Jeremiah Wright, the controversial pastor who preached at a church that used to be attended by U.S. President Obama, said on Saturday that "Jesus was a Palestinian." Speaking at a Nation of Islam event in Washington, Wright also alluded to Israel as an apartheid state and drew a parallel between "the youth in Ferguson and the youth in Palestine." "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," Wright said, according to the news website The Hill. Wright, who led Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago from 1972 to 2008, spoke at a Nation of Islam event titled "Justice or Else!" on the 20th anniversary of the Million Man March. Wright was one of several speakers at the event, which also included Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan. The mother of Trayvon Martin, was killed in Florida in 2012 in a case that inflamed racial tensions, spoke as well. Wright began his speech with the traditional Muslim greeting "Salaam aleikum," The Blaze website reported, and went on to say: "The youth in Ferguson and the youth in Palestine have united together to remind us that the dots need to be connected. And what Dr. [Martin Luther] 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." Wright also linked the "Black Lives Matter" movement to the Palestinian cause in other statements. "Palestinians are saying 'Palestinian lives matter.' We stand with you, we support you, we say God bless you," he said. Although Wright did not mention the Israelis by name, according to The Blaze he referenced an "apartheid wall" being built by an occupying force. "As we sit here, 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," he said. Obama said he left the church in 2008 and has denounced some of Wright's remarks. In a 2009 interview with The Daily Press, Wright said that he had not seen Obama since he was elected president because "them Jews ain't going to let him talk to me."
