October 26, 2009
Jim Rizoli, an anti-immigrant activist and anti-Semite based in Framingham, Massachusetts, delivered a lengthy diatribe promoting Holocaust denial during the October 20, 2009 segment of his public access television show. Along with his twin brother Joe, Rizoli runs Concerned Citizens and Friends of Illegal Immigration Law Enforcement (CCFIILE), a group founded in 2003.
Mainly known for demonizing Brazilian immigrants in Framingham, Rizoli took more than ten minutes of his hour-long show to defend Iranian President and Holocaust denier Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and to promote his own anti-Semitic views. Before launching into his diatribe, Rizoli spent the vast majority of his show discussing undocumented immigrants as "crimaliens" who "God doesn't really care much about."
Rizoli then mentioned that he was going to talk about a "very controversial topic" and focused on a local newspaper article about the Dachau concentration camp and Ahmadinejad's denial of the Holocaust. Rizoli explained that he was "not happy" about the article, and declared to his audience, "You've been brainwashed for the last 50 years on the propaganda…that really isn't dealing with the subject matter straight on."
Rizoli began to defend Ahmadinejad, claiming that he has never read anything where the Iranian leader denied that the Holocaust happened, that he only "has some issues with the way the whole thing went down." Rizoli then commented, "Just like I do.
In further defense of Ahmadinejad, Rizoli claimed, "I have seen nowhere where he has said that he wants to see Israel, um, destroyed. What he did say is that… he's not happy with the Zionist…Jews. Big difference between Zionism and the regular population...because the Zionists are nutsos (sic)…their whole viewpoints in life (sic) are unbelievable...they're the radical Jewish element that really have (sic) no respect for the United States, have (sic) no respect for anybody."
Rizoli alleged that Ahmadinejad is "against the Zionists, he's not against Judaism," a claim he defended by explaining that Ahmadinejad could not be anti-Semitic because, according to Rizoli, Iran "probably has the largest contingency (sic) of Jews."
To conclude his defense of Ahmadinejad, Rizoli explained that, "What's happening here is you're spoonfed (sic) the Zionist propaganda that…Ahmadinejad hates the Jews, he's a Holocaust denier…when in essence he isn't."
Rizoli went on to explain to viewers that if they really want to "get their heads on straight about the Holocaust," they should visit two Web sites that he recommended, both of which advance Holocaust denial arguments. One of these sites promotes itself as featuring "9 hours of free internet video about how the holocaust is a myth," which Rizoli referred to as "excellent, excellent videos."
Woven throughout his endorsement of the Web sites was a monologue encouraging people to conduct their own research on the Holocaust to discover the "truth." Rizoli explained that "the Zionists don't want you to see these videos…They want to spoonfeed (sic) you the typical propaganda that has been put out there by the media and by the Zionist controlled government."
"A lot of the Jewish people are not going to be happy to hear this," alleged Rizoli, "because again this whole thing all stems upon Judaism (sic) and what happened with them."
Holocaust denial is not a new tactic for the Rizolis. Joe Rizoli has questioned the existence of the Holocaust and whether six million Jews were killed. He also publicly supported Ernst Zundel, a leading Holocaust denier and white supremacist ideologue for three decades. Ironically for an anti-immigrant activist, Rizoli spoke out against the deportation of Zundel from the United States to Canada (where he could be prosecuted).