Noble 'Acts of Resistance" Favoured by the United Church of Canada

"The Gaza genocide is the most recent and most severe expression of the colonialist oppression of the state of Israel upon the Palestinian people."

"The Palestinians have, from time to time, resisted their oppression by significant use of deadly force."

"The largest and most recent expression of this resistance was the October 7th raid into Israeli kibbutzim located along the Gaza border."

United Church General Council Meeting proposal 

 

"The United Church of Canada consistently condemns all acts of violence by all parties in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict."

"[The church had called on the government [of Canada] to secure a ceasefire, ensure the delivery of aid, achieve the release of [captives, both Israeli and Palestinian], as well as impose an arms embargo on Israel and end] Israel's military occupation and annexation of Palestine."

"There is space, without being antisemitic, for legitimate critique of the current situation in Israel and Palestine that aligns with international law and human rights, and with the legitimate security concerns of the State of Israel." 

Rev.Carmen Lansdowne, United Church moderator and spiritual leader

People walk past a billboard bearing the portraits of Israeli hostages, held in the Gaza Strip since the October 7, 2023 attacks by Hamas militants, in Jerusalem on February 17, 2025. Photo by AHMAD GHARABLI/AFP via Getty Images

 

For the United Church of Canada, the violent invasion of October 7, 2023 by Palestinian terrorists representing Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad, Fatah and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, along with ordinary Palestinian civilians -- that resulted in mass rape, the sadistic dismemberment of Israeli women, mass murder and hostage taking, it is all a matter of humanitarian perspective. The Israel-persecuted Palestinians victims of a colonialist movement that Jews link to their ancestral homeland have the right, as 'victims' of Israeli intent to stop Palestinian incitement to murder of their civilians makes the pillage, rape, murder and abduction perfectly understandable as a courageous act of 'resistance'.

 

The language used by psychopathic terrorists who proudly speak of acts of 'resistance', so enamoured of their exploits in savagery in place of diplomacy that they recorded evidence of their own atrocities perpetrated against terrified, unarmed and vulnerable women, children and elderly civilians for social media displays of their courage in sending thousands of psychotic-prepped human predators into farming villages, and a music festival, to maim and to mutilate, to laugh at the plight of those they preyed upon, all justified in the opinion of the United Church, as a heroic display of the 'underdog' having its day. 

 

An estimated 100,000 people marched across the Sydney Harbour Bridge in Australia on Aug. 3, 2025 in support of the Gazan people, including some demonstrators who waved the black flag of the ISIS terrorist group and burned an Australian flag. Photo by Dean Lewins / AAP Image via AP

 

For the United Church of Canada's scheduled annual general meeting, seven anti-Israel/pro-Palestinian recommendations appear on the  general council agenda. Although there are deadly conflicts taking place in Syria and Sudan among other regions, the entire focus of the church is the deadly misdemeanors it attributes to the Jewish state, against a neighbouring population which only wants what others have, recognition of their very own sovereign state. Only the Palestinians seek to achieve that goal not by the usual avenues, but through persuading the world that their 'victimhood' entitles them to a state. 

 

Portraying themselves as the victims and the Jews governing Israel as their sworn enemies to the extent that the Jewish agenda is one of genocide against Palestinians. This would be the very Palestinians whose leaders, time and again over the space of generations turned down one conciliatory offer after another from the Israeli leadership that would lead to recognition through diplomatic discussions and an agreement to live side by side as sovereign states in peace and stability. Although Israel declared itself prepared to recognize a Palestinian state, Palestinians refused to recognize the Jewish state.

 

A Jewish state, furthermore, where Palestinians, Kurds, Druze, Bedouin, Christians, Muslims and Jews all have equal rights to citizenship, as opposed to the Palestinian territories where Jewish presence is outlawed, despite that the Palestinians refer to Israel as an 'apartheid' state. In Israel, Christians and Muslims practise their religions freely, in the Palestinian territories Judaism is reviled. In Israel, it is forbidden by Islamic rules for Jews to pray at their own sacred ancestral holy site, atop the Temple Mount located in the Israeli/Jewish capital of Jerusalem; reserved for prayer only by Muslims.

 

View of the Temple Mount from the Jewish Quarter of Jerusalem's Old City. Photo: Benjamin Mazar

 

The United Church's Lansdowne's position is clear and  unequivocal: Israel has no rights. A pastoral letter of October 2024 spoke of "recognizing and rejecting Israel's apartheid system of laws and legal procedures towards the Palestinian people". This, speaking of a reality where minority groups enjoy full citizenship and voting rights as citizens of Israel. An Israel which in 2005 unilaterally pulled out Israeli settlers from Gaza, to leave it Judenfrei to benefit the Palestinians living there with the opportunity to develop the region in preparation for sovereignty. Which instead saw the 'occupation' of Hamas and its charter of the destruction of Israel.

 

The church saw fit last year in November to send a letter to the Canadian government supporting Francesca Albanese, the UN special rapporteur for the Palestinian Territories whose own outspoken virulent antisemitism has gained her a questionable reputation, along with an impassioned following of outright anti-Jew campaigners. Israel in the letter, was accused of committing "state-sponsored terror"; the government was advised to adopt recommendations by Albanese, such as forcing Israel to a ceasefire, recognizing it as an apartheid state, and investigating it for war crimes. "Act now to end the  genocide, dismantle apartheid, stop the killing and work for peace based on justice", the letter concluded. 

 

Staged photos purporting to show starving Gazans are widely publicized, but pictures such as this, showing Israeli hostage Evyatar David being forced to dig his own grave, are barely mentioned. Photo by Ezzedine al-Qassam Brigades/AFP

 

"When we talk about the right of Israel to defend itself, it has the right to defend itself from attacks by other nation states, so it has the right to defend itself from any of its Arab neighbours."

"It does not, under international law, have the right to defend itself against the resistance of the people it is occupying as a military power."

"It has the obligation to show restraint."

Rev.Carmen Lansdowne