The General Synod on the Israel-Palestine issue

The General Synod has today decided to instruct the Central Board of the Church of Sweden:

• to send the Kairos Palestine document and the international committee’s response to the members of the General Synod.
• to continue its efforts to demand an end to the Israeli occupation of the West Bank, East Jerusalem and Gaza and to recommend the parishes to follow the exhortations in the Kairos Palestine document to suspend investments, introduce sanctions and boycott companies and products from the Israeli settlements in the occupied Palestine territories, the West Bank and East Jerusalem, and to support the forces in Gaza that are working for democracy and human rights and demand that the current Israeli blockade of the Gaza Strip is terminated
• to continue to demand an end to the Israeli occupation of the West Bank, East Jerusalem and Gaza
• call on the Swedish government to petition in favour of Palestine being accepted as a full Member State of the UN
• continue actively to work towards a peaceful and just solution to the Israel-Palestine conflict
• declare that the Church of Sweden demands an end to the Israeli occupation and the establishment of a Palestinian State alongside the State of Israel in accordance with UN resolutions, on the basis of negotiations between the parties the Church of Sweden fully supports Israel as a sovereign State within internationally recognised borders, just as we fully support a sovereign Palestinian State in Gaza and on the West Bank, including East Jerusalem; this means a two-State solution, based on the 1967 borders
• declare that the Church of Sweden demands an end to both Palestinian and Israeli violence against civilians and that human rights be respected and international law be observed by both sides in the conflict.