Jewish Task Force
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The Jewish Task Force (JTF) is a Kahanist organization in the United States that raises money for right-wing Jewish groups in Israel, puts on television programs through local-access cable and runs a website with the stated goal of saving Israel, America, and The West. JTF is run by the former national chairman of the Jewish Defense League, Chaim Ben Pesach, whose English name is Victor Vancier. The group defines itself as "fighting to save America and Israel from Islamic terrorism." Unlike most Kahanist organizations, which take positions only on issues related to Israel, JTF also has an American agenda; it wishes to stop what it calls the "Third World invasion of America" and is against America becoming what it calls a "Third World banana republic". JTF's opposition to illegal immigration into the United States and its frequent criticism of liberal black leaders has led liberal critics to charge JTF with racism, a charge which JTF strongly denies.
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[edit] Stated goals
JTF's stated goal is to raise money from Jews and "Righteous Gentiles" to support its right-wing Jewish dissident allies in Israel such as the Hilltop Youth and its spiritual leader Noam Federman as well as Itamar Ben-Gvir. Prior to the implementation of Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's plan to retreat from the Gaza District and Northern Samaria, these JTF-funded Jews were engaged in a civil disobedience campaign of blocking roads and highways throughout Israel to protest and stop the plan, but this was not successful. JTF attributes this to "the fact that we didn't have enough money to reach tens of thousands of Jews while the Yesha Council had millions of dollars and didn't use it on effective opposition to Sharon". JTF considers the Yesha Council to be "Establishment frauds that don't lead effective opposition because they are on the government pay roll". JTF says the new fight is to prevent "future surrenders, the creation of an independent PLO terrorist state, and a Holocaust."
According to Chaim, JTF is made up of Jewish and "Righteous Gentile" religious Zionists, but these people are not members because they are simply asked to help out financially. JTF does not have an official membership. JTF uses these donations to help the political efforts of their allies in Israel. JTF hopes to raise enough money to help its allies come to power in Israel, where they would in turn fund a JTF program on national television in the United States to inspire a right-wing "Righteous Gentile" movement to take over the U.S. government.
According to Ben Pesach, the example set by JTF's Israeli allies should be followed by right-wing gentiles in America, which he believes is the country that "God intended to be a country for Righteous Gentiles built on the Biblical principles of The Founding Fathers". Right-wing Gentiles in America should block roads and highways in a massive civil disobedience campaign to demand the expulsion of all illegal aliens in the U.S., JTF urges. Those who wish to support JTF are simply asked for checks, money orders, or cash donations made out to JTF. They also encourage people to send donations to an organization called The Voice of Jewish Activism (VJA) which is "tax exempt and funds the humanitarian and educational needs" of their allies in Israel.
[edit] JTF's seven-point plan
JTF also published their "Seven-Point Plan" on their website:
- A ferocious retaliation against all Muslim nations which have in any way aided or abetted terrorism against American citizens.
- The immediate destruction by the American or Israeli military of all Muslim nuclear reactors, plants and laboratories developing nuclear, chemical and/or biological weapons of mass destruction.
- Total energy independence for America through a crash development program funded in the defense budget as a vital national security priority.
- An immediate end to all U.S. foreign aid, even to a genuine friend and ally like Israel, which is harmed rather than helped by her counterproductive dependency on America's addictive welfare handouts.
- An immediate end to all foreign immigration into the United States, combined with the complete expulsion of America's millions of illegal aliens and the stringent removal of her legal ones at the expiration of their work or residency visas.
- An immediate recognition by the United States of little Israel's G-d-given right and obligation to assert full and permanent sovereign control over all sacred Jewish Biblical lands, including Judea, Samaria, the Gaza District, the Golan Heights and eastern Jerusalem.
- An immediate withdrawal from the fanatically anti-American United Nations (UN) and all organizations directly or indirectly affiliated with it, and the immediate banning of all UN-related activities on American soil.
[edit] Spokesmen
[edit] Chaim Ben Pesach
Chaim Ben Pesach was born in 1956. In 1971, he joined the Jewish Defense League. He eventually became the JDL National Chairman in September, 1978. He had to step down in December, 1978 after he went to jail for bombing Egyptian targets in an effort to stop the Israeli retreat from the Sinai Peninsula. After his release and upon the completion of his probation in July, 1983, he rejoined JDL. In 1984, he eventually became Chairman again and, in an effort to influence the USSR to allow Jewish emigration, in the 1980s, he bombed Soviet diplomatic targets in New York and tear-gassed a ballet performance at Lincoln Center that featured Soviet performers. He continued as JDL Chairman until his arrest in 1987. He pleaded guilty in connection with six bombings and was sentenced to 10 years but served five and a half before being released on probation. According to Chaim, while he was in jail, he became very thin because they wouldn't give him any kosher food until Republican Senator Jesse Helms intervened on his behalf. Upon his release in 1991, he started JTF.
Chaim is banned from entering Israel because of his support of the late Rabbi Meir Kahane's Kach Party, which has been outlawed in Israel. In 1996, he tried to emigrate to Israel, but was immediately detained at Ben-Gurion International Airport upon his arrival, and was placed in administrative detention in a cell in the airport. He was not allowed to speak to an attorney nor an American Embassy official, despite the fact that he is an American citizen. He was subsequently deported to the U.S., where he now lives in the New York metropolitan area.
Chaim is an Orthodox Jew. He is the son of an Ashkenazic Jewish father, Pesach Ben Dov, and an Egyptian Sefardic Jewish mother, Malkah Bat Meir. Chaim refers to this as knowing the best of both Jewish backgrounds. He also calls upon his Egyptian Jewish ancestry when he says that he of all people should know how Arab Muslims are. He has never been married. Chaim has brown hair and blue eyes and also strongly believes in eating only healthy food.
[edit] Other spokesmen
Other JTF spokesmen are David Ben Moshe (who co-hosts one of the JTF programs with Chaim), Yosef Ben Meir (who used to co-host one of the JTF programs with Chaim), and the webmaster. Occasionally Chaim has other Jews as guests on the show and sometimes he has "Righteous Gentiles" as guests on the show, including Sean Reilly, an Irish Catholic, and author Craig Winn, a Christian fundamentalist who has written numerous books and articles which claim that the Islamic religion commands Muslims to hate and murder all non-Muslims.
[edit] Media and publications
[edit] Television programs
JTF began broadcasting on New York City public access television in December, 1991, originally under the name "Jewish Task Force On Media Bias". Prior to that, they had a radio program. JTF currently has two weekly television shows which both air twice on QPTV, a Queens, New York public access cable TV station. They used to broadcast in Manhattan as well but they were taken off the air there due to the intervention of Hillary Clinton[citation needed]. The audio portions of JTF TV shows are available for download from their website in both RealAudio and MP3 format.
[edit] Website
Since 1998, JTF has a website which updates every Wednesday morning which Chaim runs with the help of his webmaster. The website has articles among other things as well as the audio of the two weekly JTF TV shows. The format of these shows has changed in the past, with various guest hosts and periods where Chaim has hosted both programs. Occasionally, Chaim does special solo shows for the website only rather than upload the audio portion of the TV shows. The website also has two Hebrew sections on its website in which there are two weekly audio programs, one since December, 2004, which is hosted by Noam Federman (Federman Without Censor), the spiritual leader of the Hilltop Youth, and the other one, by Gil Avraham (Israel In Danger) since April, 2006. The latter one replaces the one that started in February, 2005, which was co-hosted by Chaim Ben Pesach and Gil Avraham. At the end of September, 2005, Chaim started to do a daily solo Hebrew program as well which as of April, 2006, became in video format and was reduced to Sundays, Tuesdays, and Thursdays. Since June 14, 2006, JTF.ORG has a link to a forum created and run by JTF supporters [1]. In July, 2006, Chaim started to do a weekly Internet program called Ask JTF where he answers questions people ask him on the forum. Since late August, 2006, the JTF Forum was moved to the JTF.ORG website. In The Fall of 2006, JTF opened a Hebrew Forum with a Hebrew Ask JTF audio program soon after which replaced Chaim's Tuesday video Hebrew program.
[edit] Issues and controversies
[edit] JTF and black leaders
JTF's strong criticism of black leaders such as Jesse Jackson, Al Sharpton, and Louis Farrakhan, and its frequent ridicule of certain aspects of black culture have led some to charge JTF with racism, a charge which JTF denies. JTF vigorously criticizes many blacks and Hispanics. JTF asserts that the ridicule of black and Hispanic culture is only directed at those blacks and Hispanics who are anti-white and anti-Semitic, but JTF's critics insist that the ridicule is intentionally racist. JTF does support some black conservatives such as Alan Keyes, Emanuel McLittle, Roy Innis, Walter E. Williams, and Reverend Jesse Lee Peterson. JTF says that it does not hate people based on race. It only opposes people who are evil, regardless of race. JTF says that people of any race can reject evil and be righteous. JTF favors the relocation of all Americans which JTF believes are not loyal to the United States, regardless of race. JTF wants to repatriate these particular people, regardless of their race, to their place of origin with a basket of emigration incentives, giving them money to be permanently sent back to where they came from.
[edit] JTF and Islam
JTF strongly criticizes Islam, often referring to the Koran, the book which Muslims consider to be holy, as the "Muslim Nazi Koran" or "monstrous". JTF says that the Koran requires its followers to murder all "non-Muslim infidels". JTF supports the fight on "Muslim terror" and in keeping with this, they supported Slobodan Milošević's policies and the "heroic Serb Christians' struggles" in Bosnia and Kosovo.
On JTF's television programs, Chaim has urged "everyone to read the Koran and the Hadith (a collection of Mohammed's sayings which most Sunni Muslims regard as holy) to see for themselves what Islam preaches". The JTF web site has a link to a leading Islamic web site which translates the entire Koran into English. Chaim has urged everyone "to read the Koran as translated by the Muslims themselves". JTF claims that "after reading the Koran, no one will doubt" that Islam commands its followers to "either forcibly convert or physically exterminate all non-Muslims".
[edit] JTF and liberal Jewish organizations
JTF's views have been condemned by mainstream Jewish organizations such as the Anti-Defamation League and the Simon Wiesenthal Center, with the latter organization listing the JTF web site as a "hate group". JTF responds by calling these organizations "cowardly self-hating Jews who support handing over the sacred Land of Israel to the PLO Nazi terrorists". JTF frequently criticizes its liberal Jewish critics.
[edit] JTF and Israeli government
JTF's weekly Hebrew broadcasts have drawn strong criticism from the Sharon government in Israel. Recently, JTF broadcaster Noam Federman, the spiritual leader of the Hilltop Youth who lives in Hebron, was summoned to the headquarters of Shabak, the Israeli secret police, where he was questioned for 18 hours during a two day period about his JTF program. Federman refused to answer any of Shabak's questions, and was informed that a criminal investigation had been initiated against him for allegedly using the JTF broadcasts to incite thousands of young Israeli Jews to engage in a civil disobedience campaign to protest Sharon's plans to retreat from the Gaza District and Northern Samaria. The Israeli prosecutor's office and the Shabak claim that the JTF broadcasts are largely responsible for the growing wave of road and highway blockings taking place throughout Israel.
[edit] JTF and Third World Immigration
JTF has devoted a great deal of energy to the illegal immigration crisis facing the United States. It is believed by JTF that America is being overrun by third world immigrants, whose seemingly backward culture has caused countless social and economic difficulties in the United States.
[edit] Claimed prediction of events
According to their website (JTF.ORG), "In a JTF television program which aired in Manhattan on Sunday, September 11, 1994 – precisely seven years to the day before the horrendous Muslim Nazi attacks on the World Trade Center and The Pentagon – Chaim Ben Pesach explicitly predicted that the Islamic terrorists who bombed the Twin Towers in 1993 would return to finish their bloody work, mercilessly murdering thousands of Americans". However, while Chaim did predict that the Muslim terrorists who bombed the Twin Towers in 1993 would return to finish the job, some of his predictions in the broadcast were not accurate: Chaim guessed that the Muslim terrorists would return in the late 1990s, when in fact, they actually returned in 2001; Chaim also predicted that "tens of thousands" would be murdered in the next attack, when in fact, 3,000 were murdered; finally, Chaim thought that the Muslim terrorists would use a huge bomb to collapse the Twin Towers, when in fact, they used hijacked passenger planes.
Chaim claims that JTF's predictions and analysis of major news events have repeatedly been proven right. Prior to the Iraq war, JTF supporters point out, Chaim predicted that Saddam Hussein would not have weapons of mass destruction because international sanctions had crippled Iraq's ability to acquire such weaponry. Chaim said that the war was just about the personal Bush family vendetta with Saddam Hussein and finishing the job Bush's "wimpy" father didn't finish in the first Persian Gulf War in 1991. Chaim said regime change in Iraq would not help because he believes democracy is impossible in the Islamic world, and that if given the chance to vote, Muslims will choose an Iranian type Muslim dictatorship. JTF advocates destroying Iran's nuclear weapons program through air strikes rather than through invading and occupying an entire country.
[edit] Other
JTF considers Rabbi Meir Kahane to be the greatest Jewish leader of modern times.
JTF is a Pro-life organization.
Coming soon, internet viewers will be able to watch video of the three English programs: 'Jewish Task Force', 'Take Back America', and 'Ask JTF'.
Many, but not all of JTF's website commentary ends with the quote "In your heart, you know we're right, and in your guts, you know they're nuts" to drum up support. This quote is paraphrased from Barry Goldwater's 1964 Presidential campaign (and from the Democrats' response to it).
[edit] External links
- Jewish Task Force
- Video Link of Chaim Ben Pesach on JTF's Hebrew Page.
- JTF English Forum
- JTF Hebrew Forum
- Archive.org entry for JTF.ORG. Since JTF.ORG has no archives, this is the only way to view previous editions of the site.
- Suck interview with Chaim Ben Pesach.
- JTF on MySpace
