Farrakhan Responds to Israel-Hamas War with Antisemitic Conspiracy Theories
Addressing Netanyahu and Jews living in Israel, Farrakhan stated: “You’re gonna have to think about returning to Europe, because you’re not gonna stay in the Middle East. You’re not going to stay there!” Speaking about terrorists who have attacked Israel, Farrakhan stated: “I’m not angry with the Palestinians who strap bombs on themselves, because they are sacrificing the only thing left for them. It’s their lives, and they were giving Israel hell.”
Farrakhan criticized United States President Joe Biden for supposedly “bowing down” to Netanyahu’s demands, alleging that this subservience was part of a larger pattern in which Jews and Israel have “manipulated” every American president for decades. “The whole world right now is enslaved — and America is the greatest enslaved nation — by the Synagogue of Satan,” Farrakhan stated, using the derogatory phrase often employed by antisemites to refer to Jews and Judaism.
Farrakhan shared other familiar claims regarding alleged Jewish power and control — claims which he has stated repeatedly in his 40-plus year tenure as the NOI’s leader — including allegations that Jews established the Federal Reserve to manipulate the U.S. government to serve Jewish interests.
Farrakhan connected his commentary about Israel and Palestine to allegations about the treatment of Black people in the United States. Farrakhan told the audience: “Now, some of you, my Black brothers and sisters, you are not concerned about the Middle East…[but] your extermination is being planned as well.” Echoing his previous conspiratorial claims about the COVID-19 vaccine, Farrakhan added: “The government put a great hit on us in a vaccine…They are trying to kill us softly with a vaccine.” Farrakhan also accused the Anti-Defamation League of “taking policemen out of the American cities to Israel to learn the techniques of how to break you into pieces…The ADL is bringing police and teaching them how to kill us. And they’re vicious murderers.”
Farrakhan also repeated familiar claims alleging that Jews aim to disrupt any attempts at Black unity in the U.S. and that Jews have exerted control over Black Americans via the establishment and continued control of the NAACP. He further stated that even though many Black people know the so-called “truth” about Jews, they stay silent for fear of losing their Jewish-controlled jobs and assets.
Commenting on supposed Jewish control of Black Americans, Farrakhan stated: “They have sentinels everywhere. And you know, a sentinel is a guard. You can’t be in medicine and not bow to Jewish power. You can’t be a lawyer and not bow. You can sing, right? You can dance. Oh man, you can play the instrument. But you need an agent. Who’s the agent? Uh-huh. Who is the person handling your finances? And when you look around, they’re arresting you for not paying your taxes, because the person you hired robbed you. But he can go free, but you can’t.”
As he has stated in past speeches, Farrakhan compared himself to Jesus: “[Jesus] beat the merchants out of the country, out of the Temple. And then he became hated by the Jews of that day, like I am hated by the Jews of this day.”
Farrakhan’s speech reflected the NOI’s decades-long history of making antisemitic, conspiratorial claims about Israel. Before Farrakhan delivered his live address on Sunday, NOI Student National Assistant Minister Ishmael Muhammad gave introductory remarks and set the stage for the afternoon by playing a video clip of Farrakhan’s 1985 speech at the Forum in Inglewood, CA in which he spoke about Jews and Israel: “It is because of your disbelief in God and your disbelief in the scriptures and your wicked hypocrisy that you could not wait, therefore you marshaled your own forces to steal land from the Palestinians…Don’t I have a right to criticize Jewish behavior if I think it is incorrect?”
The article is published courtesy of the Anti-Defamation League (ADL).
