In her quest for allies opposed to mass vaccinations against COVID-19, far-right Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene has embraced the antisemitic Nation of Islam (NoI), favorably citing an NoI leader who blamed the spread of the pandemic on “the Jews.”
In a bizarre series of 17 tweets on Monday, the Georgia Republican said she had recently visited a jail in Washington, DC where she noted that inmates interested in religion had a variety of options for reading about “Christain (sic) and Islam.”
Taylor Greene then highlighted the availability of “The Final Call,” the NoI’s newspaper, sharing photographs from its print edition of articles that pushed false information about COVID-19 treatments.
“I also found out that the Nation of Islam sees the use and benefit of Ivermectin and is very angry that our media, Democrats, and Dr [Anthony] Fauci [of the Centers for Disease Control] have attacked the drug and refuse to save people’s lives by not promoting it and shunning the use of it. We have common ground there,” she wrote.
In her flurry of tweets, Taylor Greene approvingly quoted NoI minister Wesley Muhammad’s statement that “millions of Americans” had rejected the approved vaccines. According to the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), in a July 4, 2020 speech, Muhammad depicted the pandemic as divine retribution for alleged “Jewish” misrepresentation of the positions of the NoI’s virulently antisemitic leader, Louis Farrakhan.
“It was the Jews — the Jewish sin of altering the word of God — that brought this pandemic down from heaven,” Muhammad said. “Every time they take [Farrakhan’s words] out of place, every time they distort it, every time they misrepresent what the Honorable Brother Minister has said, they are guilty of this particular sin.”
Another of Taylor Greene’s tweets praised the NoI for being “very against children being given the COVID-19 vaccines.” The photographed article shared in the same tweet contained antisemitic slanders along with a promotional reference to a book called “The Secret Relationship Between Blacks and Jews, Volume 2: How Jews Gained Control of the Black American Economy.”
“The Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan pointed out to Black leaders that so-called Jews have always been successful in pitting us against each other,” the article stated.
Taylor Greene has not shied away from either controversial allies or objectionable imagery in her ongoing crusade against vaccinations. Last June, she faced widespread censure when she compared vaccination requirements for employees to the “Judenstern” — the yellow Jews’ Star which the Nazis compelled Jews to wear on their outer clothing.
“Vaccinated employees get a vaccination logo just like the Nazi’s (sic) forced Jewish people to wear a gold (sic) star,” she claimed at the time.