Nation of Islam leader urges rapper Kanye West not to ‘bow to pressure’ by ADL suggestion to recant, says the performer was right and has no reasons to apologize.
Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan defended Kanye West’s remarks on Jewish “connections” in a video released over the weekend and carried by the Hip-Hop DX website.
Minister Louis Farrakhan displays the book, “The Secret Relationship Between Blacks and Jews,” during a speech on March 25, 2011.- Photo: AP
In the video, Farrakjan urges the rapper not to “bow to pressure” by the Anti-Defamation League, which deemed the comments anti-Semitic and called on West to “take responsibility… and apologize” for his words.
In a radio interview on November 26, West said: “People want to say Obama can’t make these moves or he’s not executing. That’s because he ain’t got those connections. Black people don’t have the same level of connections as Jewish people.”
Kanye West. – Photo: AP
The ADL issued a statement decrying West’s remarks. “There it goes again, the age-old canard that Jews are all-powerful and control the levers of power in government. As a celebrity with a wide following, Kanye West should know better.”
Farrakhan, meanwhile, said that West should not apologize because what he said was the “truth.”
“You wouldn’t put that small-time stuff over on me that you put on scared-to-death Negroes that if they mention ‘Jew’ and you call them ‘anti-Semitic’ they start bowing to you and your pressure,” Farrakhan says. “Kanye West, don’t bow to the pressure to bow to apologize to anybody. You said nothing wrong.”
View original HAARETZ publication at: http://www.haaretz.com/news/world/1.563982
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