Cross posted from The 10,000 Things
Radical fundamentalist cleric Pat Robertson was dealt a blow today when Israeli Tourism Ministry spokesman Ido Hartuv said that Israel was pulling out of a $50 million deal to build Robertson’s Disney Land fantasy of the Holy Land.
Robertson was leading a group of evangelical Christians hoping to build the Galilee World Heritage Park, a 35 acre biblical theme park north-east of the Mount of Beatitudes near the Sea of Galilee. Robertson’s money making scheme featured a park, auditorium, a “Holy Land” exhibition, outdoor amphitheatres, information center and a Disney Land like media studio.
But relations soured when Mr Robertson said God wanted Israel to be whole and undivided and had therefore punished Mr Sharon for Israel’s pull-out from the Gaza Strip last year.
“You read the Bible: This is my land, and for any prime minister of Israel who decides he’s going to carve it up and give it away, God says no, this is mine,” he said last week.
Robertson, the radical fundamentalist cleric said on his 700 Club TV show that Prime Minister Ariel Sharon’s stroke was an act of God designed to punish the Israeli leader.
Mr Hartuv said his government was furious with Mr Robertson’s remarks.
“We were due to sign a contract in the near future with Mr Roberson for the construction of a new Christian heritage centre in the Galilee,” he told the AFP news agency.
“We, as the State of Israel, cannot accept what he said and we will not do any business with him or with anyone else who agrees with his view.”
Mr. Hartuv stated that Israel was still open to the idea of the Christian theme park for which they had tentatively agreed to supply the land and infrastructure.
“The contract is still open – just not with Mr Robertson.”
“If there are other Christian leaders, they are most welcome to sign a contract to bring Christian tourists to the state of Israel.”
Mr. Robertson is no stranger to controversy with his warped view of Christian behavior. Last year Robertson was forced to apologize after advocating the murder of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez. Robertson, once a Republican candidate for President and still a powerful force in the GOP, has expressed disdain and disregard for The Constitution of the United States of America by stating that he would require a religious test for anyone in government.
In 1986 Robertson expressed his violent views when he compared non-Christians in government to “termites,” calling for a “fumigation.” Similarly, Robertson’s expressed the breadth and depth of his religious intolerance by attacking mainstream Christians in this 1991 quote:
“You say you’re supposed to be nice to the Episcopalians and the Presbyterians and the Methodists and this, that, and the other thing. Nonsense. I don’t have to be nice to the spirit of the Antichrist. I can love the people who hold false opinions but I don’t have to be nice to them.”
Robertson’s intolerance is not restricted to non-Christian’s and non-radical-fundamentalist Christian’s. His attacks on women and homosexuals are legendary. Between using the bible to declare that women are to be subject to their husbands…
“I know this is painful for the ladies to hear, but if you get married, you have accepted the headship of a man, your husband. Christ is the head of the household and the husband is the head of the wife, and that’s the way it is, period.
… and saying that feminism… “encourages women to leave their husbands, kill their children, practice witchcraft, destroy capitalism, and become lesbians,” Robetson’s bigoted agenda knows no bounds.
Similarly, Robertson expressed his racial bigotry (and again his disregard for American principles of democracy) while talking about apartheid South Africa in this 1992 quote:
“I think ‘one man, one vote,’ just unrestricted democracy, would not be wise. There needs to be some kind of protection for the minority which the white people represent now, a minority, and they need and have a right to demand a protection of their rights.”
Robertson’s signaled his intolerance of differing political views and his utter disregard for the suffering of the Jewish people while continuing his on-going hate mongering of homosexuals during this 1993 comment:
“Just like what Nazi Germany did to the Jews, so liberal America is now doing to the evangelical Christians. It’s no different. It is the same thing. It is happening all over again. It is the Democratic Congress, the liberal-based media and the homosexuals who want to destroy the Christians. Wholesale abuse and discrimination and the worst bigotry directed toward any group in America today. More terrible than anything suffered by any minority in history.”
Similarly, in 1993 Robertson uttered this complete filth:
“Many of those people involved with Adolph Hitler were Satanists, many of them were homosexuals–the two things seem to go together.”
Why the FCC has not revoked his license to the airwaves over his hate speech is beyond me. Even the White House has had to distance itself from his remarks (while still accepting his checks and those of his followers – “We want…as soon as possible to see a majority of the Republican Party in the hands of pro-family Christians by 1996.” –Pat Robertson, Denver Post, 10/26/92).
“The mission of the Christian Coalition is simple,” says Pat Robertson. It is “to mobilize Christians — one precinct at a time, one community at a time — until once again we are the head and not the tail, and at the top rather than the bottom of our political system.” Robertson predicts that “the Christian Coalition will be the most powerful political force in America by the end of this decade.” And, “We have enough votes to run this country…and when the people say, ‘We’ve had enough,’ we’re going to take over!“–Pat Robertson
