PatRobertson.com
Here follows a verbatim transcript of the answer of Pat Robertson
and his son
Gordon Robertson on The 700 Club television program on the morning
of Nov. 14, 2002 concerning a videotaped report quoting the President
of the United States that certain comments uttered about Islam do not
reflect the view of his administration or the view of the American people.
Pat Robertson was asked by news anchor Lee Webb for his comments. They
follow:
PAT ROBERTSON: Well, Lee, I want everybody to understand that
one disagreement, a minor disagreement among friends does not end a
friendship; and so I'm not one throwing rocks at the President. I appreciate
the President, appreciate what he's doing; and I want everybody to know
that something like this does not sever the support that I have given
to him over the years. However, I want to clarify something. The purest
expression of Islam in the world is found among the Wahabi sect of Saudi
Arabia, and that sect pretty much dominates the religious life of Saudi
Arabia and has been the fountainhead for the terrorists. The Wahabis
in turn have established a pure Islamic state in Afghanistan, and the
group in charge of that was called the Taliban. The other pure Islamic
state that we're familiar with is in Iran, where the Ayatollah Khomeini
came in, and the word, [Ayat Allah] means "the spirit of Allah."
He was establishing a pure, Islamic state. Now this state was characterized
by our President as part of an "axis of evil." The other state
that I'm aware of that is a pure Islamic state is Sudan where Sharia
is practiced and at least 2.5 million Christians have been killed. Now
having said that, there is no doubt that the religion of Mohammed and
those who adhere to it firmly, such as the Wahabis, and the Taliban
and the Iranian Mullahs and other Mullahs operating in other parts of
the world, is extreme and violent. However, we must distinguish between
the origin of the religion and the adherets to it in the United States
who indeed are peaceful people. So to say "the religion is peaceful"
I don't think is accurate. To say that most of the adherents in America
to the Islamic faith are peaceful is absolutely correct. It's just a
question of semantics, but I think we ought to get the semantics clear.
GORDON ROBERTSON: I think we need to clarify that sometimes
when the secular press gets a hold of your comments, they don't always
also report the underlying story that you're commenting on . . .
PAT ROBERTSON: Exactly.
GORDON ROBERTSON: . . . and what that was, was a story done
by the CBN News Department on what was being taught children in the
Middle East; and what is being taught children in their school systems
is that the Jews are descended from apes and pigs, that they're less
than human; and, therefore, you can go and exterminate them. And as
part of that story, we're going to follow up on a Washington Post
story done a year ago on Feb. 25 this year that said, "Outside
of Washington DC, there was an Islamic school teaching their children
that before the end of the world can come, all the Jews have to be exterminated.
Now the basis for this . . .
PAT ROBERTSON: By the Muslims.
GORDON ROBERTSON: . . . by the Muslims.
PAT ROBERTSON: That's right.
GORDON ROBERTSON: Now the basis for this is in the Koran, and
we've got a graphic now of the exact quote. "There are those whom
Allah has cast aside and on whom his wrath has fallen and of whom he
has made some as apes and swine." That has now been made a doctrine
that Allah made the Jews to be apes and swine, and that's what these
Muslim schools are teaching.
GRAPHIC: "THEY ARE THOSE WHOM ALLAH HAS CAST ASIDE AND ON WHOM
HIS WRATH HAS FALLEN AND OF WHOM HE HAS MADE SOME AS APES AND SWINE."
Source: Middle East Media Research Institute
PAT ROBERTSON: I would ask this. I would ask the people in the
media: Please read the Koran, and see what it says. I would ask our
Jewish friends in America: Please read the Koran, and see what it says.
Please see what the Mullahs are teaching the little children in Palestine
and in other parts of the world about you. And when you get through,
do us favor, and don't criticize your friends, but see who your real
enemies are.
GORDON ROBERTSON: Well there's one more
PAT ROBERTSON: What's that?
GORDON ROBERTSON: . . I think we need to go into this. This
is a war of ideas.
PAT ROBERTSON: Yeah.
GORDON ROBERTSON: And in any commentary that you're making,
Dad, I know you're not making it as a personal attack on any individual
Muslim. . . .
PAT ROBERTSON: Of course not.
GORDON ROBERTSON: . . . It's against the ideas that are being
propagated. Here's what the Washington Post, a, story said. And
there's the direct quote from Feb. 25, 2002.
GRAPHIC:
(AN ISLAMIC SCHOOL IN THE US USES A) HIGH SCHOOL TEXT BOOK, IN THE REPORTER'S
WORDS, "SAYS ONE SIGN OF THE DAY OF JUDGEMENT WILL BE THAT MUSLIMS
WILL FIGHT AND KILL JEWS WHO WILL HIDE BEHIND TREES THAT SAY, 'OH MUSLIM,
OH SERVANT OF GOD, HERE IS A JEW HIDING BEHIND ME. COME HERE AND KILL
HIM."
Source: Washington Post, Feb. 25, 2002
PAT ROBERTSON: Right.
GORDON ROBERTSON: The Post reporter says, "One sign
of the days of judgement will be the Muslims will fight and kill Jews
who will hide behind trees that say, 'Oh Muslim, oh servant of God,
here is a Jew hiding behind me. Come here and kill him.'" That's
what's being taught in an 11th Grade textbook right here in the good
ol' US of A; and to say that somehow or other we're being intolerant
for exposing this and calling people's attention to it boggles my mind.
These are the ideas they're propagating, and this is what they're teaching
their children. No wonder we have suicide, teenage suicide bombers on
the West Bank and in Israel. No wonder. If that's what they're being
taught -- the Jews are descended from apes and pigs -- no wonder we're
getting this. And if you could go back in time to the 1930s in Germany
and say, "Wake up, Germans, this is what's coming. These are the
ideas they're propagating," you wouldn't have had the holocaust.
And that's what we're saying here: Wake up! We need to wake up and say
this is wrong.
PAT ROBERTSON: Jews in Germany did not want to read Mein Kampf
and did not want to believe it. They said it is not possible that anybody
could be as monstrous as this person, and in today's world people say
it is not possible for us to believe that a religious system could teach
what the Koran clearly teaches. It's the religion that's the problem,
not necessarily the adherents to it. But read the man who has considered
himself the spokesman of God Almighty and what his statement are. Read
what these little children over there were quoted in a story we did
a couple days ago saying, "I could never marry a Jew, because god,
Allah, says they're apes and pigs." Yet, if I tell the truth about
this I am criticized.
GORDON ROBERTSON: Well, there's one more thing. In your comments
saying that Hitler was bad, but what's coming is worse, you need to
realize, that in no way diminishes the horror of the Holocaust and,
and you don't want it to happen again, and that's what we're saying
here: Never again should there be a holocaust, that there be a group
that targets the Jews for extermination.
PAT ROBERTSON: Well, and the Koran teaches, read it for yourself,
the Koran teaches that the end of the world will not come until every
Jew is killed by the Muslims. Now that's what it says in the Koran written
by Mohammed.