Press TV uses US anti-Semites as commentators

Anti-Semite Mark Dankof on Press TV

After noticing that the Iran’s English-language news agency Press TV has been promulgating a modern version of the blood libel by alleging that Jews kill children to harvest their organs, I started digging a bit deeper into Press TV’s articles and broadcasts. I have found some more very disturbing things. This will be the first in a series of posts describing Press TV’s practice of using American anti-Semitic ideologues as expert commentators. Today let’s focus on Mark Dankof, a Texas-based anti-Semitic podcaster and Lutheran pastor, who was interviewed by Press TV’s Waqar Rizvi on September 11, 2010.

The interview is about the 9/11 Truth Movement and why so many people believe the “official” version of the events when, at least in the eyes of the interviewer, the truthers seem to have a good case.  Press TV posted a transcript, but the video is also available online.  (In the video version of the interview you get to watch clips of the September 11 WTC attacks — including plane strikes, fleeing people, and the collapses — in a continual loop throughout the interview. That’s not anti-Semitism or anti-Zionism; that’s just nauseating.)  The interview is about 8.5 minutes long.  Here are Dankof’s main points:

• Dankof spent a couple of minutes comparing 9/11 to the JFK assassination. Both cases, he claimed, have given rise to “conspiracy theories that are legitimate…and are based upon very solid data.”  I was wondering why he went into such detail about the JFK issue, but later found that it is a recurring focus of Dankof’s: and he believes that the Mossad was responsible.
• Dankof complained about the American Jewish Congress.
• Dankof plugged his website and specifically the links section, where he said he links out to scientific analysis of the destruction of the World Trade Center. Check it out for yourselves, though, and you’ll see that he also has prominent links to a whole bunch of our other friends, including: David Duke; anti-Semitic website aljazeerah.info (not the same as the famous Al Jazeera network); traditionalist Catholic anti-Semite E. Michael Jones; the Holocaust-denying Institute for Historical Review; Michael Collins Piper; and Brother Nathanael Kapner of “wicked wicked wicked Jews” fame (click here; the good stuff starts around 40 minutes in).
• Dankof claimed that “Israeli intelligence” had “more than a passing involvement” or “at least [had] foreknowledge about what was going to happen on September 11.”
• Dankof made sure to hit the anti-Zionist conspiracy theory trifecta, devoting his final minutes to the USS Liberty Affair, the Jonathan Pollard case, and the Lavon Affair.

Mark Dankof

I had not heard of Dankof before, so I did some more research about him. It wasn’t hard: he is a co-host of a rabidly anti-Semitic internet radio show called “The Ugly Truth,” and has a significant web presence going back years.

• On one of the most recent Ugly Truth podcasts he said that Jews have “virtually monolithic control” over the US media; that they “control the banking industry”; that the “Jewish lobby” has wrecked the US economy, forced the US manufacturing sector abroad, and caused the US to run up a $13 trillion national debt; and that “we have a Jewish-controlled president and a Jewish-controlled congress.”
• On a podcast from September 7, just days before his Press TV interview, Dankof said that Israel is conducting “black operations…against the people and government of the United States”; that Israel “owns” congress, the president, and “a large number of chief executives in this country”; and that “Zionism and the Jewish lobby” are responsible for US unemployment and “cultural degeneracy.” In this podcast he also cited Willis Carto favorably.
• Before he got involved with The Ugly Truth, Dankof had his own internet radio show on the Republic Broadcasting Network.  On a January 3, 2010 podcast of the show, Dankof blamed Jews for a variety of social developments that he opposes.  In one notable quote Dankof said, “Jewish fingerprints are all over the homosexual rights movement in the US as well as internationally. Search this on Google and see if I’m not right, folks….Take a look at some of the things that David Duke has written about this, as well as some other people online, and you’ll see exactly what I’m talking about.” Dankof also bemoaned “disproportionate Jewish and Zionist influence through the US and worldwide.” On other episodes of his show he interviewed David Duke and other noted anti-Semites and white supremacists.

Mark Dankof with David Duke

Anyone who wants to do more research on Dankof can start with an old bio of his that’s still posted on the site of his old radio show.

The bottom line here is that Press TV approached a man with a clear record as an anti-Semitic and anti-Israel ideologue and interviewed him on a show about 9/11. Dankof tried to keep his anti-Semitism off the air, but his conspiratorial anti-Israel beliefs came through clearly.  How can Press TV even pretend to be  an agency of careful journalism when they pull stunts like this?

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