(JTA) — Minister Louis Farrakhan at the Nation of Islam’s annual meeting accused the Jewish community of pushing the United States into war with Libya and Iran.
“President Obama, if you allow the Zionists to push you, to mount a military offensive against Gadhafi, and you go in and kill him and his sons as you did with Saddam Hussein and his sons, I’m warning you this is a Libyan problem, let the Libyans solve their problem among themselves,” Farrakhan said Feb. 27 during an address to the Nation of Islam’s 2011 Saviours’ Day convention in Rosemont, Ill., near Chicago.
Farrakhan, who has a long history of anti-Semitic and racist statements, also said that “Zionists dominate the government of the United States of America and her banking system.”
"Some of you think that I’m just somebody who’s got something out for the Jewish people. You’re stupid. Do you think I would waste my time if I did not think it was important for you to know Satan? My job is to pull the cover off of Satan so that he will never deceive you and the people of the world again,” he continued.
The Anti-Defamation League condemned Farrakhan’s statements. “Anti-Semitism has suffused the Nation of Islam’s message, and Farrakhan is the standard bearer and bigot-in-chief,” said Abraham Foxman, ADL national director in a statement. “For the past two years he has put anti-Semitism front and center on the agenda, so that it is now a drumbeat heard across the organization. And perhaps what’s more disturbing is that despite his anti-Semitic rants, he has not been made a pariah in his own community. What does it take for him to stop being a pied piper of hatred?”
During the convention, other speakers accused Jews of controlling the media and called for the Nation of Islam’s anti-Semitic books to be taught in schools nationwide. The convention’s opening plenary session, titled “The Secret Relationship Between Blacks and Jews,” tried to demonstrate disproportionate Jewish involvement in the slave trade and to blame Jews for black suffering ever since.
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