[Editor’s note: The following article contains excerpts from the keynote address delivered by the Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan on the occasion of Saviours’ Day, held at Huntington Place in Detroit, Michigan, on Sunday, February 25, 2024.]
As-Salaam Alaikum! (Peace be unto you!)
In The Name of Allah, The Beneficent, The Merciful. I bear witness that there is no God but Allah, and He came in the Person of Master Fard Muhammad, The Great Mahdi, Who was prophesied to come to the Muslim world and to the entire world, to guide us back to the straight path of God. Because many of us, if not all of us, have lost our way because Satan has become the winner over the prophets of God, and he has made his wicked life the life of the people. And we have followed Satan not knowing, not believing that we are not “the children of God,” our actions show us that we have become the children of Satan.
Jesus said in the Book of John, Chapter 8, verse 32: “And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.” You would not follow Satan if you knew him! So, he is a smart, crooked deceiver; he will make us think he is of God to deceive the people of God.
The Instructions received that prepared God’s Servant for this hour
Now, I have so much to say; my cup is really running over, and I can’t give it all to you today. But God will not be pleased with me if I didn’t give you what He gave me for you. You say, “Well, how did He do that? Tell us, Farrakhan!” He gave me the subject matter. Ain’t nobody put up a subject like that if you’re not in contact with The Three that you’re talking about! Oh, you didn’t hear me… See, it’s time out for you to say, “I talked with God last night.” I’m sure you can! But if you don’t get an answer…(Smile). We all talk to God, that love Him. But I talk to Him, too, and He talks back to me—and that’s a big difference. And you will know that if you stay with me a few more minutes.
I never dreamed, when I became a follower of the Honorable Elijah Muhammad, that I would end up being his Chief Helper. And he looked me in my face and told me, “I did not make you, brother.” … [I responded,] “But the only man I know that made me is you!” He didn’t pay me no attention, he just said: “Brother, I did not make you. Allah made you for me.” While I was ignorant to that fact, he asked me if I would accept the mission that God gave to Him, and commit myself to this work of the resurrection of our people. He said, “Don’t worry about your family. If you accept to help me in this mission, Allah will take care of your family.” I can bear witness, and so can my family, that I sacrificed my life and my family for the cause that Elijah Muhammad put in front of me 68 years ago.
I came to the temple on Saviour’s Day 1955, not knowing that in 1954 at the Saviour’s Day meeting he (the Honorable Elijah Muhammad) had asked Allah to send him a little helper. And in 1955, a little boy out of Boston showed up. That man so impressed me … But when he started to speak: I was a student of English, and I kind of thought I knew it pretty well, and it didn’t seem like Mr. Muhammad had a good grasp on English; so, I was kind of critical. He had me placed in the balcony. First-timers don’t go in the balcony; first-timers in the mosque or temple stay right down front. My wife was down front with my new baby, Betsy Jean, who became Betsy Jean Farrakhan; she was about maybe 12 months and a few days old. And Elijah Muhammad looked up at me and said, “Brother, I didn’t get that mighty fine education that you got. When I got there the school door was closing. So don’t you pay no attention to how I am saying it, you pay attention to what I am saying, then you take it and put it in that fine language that you know. Only try to understand what I’m saying.”
He said that when I first came in the door! And 68, going on 69 years later, I bear witness that I heard him loud and clear. And my voice, my talent, my gifts, which are many: I put my whole life at his feet. So, when I stand before you today saying, “What Does Allah The Great Mahdi and The Great Messiah Have to Say About The War in The Middle East?” I couldn’t say that if I didn’t have contact with Them to tell me what is going on! And I know I am going to shake the world today with what I tell you that They told me!
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He told me to be quiet. The media started talking: “Well, why isn’t Farrakhan having something to say? He always has something to say on major events and whatnot.” Yeah, but He told me to be quiet. He sent a message to me in 1982 through a sister from Phoenix, Arizona. And Brother Jabril brought her to me in 1982 to give me the message that she had received. I was trying to raise $75,000 for the year’s work coming up, and The Saviour spoke to her, and told her: “Tell him $75,000 is no money! It’s going to take billions to raise up a nation.” He told me other things through her, but there was a part in what He told her that I didn’t hear. Sometimes when something is not for you, you won’t get it until it’s time.
So, I talked to her about two months ago, and I asked her to “Repeat what The Saviour told you.” She repeated it, and then I said, “Wow. There’s a part of that that I didn’t remember hearing. Would you say it again?” “Yes.” And I had two members of the executive and research team with me; I said, “The brothers are here; I want them to record your words.” And the brothers recorded her words. Here is what He told her to tell me then that didn’t make sense 42 years ago—but it was said then for 42 years later.
You say, “Well, why would God do something like that?” I had 42 years to work to prove myself worthy of what He said to her to tell me. And you know what He told her? He said, “Tell him to be quiet.” I didn’t remember that. But I was quiet already; because the media wanted to know, “What does Farrakhan have to say about the war?” and I wasn’t talking.
Some of my friends and helpers that are on this stage called me on the phone. Well, you know how those things work: You have a friend that can get to you; so, the people call their friend, and he being my friend, they’reasking questions (“What’s The Minister saying about what’s going on in Palestine and Israel?”) So, when the brother said, “I want to come and talk to you.” I said, “About what?” He said, “Well, uh, I just want to talk about things that are going on in the world.” I said, “Well, I’m not talking about the things that are going on in the world, because I know the minute I tell you, you’re going to tell your friends.” So, I was being quiet. … Some of my ministers called and asked the same question. I ain’t said nothing.
The Communication received forewarning of a second Nakba on the Palestinians
While I was being quiet, the Honorable Elijah Muhammad did something. And I’ll start telling you about it now. In the middle of the night, I received a picture of the prime minister of Israel. A big picture! And he wanted me to study that man. Down in the corner of the picture … He was there with some of the members of his war cabinet—but I didn’t know what they were talking about or whatnot. So, a day passed, and he brought back the picture, but enlarged it that I could see the prime minister talking with members of his war cabinet. They had drinks in their hand, wine; they were toasting the Jews that live near Gaza who would die a few days later on October the 7th when Hamas broke through and a lot of killing started.
Mr. Netanyahu knew all about it. Listen to me good! I let the media in because I want you to hear it! He already knew what Hamas was going to do because he sanctioned it. I want you to pay me good attention! And they were proposing a toast to the Jews who lived outside of the walls of Gaza that separated the Gazans from the Israelis. … … They were toasting the innocence of Jews that on the 7th of October would be martyred. They were being martyred because he knew their plans, and he used their plans to help Hamas do what it did because he had in his mind a second Nakba.
The first Nakba or “catastrophe” on the Palestinians was done in 1948 when Israel became a state. And they exiled 700,000 Palestinians and made them like vagabonds in the Earth. But Netanyahu had in mind that he was going to use the pain of their loss to destroy the whole Palestinian community not only in Gaza but the West Bank, East Jerusalem. It was a genocidal attack that he knew would preserve his place as a “great Jewish leader.”
People do strange things when their hatred is so great of the people that they are killing; that their intention was to cleanse Gaza of every Palestinian that lived there and cleanse the West Bank and East Jerusalem so that Israel would not be bothered with Palestinians anymore.
‘We Charge Genocide!’: Israel is to the Palestinians as America is to the Black, Brown and Red
Now some of you, my Black brothers and sisters, you are not concerned about the Middle East; you’re concerned about the refugees that are coming into the major cities that you feel may take your place. But to charge Israel with genocide and have the proof of their charge: South Africa stood up and took Israel to the International Court of Justice at The Hague.
Now, this may not mean anything to you … Here is a book that Brother Malcolm gave me to read when I first came in The Nation; the title of it is: “We Charge Genocide: The Historic Petition to the United Nations for Relief from a Crime of the United States Government Against the Negro People (1951).” The brothers and sisters that put these charges together, they took it before the United Nations. You don’t know anything about it! They charged America with genocide of Black and Brown and Red people in this country. And they accepted it. They didn’t do anything about it; but, you didn’t hear anything. You younger people, you didn’t know that that went on, and to this very day you don’t know that your brothers and sisters, back in the early ’50s, put this book out and charged the government of the United States of America with genocide against us.
Now you say, “Well, what does that got to do with me?” Your extermination is being planned as well. The government put a great hit on us—in a vaccine—and my voice was the voice that told you, “Don’t take it!” “Don’t take it! They are trying to kill us softly with a vaccine.” Four years ago, we were right here in Detroit, and many of us got sick. And the same thing is happening now in Chicago and Detroit: a blending of the virus, a blending of the flu vaccine, a blending of other things to make it more deadly. Many of our people died … And they promoted this vaccine, and came to Black people and said “A jab for a joint.” They tried to give you drugs because you love drugs, but you are not wise to comfort yourself and your family and care for your lives properly. But I was on the wall, talking to the world: “Don’t take the vaccine.” Am I proven right?
This is what you have to understand: Somebody stood up for you when you were ignorant and didn’t know how to stand up for yourself! But we went out … And your president, which I will talk to you about him in a few more minutes: Your president said he was “getting tired of us because nothing was wrong with the vaccine.” Is that right? But now they are finding all kinds of things in the bloodstream of those who took that vaccine.
So, when you say, “I ain’t got nothing to do with what’s going on in the Middle East,” sh, sh, sh! You better listen! You better wake up! Because what you see over there is being planned over here.
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So, I want you just to listen to your brother, and do your research. “We Charge Genocide.” I want you to get this book. It’s out of print, but we got it on Amazon. We paid a little more. But just to know how our intellectuals and our nationalist family, and activist family, was fighting for us!
Now, we weren’t even born, some of us, and you don’t even know what they did, what they sacrificed—get the book “We Charge Genocide”: Ossie Davis, Paul Robeson, many of them whose names you hear that have passed away. But I’m a man that believes that I should speak for the dead. So, you’re going to hear me today speak for you and speak for the dead.
The fear of Jewish power that renders any so-called leader weak, inconsequential
Mr. Netanyahu is a very feared Caucasian. Did you see our president, Joe Biden, when he went to Israel? He looked like a schoolboy being chastised by a principal; teacher. He sent Secretary of State Antony Blinken, he sent Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, and I saw the secretary of state sit down next to Netanyahu, and Netanyahu looked like the boss—and they looked like scared children. Every time, Mr. Netanyahu was told, “You know, you’ve got to stop and look out for the civilians. Let’s have a pause, or something.” And, every time Blinken came back to America, Mr. Netanyahu said, “There ain’t nothing going to stop what we’re doing until we complete what we intend to do, and that is to destroy Hamas.”
Now, you may not know this, but it was Israel that set up Hamas. See, this is how the enemy works: When you have a strong leader, as the Palestinians had in Yasser Arafat, they set up other leaders, and gave them money. This is what they do today! You get a strong Black leader, like our great brother Marcus Garvey … How many of you have heard of Mr. Garvey? Good! He wanted us to return to Africa, and he had the largest mass movement of Black people in our history. Mr. Garvey was a strong Black man! So, what did our enemies do? They went and took members of The Talented Tenth, W.E.B. DuBois, a great brother. We have great brothers among us today! But what they want is to use them against the strong leader.
Elijah Muhammad was on scene. You don’t want Elijah, so they give you a strong NAACP. Members of the NAACP, don’t get angry. I’m a lifetime member, too. But I am not a blind member. Just bear with me … The NAACP has been in existence for 114 years, but it’s still under the control of members of the Jewish community who got it started. “Oh, now, you’re going to talk hate?” No. I’m going to tell the truth. Truth that many of you already know, but you’re afraid because the Jewish community has power over your little jobs, and your aims and purposes. Yeah! So, they come, give you a leader that they approve. They didn’t approve of Mr. Garvey. They didn’t approve of Noble Drew Ali. They gave us members that are inclined to want to be “one with White people.”
But when the NAACP got stronger, I spoke to the head of the NAACP and I said, “Brother, why don’t we have the NAACP gather all Black groups and Black leaders together under their banner? I’d like to be a part of it.” They had a meeting; the Black leaders showed up. But outside the door, the Jewish leaders were there, and they watched those that they paid for come in. The only one they were worried about is “Farrakhan is in there!” It lasted for about three meetings, and then we fell apart because the members of the Jewish community threatened Black members; that they would withdraw their money. So, you become a little whore.
I’m sorry. I don’t want to make the subject, or “the dinner” that I have planned for you “too hot.” But I want you to know that even though you’re smelling what’s in the pot, and you want more, you start getting a little trepidation; because you don’t want anything to mess up your little relationships with White people of power. You are afraid of the Jewish power. You’re afraid of it! And some of you can look so strong, you know, among the little brothers and sisters. But when you get around them, you look like Blinken in front of Ne-, Ne-, Ne-, Ne-, Nebuchadnezzar. (Or, between you and Netanyahu.) You’re just afraid!
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I watched our president come off Air Force 1. No one in the world has a plane like that! He’s a powerful president, and he walked over to Netanyahu, who met him at the airport; and they just embraced each other. But if you could look in the face of Biden: He was almost in tears, telling Netanyahu, “Don’t worry. We stand with you!” Put his arm around his shoulders as if to say, “Stand up, man.” And now, I know you want somebody to vote for. I understand that. But he’s got to get some … Biden has to find the way to grow his testicles.
They don’t want to walk with Farrakhan. His testicles so large, he has to walk with a wheelbarrow…
Farrakhan: A Vessel of Gold purified; used by The God for His Aim and Purpose
I came out here today wearing a gold suit, with a gold fez. I just wanted you to see what gold looks like! Look, I am representing God. I am one of the vessels that Nebuchadnezzar brought out of the temple; the first group of vessels that were brought out were 832.
And that is why I wanted to open up our meeting today with John 8:32. I want you to see what gold does. See, Nebuchadnezzar took out of the temple the vessels of gold and silver, brought them into Babylon, and they were despoiled with wine and strong drink; and the filthy people of Babylon drank out of them. You are like those gold and silver vessels, and you have been spoiled. But I wear gold today because with every wrap of that gold, He is purifying my soul to make the speech of my life at 90 years of age.
So, you want to know, “Where is Farrakhan?” Well, you’re going to hear him today! And I hope you are strong enough to chew the meat and eat the vegetables of the bowl of soup that we have prepared for you.
Heed these words from God’s Elect: ‘Israel will never have any peace’
Now, Elijah Muhammad, that’s my man. That’s the man. I want you to pay attention to what he said in “The Fall of America” in 1973 (pgs. 171-172): “America and England deposited their little brother, Israel, on foreign soil, Palestine, which is Arab land. They deprived the Arabs of their own land and sent them into exile.” (It’s called a Nakba, which means a “catastrophe.”) “This injustice against the Arabs is now costing America the power and authority that she once exercised in the [Middle] East.” (Listen to his next words.) “She is on her way out of the Near East,” and “This means bloodshed and plenty of it.”
America is not going to stay in the Middle East. And I have to tell you, Israel won’t remain there either. That’s prophecy—but I got it from the Mouth of God; and I’ll tell you how it’s going to happen and show it to you in your scriptures.
Elijah Muhammad continues: “In the Near East, there stand navies which are neither American nor British…[t]hey are there to drive America out. The skies over there are beginning to thicken with foreign planes, carrying deadly weapons, guns and bombs. They will not be satisfied as long as Israel is in Palestine. The boil has come to a bursting point. We are in a troubled world,” and “We are in a world that is now erupting.”
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“There are navies over there now that are not American nor British.” China has warships over there now; she will be joined with others soon. Have you read in the scriptures (Luke 21:20): “When Jerusalem is compassed, surrounded with armies, know that the desolation is come”? Now, why is this important to know? The Most Honorable Elijah Muhammad said this in 1973; he left us in 1975.
But The Minister, in a broadcast on June 24, 1984, listen to my words (I was talking this when Israel had 40 years under her belt): “… America and England and the nations backed Israel’s existence. Therefore, when you aid and abet someone in a criminal conspiracy, you are a part of that criminal conspiracy. So, America and England and the nations are criminals in the sight of Almighty God. Now, that nation,” listen to your brother, “called Israel never has had any peace in forty years and she will never have any peace because there can never be any peace structured on injustice, thievery, lying and deceit and using the Name of God to shield your dirty religion under His holy and righteous name.”
When I said those words, I fell into trouble. Right away they charged me not with being an anti-Semite, they took the most wicked name they could find to put it on me. They said, “Farrakhan is the new Black Hitler.”
Say that to Jews. What you are doing is creating an atmosphere that any self-respecting Jew would never want to see another Hitler rise. They wanted me dead. And they would come around places where I was speaking, and these are their words: “WHO DO YOU WANT?” “FARRAKHAN!” “HOW DO YOU WANT HIM?” “DEAD!”
I never let the F.O.I. (Fruit of Islam, the men of the Nation of Islam) bother them. I said, “As long as they don’t touch you, don’t worry about it.” Because if they touched us then we would have to touch them. …
To Be Continued Next Week.