Britain Palestine Project Trustee Bishop Michael Doe wrote the following letter to the Church Times, which was published on 4 July 2025
Madam
As the Board of Deputies of British Jews continues to punish any of its members who make public criticism of Israel’s conduct of the Gaza War, surely the time has come for the Christian churches to distance ourselves from the Board and the Chief Rabbinate by suspending our membership of the Council of Christians and Jews.
The Church of England was slow to publicly oppose what the Israeli Defence Forces have been doing, and General Synod is still being prevented from discussing the motion first proposed by the Diocese of Carlisle in 2021, but the House of Bishops statement in May did finally denounce as a grave sin the death, suffering and destruction being inflicted on Gaza. It praised those Jews who are courageously pressing the Israeli Government to end the war.
We need to stand with these “righteous Jews” who continue to support the state of Israel but who condemn what the Israeli Defence Forces are doing in their name. We Christians need to be clear that we will never forget the Holocaust, but that does not excuse the holocaust which Israel is now inflicting on the people of Gaza.
We should remind our Jewish brothers and sisters that in Germany in the 1930s the silence of many in the leadership of the churches is now rightly seen as complicity.
Rt Revd Michael Doe
The next week, 11 July, the Church Times published a response from the Bishop of Shrewsbury and chair of the CCJ saying now is not the time for Christian Churches to exit the CCJ, but “the time to strengthen dialogue” and “work together to achieve not homogeneity, but a shared commitment to one another across our differences. We must develop a language by which we can share disagreements and critiques in a way that does not undermine the fundamental respect we have for one another.”
He responded quite strongly (below). The Church Times did not publish the letter, but the following week head-lined the statement by the Archbishop of York:
https://www.archbishopofyork.org/news/latest-news/archbishopof yorks-statement-gaza
This is my unpublished letter to the Church Times
Madam
You kindly published a letter from me (Letter, 4 July) asking why our church had not suspended membership of the Council of Christians and Jews when the major partner, the Board of Deputies of British Jews, was not only keeping silent about Gaza but expelling any member who dared to publicly criticise what Israel is doing. The Bishop of Shrewsbury, as chair of CCJ, responded (Letter, 11 July) avoiding any charge of complicity and calling instead for increased dialogue. Meanwhile the Jewish (I use Netanyahur’s nomenclature) slaughter – some would say holocaust – many would now say genocide – continues. You reported what our Archbishop in Jerusalem told a shocked General Synod audience earlier this month. The current estimate is sixty thousand deaths. I have to ask Bishop Jane: how many children in Gaza, some of them from Anglican families, are the Israeli Defence Forces allowed to kill before she thinks that uncritical dialogue with their Jewish sympathisers in this country is still the best way forward?
Rt Revd Michael Doe