Kindgo
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Larry Witham
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
Published 11/26/2002 -
http://asp.washtimes.com/printarticle.asp?action=print&ArticleID=200
21126-14786718
Religious broadcaster Pat Robertson said yesterday the news media
and political leaders have failed to educate Americans about
violence in the Koran and in Islamic history and wishes President
Bush had never said that "Islam is a religion of peace."
"He is not elected as chief theologian," Mr. Robertson said.
It would have been better for the president to speak only
politically about the Islamic world, and not religiously.
"It is leading to needless confusion," Mr. Robertson said in an
interview with The Washington Times.
Mr. Robertson's comments in the past year have been a major part of
the public debate on how a predominantly Christian nation responds
to a foreign enemy with Islamic roots.
The public would be better served, Mr. Robertson said, if the media
would investigate the content of the Koran and what he says are many
passages that incite Muslims to kill nonbelievers. But reporting on
that, he said, "is not politically correct."
He said that the violence visited on Christians in many nations,
such as Sudan and Nigeria, arises from Shariah, or Muslim law,
showing that the violent behavior is tied to Islamic beliefs.
Though Mr. Robertson relinquished his Baptist ordination to run for
the Republican presidential nomination in 1988, he has taken it up
again and describes his primary work as promoting Christianity.
For 18 years, his Christian Broadcasting Network had an
Arab-language broadcast station in Lebanon, but he said that "it was
overrun by Hezbollah," a terrorist group.
"In terms of Islam, I don't think the issues have been ventilated at
all in the press because no one has read the Koran," he said.
Still, he said civil liberties in the United States are too
important to allow the U.S. government the extra powers of domestic
surveillance that it is asking for and that law-abiding Muslim
citizens also must have protection.
"I have never advocated ferreting out Muslims in America," he said.
"They are citizens like I am. But if they are funneling money to
Hamas, organizing terrorist cells or holding anti-American rallies,
they ought to be deported."
U.S. Muslim groups have organized a yearlong project to put a
package of books and a PBS video on Islam, all by American authors,
in the nation's 16,000 public libraries to promote understanding of
the religion.
The Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR) reports that
supporters have sent in 4,219 "sponsorships" of $150 each to pay for
the library package, but the number of libraries accepting them is
not yet clear.
"It's a yearlong campaign, and it will take a year or so to sort
that [number] out," said CAIR spokesman Ibrahim Hooper.
Last week, Mr. Hooper said on a New York radio show that
conservative religious leaders such as Mr. Robertson were
"equivalent" to Osama bin Laden because they want to divide the
world into a religious war.
When asked whether Christian leaders would urge killing members of a
different faith as bin Laden has done, Mr. Hooper said: "Given the
right circumstance, these guys would do the same in the opposite
direction."
Though CAIR often demands apologies from groups that criticize
Islam, Mr. Hooper would not apologize for his radio comment.
He also confirmed reports that a Saudi billionaire, Prince Alwaleed
bin Talal bin Abdul Aziz al Saud, donated $500,000 to CAIR for the
educational push. "I think most of it is going for the library
project," Mr. Hooper said.
The report about the Saudi money prompted conservative activist Paul
Weyrich, chairman of the Free Congress Foundation, yesterday to say
that while libraries have intellectual freedom, the library packages
"present a highly misleading view of Islam, spray-painting over the
religion's long history of animosity to Western values."
He called for the American Library Association to issue a statement
on the problems with stocking a one-sided view of Islam and urged
the use of materials written by his foundation's staff.
Mr. Hooper said a positive image of Islam is important to protect
the civil rights of Muslims in the United States. He cited the FBI
report yesterday that "hate crimes" against people of Middle Eastern
ethnicity had increased from 28 in 2000 to 481 in 2001 across the
country.
Mr. Robertson said he opposed as "bad law" the government's plans,
even in a time of war, to electronically track the lives of all
Americans.
"As the war on terrorism is going forward, the thing I'm concerned
about is how much government control they'll have" on Americans'
domestic life, he said.
Meanwhile, he said his main business is not Islam but Christian
evangelism.
"I don't want to change my ministry and become some kind of Muslim
fighter," he said. "I don't want to alienate Muslim people around
the world," whom he believes want more information about the West
and even Christianity.
But Islam is "a deeply held religious belief pushed by mullahs all
over the world" as a basis for attacking Jews and Christians, he
said. "Maybe we can counter it by American propaganda. Maybe we can
counter it by love."
--
Koenig's International News - http://watch.org
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God bless,
Kindgo
Inside the will of God there is no failure. Outside the will of God there is no success.
Posts: 4320 | From: Sunny Florida | Registered: Jun 2002
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