Controversial televangelist Pat Robertson is known for many things, especially for building a lucrative Christian media organization and leading a cohort of conservative evangelists. But Robertson's infamy has also been growing recently due to his consistent denigration of the Islamic faith. On Monday, he demonstrated once again his dislike for the religion during his daily television program, "The 700 Club."
Bemoaning the fact that he's been called a "fanatic" and a "bigot" for expressing what he deems to be "truth," Robertson told viewers that Islam is to blame for not only the Boston Marathon bombing, but terrorism around the world. He even wondered to Erick Stakelbeck, "The 700 Club's" resident "terrorism analyst," why the United States is downplaying the role radical Islam might have played in last week's attack.
"Sure, Islam is a religion, but at the same time it is a system of world government, and we have to recognize the two go hand in hand," Robertson said. "Mohammed wanted to take over. They had jihad to conquer people, which they subjugated in order to establish their control. And that's what these people are doing, but it's horrible."
Robertson went on to suggest America should be fighting Islam the same way it mobilized to fight the Nazis during World War II.
"[W]e didn’t have any problems saying that Hitler was bad," Robertson said. "No problem at all saying the Nazis were monsters, no problem. We were fighting the Nazis, and our job was to defeat the Nazis, and everybody in America was mobilized to defeat the Nazis. ... Now we’re fighting a war, but we refuse to identify our enemy even though it's in plain sight.”
Such inflammatory statements are par for the course these days for Robertson. Last week, the 83-year-old evangelical Christian linked the Boston bombing to Islam, even before authorities identified suspects Dzhokhar and Tamerlan Tsarnaev as young Muslims of Chechen origin. The brothers had been living in the United States for years; Dzhokhar, the younger, is a naturalized U.S. citizen.
On several occasions Robertson has depicted Islam in a distinctly unfavorable light: He referred to it as "demonic" in February and as "a violent political system bent on the overthrow of the governments of the world and world domination" in 2009.
This is also not the first time Robertson has attempted to connect Muslims to Nazis. He compared the two back in 2011, after which Mother Jones compiled a list of all the other people and institutions Robertson had compared with Nazis, including the U.S. Justice Department, screenwriters, public schools, homosexuals and liberal America in general.
(Hat tip, Right Wing Watch)
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