EDL forges link with terrorist

Searchlight / HOPE not hate by Matthew Collins | Thursday, 17 February 2011

Jewish Task Force member admiring the EDL’s Amsterdam debacle

The English Defence League’s claim that it is nothing more than a peaceful “human rights” organisation was left in tatters yesterday following its decision to announce it has linked up with a convicted terrorist.

Roberta Moore, leader of the EDL’s Jewish division, announced on her Facebook page that the EDL would be working with the far-right American group the Jewish Task Force. Her posting included a link to an audio file on the JTF’s website which confirmed that the EDL had approached the JTF.

The leader of the JTF is Victor Vancier, also known by the Hebrew name Chaim Ben Pesach. Vancier was the national chairman of the Jewish Defence League, a right-wing group classified as a terrorist organisation by the FBI, but resigned in December 1978 after being imprisoned for bombing Egyptian targets in the US in an effort to stop the Israeli withdrawal from the Sinai Peninsula.

During the 1980s, Vancier was arrested with two others in connection with six incidents: firebombing a car at a Soviet diplomatic residence in 1984, pipe bombings of an FBI informer’s car in 1985 and 1986, firebombing a hall where the Soviet State Symphony Orchestra was performing in 1986 and detonating two tear gas grenades in 1986 in protest at performances by Soviet dance companies.

On 26 November 1986 he was arrested outside the Penta Hotel with a tear gas grenade after a fire broke out in the tunnels under the hotel where the Soviet Moiseyev Dance Company was staying. He was charged with a federal weapons violation and sentenced to ten years in prison.

Vancier said in his audio file: “We were contacted by the English Defence League over the last few weeks and we have agreed we want to work together on joint projects. They are a major organisation, with mass media coverage.

“I wanted to be sure they were not the BNP, we would never work with Holocaust deniers or nazis. They wave Israeli flags, they support the Jewish people. They want Jewish members. We are happy to work with them to save England from the millions of Muslim invaders. We want to work as a united front.”

Vancier is banned from entering Israel because of his allegiance to the late Rabbi Meir Kahane, who founded the JDL, and his Kach party, outlawed in Israel in 1994 as a “terrorist organisation”.

The announcement caused horror among some EDL supporters on their internet forum. One said: “The last thing we want to do at the moment is to jump in to bed with terrorists”. Another from Halifax wrote: “This is not what I want to be associated with”.