Khair (News, 8 November). The people there have been being “literally squeezed out by settlers, to start with splitting in half the village, then surrounding the homes of Palestinian people”, he said. “How do you describe the impact of that except by utilizing phrases like ethnic cleansing?”
On the potential for receiving criticism for the escalation in his use of language, Archbishop Cottrell said that he hoped that folks “won’t misuse and weaponise the words I’ve used”. “I would like to be very clear that these are the policies of the Israeli state. This is just not about Judaism. It’s not about Jewish people. It’s in regards to the state’s actions and policies which the international community must challenge.”
He described the actions of the Israeli military in Gaza as “genocidal acts”, reasonably than genocide. “These look like deliberately indiscriminate acts,” he said, but stopped in need of using the more general term.
“When hospitals and schools are targeted, when children are targeted . . . I’m wondering what other language we use to explain what is occurring. And again, I make it clear that that is the actions of the Israeli state, and for people of religion — be they Jewish people, Christian people or Muslim people — we must discover a way for people to live in peace with each other.”
Achieving this was only possible by being “painfully honest about what is definitely happening”, Archbishop Cottrell suggested.
The decision to make use of more robust language to explain the situation in Palestine got here from a struggle to “bring home the horror and the fact” of what was happening, and a recognition that language “can have an effect”, Archbishop Cottrell said.
The terms he used were, to an extent, guided by conversations that the Archbishop had had during his visit — specifically a gathering with the organisation Rabbis for Human Rights. The Israel-based organisation, which counts some 170 rabbis amongst its members, is currently coordinating efforts to guard Palestinian famers from settler harassment and attacks as they soak up the olive harvest.
Over dinner at St George’s Cathedral’s pilgrim guesthouse in Jerusalem, the director of partnerships for Rabbis for Human Rights, Anton Goodman, had explained that, “as a Jewish person, I even have to participate in advocacy for human rights”. “We try to present Israeli society an alternative choice to hold on to,” he said, reasonably than contributing to the dehumanisation that happens on each side.
The presence of Jewish Israelis helping to secure the olive harvest for Palestinian farmers meant that Palestinian children within the West Bank saw one other side of Israel society, Rabbi Goodman suggested, because, otherwise, the one Jewish people they encountered were settlers and soldiers.
“IT WAS a harrowing, horrifying, but in addition, in some ways, beautiful trip — beautiful because I met some amazing, faithful people,” Archbishop Cottrell reflected on Monday.
Asked which moment had stayed with him most strongly, he recounted a gathering with a gaggle of Palestinian women who attend St Andrew’s, Ramallah, who read and presented a letter to him (News, 14 November).
“It was their dignity, their moral clarity, their passion, and the way in which during which they likened and told their story with the reference to the biblical story,” he said. Their plea to him to “tell the world what is occurring” had influenced his decision to make use of the “right words” to explain the situation they faced.
In their letter, which Archbishop Cottrell said that he had reread “several times” since returning home, the ladies also called on the Church of England to embrace the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) movement.
In July, a gaggle Palestinian Christians criticised the choice by the business committee of the General Synod to not table a debate on Palestine based on a Carlisle diocesan-synod motion (News, 10 July). The motion calls on the Church’s investment bodies to review their policies, and to be certain that there is no such thing as a investment in “any entity or corporation with a persistent, on-going, and direct business involvement in severe human rights violations or violations of international law as a part of Israel’s military occupation”.
Asked whether he would support the Synod motion’s call for divestment, Archbishop Cottrell said that the “short answer” was “yes”, but “quite a little bit of detailed work must be done on how that may be done and the way it may be done effectively”.
He “expects” the Synod motion to be debated in 2026, he said, but he didn’t personally have the ability to be certain that it was given space on the agenda.
On the present state of the Church of England, Archbishop Cottrell said that, although there have been “profound disagreements”, he didn’t think that there have been “huge divisions” — though he acknowledged that some might consider him “naïve”.
“We live in a world where disagreement often results in division, and division often results in conflict. I absolutely consider that the Church of Jesus Christ is named to inform a unique story.”
