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Georgia candidate compared Netanyahu to segregationist, warned of ‘apartheid in Israel’

“Palestinian lives matter,” said Warlock in a 2018 sermon, two years after he compared Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to segregationist George Wallace.

By Josh Plank, World Israel News

Raphael Warnock, a Democratic senate candidate in Georgia’s runoff elections, compared Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to segregationist and former Alabama Gov. George Wallace during a 2016 sermon, Fox News reported Wednesday.

Warnock called Netanyahu’s opposition to a two-state solution “tantamount to saying occupation today, occupation tomorrow, occupation forever,” a line reminiscent of Wallace’s call for, “segregation now, segregation tomorrow, and segregation forever.”

According to Fox, Warnock went on to argue that there could be no democracy in Israel without a two-state solution because of the disenfranchisement of Arab voters.

“If you don’t have a Palestinian state, you cannot have a Jewish democracy,” he said.

“That state will either be Jewish, or it will be a democracy. It cannot be both,” said Warnock.

He said that unless a Palestinian state is established, “You will have to have apartheid in Israel that denies other citizens, sisters and brothers, citizenship.”

On Wednesday, Warnock received the endorsement of the Democratic Majority for Israel, an organization that “fights for progressive values including a strong U.S.-Israel relationship.”

In 2019, Warnock signed a letter that likened Israeli control of Judea and Samaria to “previous oppressive regimes” such as “apartheid South Africa.”

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Warnock attempted to walk back the statements Tuesday night in a virtual campaign event aimed at winning over Jewish voters.

“I do not believe Israel is an ‘apartheid state’ as some have suggested,” Warnock said.

“It’s a complicated situation, and its one that I will always engage as a principled and honest broker, who both affirms human rights and at the same time is trying to get us to a place where Israel can exist alongside its neighbors in peace,” he said.

A video surfaced last month of another of Warnock’s sermons, during which he criticized Israel after the Trump administration moved the U.S. embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem in 2018.

“We saw the government of Israel shoot down unarmed Palestinian sisters and brothers like birds of prey. And I don’t care who does it; it’s wrong,” he said.

“It’s wrong to shoot down God’s children like they don’t matter at all. And it’s no more anti-Semitic for me to say that than it is anti-white for me to say that black lives matter. Palestinian lives matter,” Warnock said.

Prior to Warnock’s run for senate, he served as the senior pastor of Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta since 2005.