Simon Wiesenthal Center condemns Farrakhan's July 4th speech on Revolt TV
During his three-hour July 4th speech, Farrakhan, 87, repeated criticism of Jews, who he said had supplanted the Torah with the Talmud.
By JERUSALEM POST STAFFReligious leader Louis Farrakhan gives the keynote speech at the Nation of Islam Saviours' Day convention in Detroit, Michigan, U.S. February 19, 2017.(photo credit: REUTERS/REBECCA COOK)
The Simon Wiesenthal Center condemned an Independence Day address featuring Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan, who appeared on rapper, singer, songwriter Sean "Puff Daddy" Combs' Revolt TV - broadcast on YouTube - to lecture on racism, police brutality and the coronavirus pandemic.Farrakhan, who has led the Nation of Islam, a Black Muslim group, since 1977, has a long history of antisemitic comments. He has praised Adolf Hitler, repeated longtime stereotypes about Jewish control and manipulation, referred to Jews as “termites” and repeatedly denounced what he calls the “Synagogue of Satan.”Farrakhan has also engaged in promoting antisemitic conspiracy theories, such as Jewish and Israeli involvement in the September 11 terrorist attacks in the US.During his three-hour July 4th speech, Farrakhan, 87, repeated criticism of Jews, who he said had supplanted the Torah with the Talmud. “They made that word in their minds and in their believers’ minds greater than God’s word,” he said.But he said he harbored no ill will toward Jews. “If you really think I hate the Jewish people, you don’t know me at all,” he said. “[I’ve never] uttered the words of 'death to the Jewish people.'”“At this stage of history, no one can be surprised by rants of America’s Godfather of antisemitism, not lurid by lurid antisemitic conspiracy linking Jewish state to death of George Floyd," said Associate Dean of Simon Wiesenthal Center Rabbi Abraham Cooper. "Bad enough his anti-Jewish libels were apparently watched by 100,000. Imagine if Fox had run it parallel to the DC July 4thcelebrations on its new platform. SWC awaits condemnation of Farrakhan’s antisemitic screeds by leading American political, cultural and social influencers."His speech, titled “The Criterion,” originally was to be broadcast Saturday by Fox Soul TV, a streaming TV channel launched earlier this year by 20th Century Fox focused on reaching Black Americans.But five days after announcing the speech, the channel had drawn so much criticism because of Farrakhan’s record that it replaced him with a program featuring speeches from Black leaders throughout American history.The center called on Fox to cancel Farrakhan's speech due to his long record of making inflammatory and antisemitic statements, including suggestions that Jews controlled the trans-Atlantic slave trade and calling Judaism a "gutter religion."“They tell lies to make you think I am a bigot or antisemite, so that you won’t listen to what I’m saying. So far they’ve been pretty successful,” he said during his speech. Marcy Oster/JTA contributed to this report.
