By virtue of his non-conventional views, Jeff Rense has often courted controversy. Rense has been accused of racism, anti-Semitism[5] and Holocaust denial, though he claims he is actually pro-Jewish yet anti-Zionist. He believes that Zionists are "in control of the world" through their dominance of central banking and global finance. Rense claims that the ultimate goal of the Zionist illuminati is to bring in a "New World Order" - a system of government in which all nation states are dissolved and replaced by an undemocratic, global government. Some of his guests have criticized the Jewish religion, and have allegedly repeated false quotes from the Jewish Talmud. He has also given airtime to Holocaust deniers such as Ernst Zündel and Mark Weber, and backs theories that the Holocaust has been greatly exaggerated and used in various ways by "Jewish supremacists" for political power and that "Jewish financiers and bankers were ultimately responsible for hostility towards Jews."
His website once contained reprints from the conspiratorial Spotlight magazine, known anti-Semitic forgeries such as the A Racial Program for the Twentieth Century, and Holocaust denial material reprinted from the Institute for Historical Review, which the journal History Teacher called "shockingly racist and anti-Semitic". [6]
He justifies this by claiming he is defending free speech and does not necessarily support all of what his guests have to say, and states that he is anti-Zionist rather than anti-Semitic. Jeff Rense has interviewed many non-whites and Jews on his show including conspiracy theorist Barry Chamish and also advertised the Neturei Karta affiliate Jews Against Zionism. Rense and several of his guests and columnists claim to have been victims of death threats and intimidation from critics that he considers "Zionists." [7][8][9]
Additionally, there is much contention between Rense and researchers Victor Thorn and Lisa Guiliani of the World Independent News Group, mainly because of his refusal to take some of his guests (particularly Alex Jones and Greg Szymanski) to task for their sensationalism and monopolization (specifically by refusing to mention other, non-affiliated groups and individuals such as WING, they cite, amongst other proofs, censorship and his refusal to report on various rallies, some of which were rather large, numbering in 250,000 participants in front of the White House lawn, which would show how widespread, and thus credible, the movement and its basic position is).[10] Also in the case of Zionism, they complain that Rense delivers scant information on the subject, and buries it under tabloid-style material concerning the paranormal. They claim that he does not make any clear stance on this or related issues, such as the holocaust. |
