Controversial religious leader Jeremiah Wright on Saturday compared minority populations to Palestinians, even going so far as to claim “Jesus was a Palestinian” and blasting Israel as an “apartheid state.”
Mr. Wright, who once served as pastor to President Obama at Trinity United, was one of many speakers at an event called “Justice or Else!” at the culmination of the Million Man March 20th anniversary in Washington, D.C., on Saturday. The rally sought to channel the energy of the Black Lives Matter movement.
“The same issue is being fought today and has been fought since 1948, and historians are carried back to the 19th century … when the original people, the Palestinians — and please remember, Jesus was a Palestinian — the Palestinian people had the Europeans come and take their country,” Mr. Wright said, The Hill reported.
He compared the plight of black people in the U.S. to Palestinians in Israel.
“The youth in Ferguson and the youth in Palestine have united together to remind us that the dots need to be connected,” Mr. Wright said. “And what Dr. King said, injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere, has implications for us as we stand beside our Palestinian brothers and sisters, who have been done one of the most egregious injustices in the 20th and 21st centuries.”
He added that in Israel, there is “an apartheid wall being built twice the size of the Berlin Wall in height, keeping Palestinians off of illegally occupied territories, where the Europeans have claimed that land as their own.”
SEE ALSO: Black men call for change at Million Man March anniversary
Then-Sen. Barack Obama left Mr. Wright’s church in 2008 and has since denounced anti-American sermons delivered by Mr. Wright.
• Kellan Howell can be reached at khowell@washingtontimes.com.
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