By Dr. Michael A. Stevens, Sr. — On behalf of the Black Christian Leadership Council on Israel RelationsThe world has watched, and the world has judged. Across every news cycle and every social media feed, the script reads the same: Israel is the aggressor. Israel is the obstacle to peace. What rarely follows is the data.
The data tells a different story. Since April 17, 2026, Hezbollah has launched more than 900 rockets into northern Israel, sent more than 1,300 drones — over 340 of them explosive — and fired two dozen anti-tank missiles at Israeli positions. All of it while a ceasefire is supposed to be in effect. Eleven Israelis have been killed in that window. More than 225 wounded. This is not aggression in defense. This is aggression in spite of a signed truce.
For the Black Christian Leadership Council on Israel Relations, the gap between global perception and verified proof is a moral emergency. The African American community knows what it means when narrative outruns truth. We refuse to let that happen to the Jewish State on our watch.
Consider what Hezbollah has done with the cover the ceasefire was meant to provide. According to the Israel Defense Forces, weapons launchers have been hidden inside civilian homes after firing, then moved into school buildings. A government hospital in Bint Jbeil was found stocked with weapons. Rockets have been launched from civilian compounds and relocated into a clothing store. Ambulances have been used to ferry combatants out of fire zones. Weapons have been found in children’s bedrooms. Tunnel networks dubbed “refuge cities” run beneath the streets of southern Lebanese villages.
Each of these is a war crime. Each is also a strategy — a deliberate calculation that the Jewish State will either strike the civilian shield and be condemned, or refrain and be killed. Israel has been navigating that trap with extraordinary restraint. The global press, by and large, has refused to say so.
Dr. King once warned of “the appalling silence of the good people.” We apply that warning now to the pulpits, podiums, and platforms that should know better. When more than 900 rockets fly at a sovereign neighbor and the headlines focus only on the return fire, that is not journalism. That is participation in the lie.
Let us be plain. Israel is keeping the ceasefire. Israel is engaged in historic diplomatic negotiations between Jerusalem and Beirut. Israel is responding, when she responds, to documented launches against her territory — launches any other nation on earth would treat as an act of war.
We are not naive about the suffering of the Lebanese people, including our Christian Arab brothers and sisters. The tragedy of Lebanon is that an Iranian-backed terrorist organization has taken civilian infrastructure hostage and dared the world to look away. The path to relief for Lebanon does not run through condemning Israel. It runs through disarming Hezbollah.
By Dr. Michael A. Stevens
Scripture is plain: “I will bless those who bless you, and whoever curses you I will curse” (Genesis 12:3). Less than two weeks before his death, Dr. King told the Rabbinical Assembly that “peace for Israel means security, and we must stand with all our might to protect its right to exist.” That is not the language of a man hedging his bets. That is the language of a man who knew which side history would judge.
Sixty years ago this November, Dr. King prepared for a journey to the Holy Land he never lived to take. The bullet that ended his life ended that trip. It did not end his vision.
To our Jewish friends: you are not alone. The alliance forged at the founding of the NAACP, in the schoolhouses built by Booker T. Washington and Julius Rosenwald, in Selma where Rabbi Heschel’s feet prayed beside Dr. King, in the Mississippi soil where James Chaney lay beside Andrew Goodman and Michael Schwerner — that alliance is alive. And it is standing with you.
To our brothers and sisters in the Black church: this is our moment. Speak. Preach. Post. Pray. Stand.
When the cameras have moved on, the rockets will still be flying. The drones will still be launching. The tunnels will still be running. The question history will ask of us is not whether we knew. The question is whether we said.
We did. We do. We will.
Co-signed by the leadership of The Council
Dr. Michael A. Stevens, Sr.
Founder; Michael A. Stevens International Ministries, Inc.
Pastor Dumisani Washington
Founder & CEO, Institute for Black Solidarity with Israel
Pastor Valerie Washington
Chief Operating Officer, Institute for Black Solidarity with Israel
Dr. Brandy Frances Gibson
President, BF Gibson & Associates, LLC
Rev. Reginald W. Gibson
President, Dunamis Film Studios
Pastor Roger Cheeks
Director of Outreach, International Fellowship of Christians and Jews
About The Council
The Black Christian Leadership Council on Israel Relations (“The Council”) is a national collective of influential Black American Christian leaders united by decades of trusted experience in Israel advocacy and Black–Jewish relations. Formed in response to the alarming rise of global antisemitism and increasing hostility toward the State of Israel, The Council exists to ensure that the historic and essential voice of Black America remains clear, credible, and influential in standing with Israel and the Jewish people.
Standing together. Bridging communities.