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Another big mouth:
INCITEMENT WATCH: US EVANGELIST SAYS MUSLIMS
'WORSE THAN NAZIS'
Matthew Lee, Agence France Presse, 11/12/02
WASHINGTON - A popular US televangelist's accusation that
Muslims are "worse than the Nazis" and call for Jews to wake
up to the threat drew fire on Tuesday from a leading
American-Islamic group which warned the comments could spark
violence.
In his remarks, Christian preacher and conservative
commentator Pat Robertson said Muslims were bent on
exterminating Jews...
"Somehow I wish the Jews in America would wake up, open
their eyes and read what is being said about them,"
Robertson told viewers of his Christian Broadcasting Network
news program late Monday. "This is worse than the Nazis,"
said the one-time presidential hopeful, who has been highly
critical of Islam in the past. "Adolf Hitler was bad, but
what the Muslims want to do to the Jews is worse."
Robertson, whose previous anti-Islam comments have been
denounced by Jewish and Muslims groups alike, said those who
criticized him -- whom he termed "so-called doves" -- did
not understand the situation.
"If I say something that Islam is, you know, an erroneous
religion, then I get criticized by the Anti-Defamation
League," he said, referring to the prominent US-based Jewish
advocacy group.
"You just want to say: 'When are you going to open your
eyes and see who your enemy is.' Those people want to
destroy Jews," Robertson said.
The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) on
Tuesday denounced Robertson's remarks as "lies, distortions
and outright bigotry."
"It's a shame coming from someone who claims to be a man
of the cloth," said Hodan Hassan, a spokeswoman for the
group.
"He is doing a lot more to increase tensions and maybe
violence among different ethnicities and religions than
sowing the seeds of peace," she said, maintaining that
Robertson was using two passages from the Koran
"deceitfully."
"It's outlandish and a total distortion," Hassan said,
noting that the Koran contains numerous calls for
inter-faith harmony and demands respect for other
religions…
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