Author: Agence France-Presse
Publication: The Hindustan Times
Date: November 12, 2002
URL: http://www.hindustantimes.com/news/181_100939,00050001.htm
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, citing select passages from the Koran that liken Jews to apes and
pigs.
"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
on 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.
