BREAKING NEWS

Missouri church group condemns Black Lives Matter statement on Israel

An association of hundreds of predominantly African-American churches in Missouri condemned the recent platform of the Black Lives Matter movement labeling Israel an “apartheid state” and accusing it of genocide.
In a statement published Sunday in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Bishop Lawrence Wooten, president of the St. Louis chapter of the Ecumenical Leadership Council of Missouri, said that while Black Lives Matter plays a “vital role” in addressing racial violence by police, its language on Israel was misplaced.
“The Ecumenical Leadership Council of Missouri, representing hundreds of predominantly African-American churches throughout the state, rejects without hesitation any notion or assertion that Israel operates as an apartheid country,” Wooten wrote. “We embrace our Jewish brethren in America and respect Israel as a Jewish state. Jewish-Americans have worked with African-Americans during the civil rights era when others refused us service at the counter — and worse.”