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NY Court Rules Jewish Groups Can Continue to Call Louis Farrakhan ‘Antisemitic’
Louis Farrakhan gives the keynote speech at the Nation of Islam Saviours’ Day convention in Detroit, Michigan, U.S. February 19, 2017. Photo: REUTERS/Rebecca Cook.
A Manhattan federal court ruled that the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) and Simon Wiesenthal Center (SWC) can continue to label comments made by Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan as “antisemitic” and dismissed a $4.8 billion defamation lawsuit brought by Farrakhan against the two Jewish organizations.
“We are grateful that the United States judicial system recognized and validated our First Amendment right to confront and speak out against antisemitism by dismissing Louis Farrakhan’s lawsuit and not-so-veiled attempt to silence the SWC and impede our mission,” Rabbi Abraham Cooper, SWC’s associate dean and global social action director, said on Monday.
“Unfortunately, the judicial system cannot defeat the antisemitic hate that Farrakhan has spawned and spread throughout America over the last four decades,” Rabbi Cooper added. “SWC will steadfastly uphold its commitment to pursue and to combat the racism and antisemitism that continues to target America’s Blacks and Jews.”
Farrakhan and the Nation of Islam, an Islamic and Black nationalist movement, filed a lawsuit in October 2023 against the SWC, Rabbi Cooper, the ADL and its CEO Jonathan Greenblatt. Farrakhan and NOI claimed that the defendants were defaming them by called their comments antisemitic.
In the past, Farrakhan has compared Jews to termites; described Judaism as a “dirty religion” and a “gutter religion”; called the Jewish people “Satan”; publicly questioned the Holocaust; shared anti-Israel conspiracy theories; and blamed Jews for pedophilia and sex trafficking. In a three-hour speech that he gave in 2020 on Fourth of July, he referred to Jews as “Satan” who should have their brains bashed by the “stone of truth.” Farrakhan is one of three Nation of Islam figures — the other two being Malcolm X and Elijah Muhammad – and has denied being an antisemite.
SWC argued that it has a constitutional right to comment on what it considers antisemitic hate speech. The organization stated in its brief that the plaintiffs “seek here to rewrite decades of legal precedent and overturn the First Amendment’s protection of free speech.”
Judge Denise Cote in the US Southern District of New York sided with the Jewish groups. He ruled that “the challenged statements referring to Farrakhan as antisemitic are non-actionable statements of opinion. The communications in which they were published contain ‘a recitation of facts on which (they are) based’ – namely direct quotes from Farrakhan.”
SWC’s attorney Julie Gerchik said after winning the dismissal: “We are pleased the Court affirmed the Constitution’s First Amendment right to free speech and recognized the plaintiffs’ transparent effort to weaponize the legal system to intimidate those calling out antisemitism and hate.”
The post NY Court Rules Jewish Groups Can Continue to Call Louis Farrakhan ‘Antisemitic’ first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Germany: 5 Killed, Scores Wounded after Saudi Man Plows Car Into Christmas crowd
Magdeburg Christmas market, December 21, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Christian Mang
i24 News – A suspected terrorist plowed a vehicle into a crowd at a Christmas market in the German city of Magdeburg, west of the capital Berlin, killing at least five and injuring dozens more.
Local police confirmed that the suspect was a Saudi national born in 1974 and acting alone.
German Chancellor Olaf Scholz expressed his concern about the incident, saying that “reports from Magdeburg suggest something bad. My thoughts are with the victims and their families.”
Police declined to give casualty numbers, confirming only a large-scale operation at the market, where people had gathered to celebrate in the days leading up to the Christmas holidays.
The post Germany: 5 Killed, Scores Wounded after Saudi Man Plows Car Into Christmas crowd first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Syria’s New Rulers Name HTS Commander as Defense Minister
A person waves a flag adopted by the new Syrian rulers, as people gather during a celebration called by Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) near the Umayyad Mosque, after the ousting of Syria’s Bashar al-Assad, in Damascus, Syria, Photo: December 20, 2024. REUTERS/Ammar Awad/File Photo
Syria’s new rulers have appointed Murhaf Abu Qasra, a leading figure in the insurgency which toppled Bashar al-Assad, as defense minister in the interim government, an official source said on Saturday.
Abu Qasra, who is also known by the nom de guerre Abu Hassan 600, is a senior figure in the Islamist Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) group which led the campaign that ousted Assad this month. He led numerous military operations during Syria’s revolution, the source said.
Syria’s de facto leader Ahmed al-Sharaa discussed “the form of the military institution in the new Syria” during a meeting with armed factions on Saturday, state news agency SANA reported.
Abu Qasra during the meeting sat next to Sharaa, also known by the nom de guerre Abu Mohammed al-Golani, photos published by SANA showed.
Prime Minister Mohammed al-Bashir said this week that the defense ministry would be restructured using former rebel factions and officers who defected from Assad’s army.
Bashir, who formerly led an HTS-affiliated administration in the northwestern province of Idlib, has said he will lead a three-month transitional government. The new administration has not declared plans for what will happen after that.
Earlier on Saturday, the ruling General Command named Asaad Hassan al-Shibani as foreign minister, SANA said. A source in the new administration told Reuters that this step “comes in response to the aspirations of the Syrian people to establish international relations that bring peace and stability.”
Shibani, a 37-year-old graduate of Damascus University, previously led the political department of the rebels’ Idlib government, the General Command said.
Sharaa’s group was part of al Qaeda until he broke ties in 2016. It had been confined to Idlib for years until going on the offensive in late November, sweeping through the cities of western Syria and into Damascus as the army melted away.
Sharaa has met with a number of international envoys this week. He has said his primary focus is on reconstruction and achieving economic development and that he is not interested in engaging in any new conflicts.
Syrian rebels seized control of Damascus on Dec. 8, forcing Assad to flee after more than 13 years of civil war and ending his family’s decades-long rule.
Washington designated Sharaa a terrorist in 2013, saying al Qaeda in Iraq had tasked him with overthrowing Assad’s rule and establishing Islamic sharia law in Syria. US officials said on Friday that Washington would remove a $10 million bounty on his head.
The war has killed hundreds of thousands of people, caused one of the biggest refugee crises of modern times and left cities bombed to rubble and the economy hollowed out by global sanctions.
The post Syria’s New Rulers Name HTS Commander as Defense Minister first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Sweden Ends Funding for UNRWA, Pledges to Seek Other Aid Channels
View of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) building in Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip. Photo: Abed Rahim Khatib / Flash90.
i24 News – Sweden will no longer fund the U.N. refugee agency for Palestinians (UNRWA) and will instead provide humanitarian assistance to Gaza via other channels, the Scandinavian country said on Friday.
The decision comes on the heels of multiple revelations regarding the agency’s employees’ involvement in the October 7, 2023, Hamas-led massacre in southern Israel that triggered the war in Gaza.
Sweden’s decision was in response to the Israeli ban, as it will make channeling aid via the agency more difficult, the country’s aid minister, Benjamin Dousa, said.
“Large parts of UNRWA’s operations in Gaza are either going to be severely weakened or completely impossible,” Dousa said. “For the government, the most important thing is that support gets through.”
The Palestinian embassy in Stockholm said in a statement: “We reject the idea of finding alternatives to UNRWA, which has a special mandate to provide services to Palestinian refugees.”
Israeli Deputy Foreign Minister Sharren Haskel thanked Dousa for a meeting they had this week and for Sweden’s decision to drop its support for UNRWA.
“There are worthy and viable alternatives for humanitarian aid, and I appreciate the willingness to listen and adopt a different approach,” she said.
The post Sweden Ends Funding for UNRWA, Pledges to Seek Other Aid Channels first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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