Former heavyweight boxing champion Mohammed Ali charged Zionists “control” America and the world, according to an interview reported in a leading publication in India, the text of which the Jewish Telegraphic Agency obtained.
Ali had been in India and in Africa as President Carter’s special emissary to obtain support for the Carter Administration’s boycott of the Olympic Games in Moscow this summer as part of the United States response to the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan.
In the bi-weekly, “India Today,” dated Feb. 1-15, Ali spoke of Zionists when asked about the “militant revival” of Islam in Iran, and the holding of “your countrymen hostage.” Ali, saying that “those people in Iran are fanatics,” and that “the other Moslems in the world have condemned their action,” declared “religion ain’t bad; it’s people who are bad. You know the entire power structure is Zionist. They control America; they control the world. They are really against the Islam religion. So whenever a Muslim does something wrong, they blames the religion.”
An Associated Press dispatch, reporting Ali’s remarks about Zionism, quoted him as saying that he did not remember talking about Zionists.
JTA has documented Jewish history in real-time for over a century. Keep our journalism strong by joining us in supporting independent, award-winning reporting.
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
