The Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan, 90, has filed a $4.8 billion lawsuit in Manhattan federal court against the Anti-Defamation League civil rights group, alleging defamation for having been called an antisemite.
"This lawsuit is to ensure that the abuse, misuse, and false use of the terms 'anti-Semite,' 'anti-Semitic,' and 'antisemitism,' as falsely charged by the [ADL] is permanently barred from being a tool to defame [Farrakhan and the Nation of Islam] and stifle the exercise of constitutional rights," the lawsuit read, the New York Post reported Saturday.
The lawsuit "has no merit," according to ADL Director Jonathan Greenblatt.
"Louis Farrakhan is an antisemite," Greenblatt told the Post. "One need look no further than his own words and statements to come away with the same conclusion."
Farrakhan has had an oft-criticized and detailed past of having made statements against the nation of Israel and Jews, according to the Post, including calling Jews "satanic" controllers of government and Hollywood, according to the Post, which added he also called Adolf Hitler, orchestrator of the Holocaust, a "great man."
But, Farrakhan alleged in his multibillion-dollar lawsuit the labeling of him as antisemitic is a "false narrative" pushed by the ADL, according to the report.
"So when they talk about Farrakhan, call me a hater, you know what they do: Call me an antisemite; stop it. I'm anti-termite," Farrakhan infamously stated.
The lawsuit argues Farrakhan "has never harmed a hair on the head of any Jewish person or even advocated for such."
Farrakhan called out the "battle of biblical proportions" against the ADL in the lawsuit filing, which included 787 pages, arguing against his being deemed antisemitic, according to the Post.
"The Jews have been so bad at politics they lost half their population in the Holocaust," Farrakhan said in a 1998 speech, according to the Post.
"Jews are responsible for all this filth and degenerate behavior that Hollywood is putting out," he said in 2018, the Post reported.
Farrakhan's lawsuit claimed the defamation of him as an "antisemite" goes back to his 1984 presidential endorsement for the Rev. Jesse Jackson after he referred to Jews with a racial slur.
"It is because of Minister Farrakhan's unwavering defense of himself and Reverend Jackson that the ADL began plastering him with the false and injurious label of 'anti-Semite,'" the lawsuit read, according to the Post.
Eric Mack ✉
Eric Mack has been a writer and editor at Newsmax since 2016. He is a 1998 Syracuse University journalism graduate and a New York Press Association award-winning writer.
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