Jews are now facing “judgment” and daily “calamity” for “the horror of what [their] parents have done to black people in America and throughout the world,” according to Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan, who defended Ye and Kyrie Irving’s recent antisemitic scandals as he demanded that Jews pay “reparation,” repent for their “evil to us” and apologize for the transatlantic slave trade.
In a speech livestreamed on “The Collective 9” YouTube channel on Thursday, Farrakhan addressed Brooklyn Nets star Kyrie Irving who was suspended for five games earlier this month after failing to disavow antisemitic beliefs following his plugging a 2018 film — Hebrews to Negroes: Wake Up Black America — based on a book full of “antisemitic disinformation.”
Irving later echoed rapper Ye (formerly known as Kanye West), who is also currently mired in controversy over anti-Jewish remarks, saying he could not be antisemitic if he knew where he came from.
“Kyrie found something,” said Farrakhan, who heads the nation’s largest and best-known black nationalist group.
Regarding demands for a sincere apology on Irving’s part, the provocative Muslim minister said: “He kept telling you: ‘I can’t be anti-myself,’ [but] you didn’t want to hear that.”
Addressing the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) — which rejected Irving’s attempted $500,000 donation on Thursday — Farrakhan stated: “We know you, and we know that we know you, and you know that we know you.”
He then appeared to accuse Jews of having perpetrated “evil” against black people worldwide.
“Don’t talk to Kyrie by himself” about looking at “the horror of the Holocaust,” he said. “Why don’t you come and look at the horror of what your parents have done to black people in America and throughout the world.”
“Why don’t you come and study and repent of your evil to us?” he added.
He also claimed to be familiar with Jewish history and the “Torah” — which typically refers to the first five books of the Old Testament — and demanded that Jews leave black people alone.
“If you want our brothers to come and sit with your rabbis and visit the Holocaust museum, why not let one of our scholars come and sit with them?” he asked. “Because we know the Torah, by God’s grace, [and] we know the Talmud, and we know you and your history.”
“Leave our people alone,” he added.
Furthermore, Farrakhan accused Jews of being hypocritical and disregardful of black people.
“We have never done to you and your people what you and your people have done to us,” he said. “We don’t need to go see the Holocaust; we feel your pain because we are really human beings.”
“You don’t feel ours because, to you, a thousand blacks ain’t worth the fingernail of a Jewish man,” he added. “I’ve read these things.”
The radical religious leader then peddled the debunked myth that Jews dominated the transatlantic slave trade — of which numerous religious and ethnic groups worldwide participated in, including thousands of New World blacks who, despite having either been emancipated or descendants of freed slaves, became slaveholding planters or farmers themselves.
“Tell me something: How many of you would sit down and apologize to us for the transatlantic slave trade?” he asked. “You come now; bring your wife and your children and tell us you’re sorry for killing us, raping us, castrating us, enslaving us, and making us chattel.”
“Will you come and apologize?” he asked, adding that “reparation is what we deserve for the pain and anguish that you have caused us to suffer.”
Farrakhan then argued that the Jewish people’s lack of justice is the reason for the frequent calamities that befall them.
“No, no, no, but you won’t do that; you won’t do justice by us,” he said. “That’s why judgment is on you now; that’s why you can’t live a day without another calamity.”
“And they’re not going to stop; it’s going to get harder and harder, because the God of justice has claimed us,” he added. “Kyrie, and Ye, and [Kevin] Durant, and [Charles] Barkley, and Shaq, we belong to God — not you.”
Farrakhan, who once described ascending into a flying saucer and hearing the voice of Nation of Islam leader Elijah Muhammad predicting historical events that came to pass, has long railed against white people, Jews, and the United States.
In 2015, Farrakhan said that then-Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump wanting to make America great again and the success of ISIS are both signs God is judging the United States and, “The battle is on and the plagues are coming down on America.”
In the past, the Nation of Islam leader charged that black men and women “have always been looked upon as the property of white America; and particularly, members of the Jewish community,” and that white people “are potential humans” who “haven’t evolved yet.”
In April, Capitol Hill police officer William Evans was killed by a knife-wielding man in a violent ramming attack at the Capitol.
The suspect was identified as a follower of Farrakhan’s.
In February, Farrakhan attacked the United States in a four-hour speech peppered with antisemitic rhetoric, accusing the U.S. of harming and killing millions of people domestically and “around the world,” while claiming America has yet to pay for its crimes and would fall — along with Russia and “all white power” — with the recent conflict in Ukraine paving the way.
In 2020, Farrakhan’s Nation of Islam channel was removed from YouTube for advancing antisemitic claims.
Follow Joshua Klein on Twitter @JoshuaKlein.
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