Christian evangelist Pat Robertson's claim that violent and subversive Muslims have infested the United States is part of a right-wing smear campaign and an "incitement to violence" against Muslims, a top advocacy group said Monday.
Ibrahim Hooper, director of communications for the Council on American-Islamic Relations, said in a statement the evangelist's comments "generally seek to confirm Robertson's obvious prejudices and stereotypes" and distorts the permission given in the Koran to fight oppressors as a call to genocide.
"Right-wing televangelist Pat Robertson's recent smears of Islam are an incitement to violence against American Muslims," according to the CAIR statement.
Robertson, a leader of the US Christian right, on February 21 described Islam as "not a peaceful religion that wants to coexist. They want to coexist until they can control, dominate and then if need be, destroy."
"The Koran makes it very clear; if you see an infidel, you are to kill him. That's what it says," Robertson said on his long-running evangelical television program "The 700 Club."
"Now that doesn't sound very peaceful to me."
Robertson also said current US immigration policies are so skewed to the Middle East "that we have introduced these people into our midst and undoubtedly there are terrorist cells all over them."
CAIR urged Robertson to be "true to his own beliefs" and apologize and "then meet with Muslim leaders who could provide him with accurate information about Islam."
These were not the first of Robertson's comments in the post-September 11 environment that elicited the ire of a wider array of US public opinion; in mid September, he and his guest, evangelist Jerry Falwell, suggested gays, abortion-rights supporters and liberals were responsible for the attacks.