Nation of Islam and antisemitism
Scholars of comparative religion have argued that the Nation of Islam is antisemitic and advocates Holocaust denial.
For instance, in the Global Journal of Classical Theology, Professor Richard V. Pierard writes: Holocaust denial is a stock in trade of Ku Klux Klan, Neo-Nazi, Skinhead...and one also finds it in Black hate groups like Louis Farrakhan's Nation of Islam, some Afrocentrist writers, and in Arab anti-Israel rhetoric.
Over the years, NOI ministers and representatives have regularly expressed anti-Semitic, anti-white, anti-homosexual and anti-Catholic sentiments in their speeches.
Hating in the Name of God, by Benjamin Radford (Council for Secular Humanism website), and Madeline Weld's address to the 1995 annual meeting of the Humanist Association of Canada are examples of such criticism.
And the same year they set up the Anti-Defamation League of B'nai Brith...It could be a coincidence...[I want] to see Black intellectuals free...I want to see them not controlled by members of the Jewish community.
[20] The book has been labeled an antisemitic canard by historians including Saul S. Friedman, who has written that Jews had a minimal role in New World slave trade.
[5] Henry Louis Gates, head of the department of Afro-American studies at Harvard University, called the book "the bible of new anti-Semitism" and added, "The book massively misinterprets the historical record, largely through a process of cunningly selective quotations of often reputable sources.
For example, in his Saviours' Day speech in Chicago, Illinois, February 25, 1996, Louis Farrakhan stated: And you do with me as is written, but remember that I have warned you that Allah will punish you.
[28] Alex Haley, the autobiography's co-author, had to rewrite some of the book in order to eliminate a number of negative statements about Jews in the manuscript.
[29] Malcolm X believed that the fabricated antisemitic text Protocols of the Elders of Zion, was authentic and introduced it to NOI members, while blaming Jewish people for "perfecting the modern evil" of neo-colonialism.
[32] In 1961, Malcolm X spoke at a NOI rally alongside George Lincoln Rockwell, the head of the American Nazi Party.
"[36] In a letter responding to Anti-Defamation League (ADL) Director Abraham Foxman's insistence that black leaders distance themselves from the Nation of Islam, hip hop mogul Russell Simmons wrote: "Simply put, you are misguided, arrogant, and very disrespectful of African Americans and most importantly your statements will unintentionally or intentionally lead to a negative impression of Jews in the minds of millions of African Americans," he continued, "For over 50 years, Minister Farrakhan has labored to resurrect the downtrodden masses of African Americans up out of poverty and self-destruction" and indicated that he had personally witnessed Farrakhan affirm, 'A Muslim can not hate a Jew.
Echoing white supremacist propaganda, he holds that Jewish people undermined German society, and thus deserved to be targeted by the Nazis.
Tim Russert, during a 1997 Meet the Press interview with Louis Farrakhan, posed the question, "Do you believe there was a Holocaust in which 6 million Jews perished?"
What is wrong with reconciliation between those who looked the other way when my fathers were being brought into America as slaves, and to this very moment have not received justice?
[41] He reportedly met with leaders of the Ku Klux Klan in 1961 to work toward the purchase of farmland in the Deep South.
[43] George Lincoln Rockwell, founder of the American Nazi Party once called Muhammad "the Hitler of the black man.
