{"id":6311,"date":"2006-01-11T13:29:34","date_gmt":"2006-01-11T18:29:34","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com\/?p=6311"},"modified":"2006-01-11T13:29:34","modified_gmt":"2006-01-11T18:29:34","slug":"occasionally-lunacy-has-consequences","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/occasionally-lunacy-has-consequences\/","title":{"rendered":"Occasionally, lunacy has consequences"},"content":{"rendered":"

Last week, TV preacher Pat Robertson told his national television audience that Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon’s stroke was divine punishment<\/a>. Yesterday, Robertson denied having said<\/a> exactly what a video shows him saying<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Today, we learn that Robertson’s lunacy sometimes has consequences<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Israel won’t do business with Pat Robertson after the evangelical leader suggested Prime Minister Ariel Sharon’s massive stroke was divine punishment, a tourism official said Wednesday, putting into doubt plans to develop a large Christian tourism center in northern Israel.<\/p>\n

Avi Hartuv, spokesman for Israel’s tourism minister, said officials are furious with Robertson’s suggestion that the stroke was retribution for Sharon’s withdrawal from the Gaza Strip last summer. “We can’t accept this kind of statement,” Hartuv said.<\/p>\n

Robertson is leading a group of evangelicals who have pledged to raise $50 million to build the Christian Heritage Center in Israel’s northern Galilee region, where tradition says Jesus lived and taught.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Well, Robertson was<\/i> leading a group of evangelical investors. Now, Israeli officials said they’ll work on the center with anyone who a) isn’t Robertson; and b) denounces Robertson’s comments.<\/p>\n

Israel was considering leasing the land to the Christians for free. Tourism Minister Avraham Hirschson predicted it would annually draw up to 1 million pilgrims who would spend $1.5 billion in Israel and support about 40,000 jobs.<\/p>\n

Hirschson, however, is one of Sharon’s biggest supporters, and a member of the centrist Kadima party recently founded by the prime minister. Hartuv left the door open to continuing the project, but only with people who don’t back Robertson’s statements.<\/p>\n

“We want to see who in the group supports his (Robertson’s) statements. Those who support the statements cannot do business with us. Those that publicly support Ariel Sharon’s recovery … are welcome to do business with us,” Hartuv said. “We have to check this very, very carefully.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Yesterday, in defending his lunacy, Robertson said he was “misquoted<\/a>” and he tries to be “rational<\/a>” in what he says. Apparently, no one else seems to think so.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Last week, TV preacher Pat Robertson told his national television audience that Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon’s stroke was divine punishment. Yesterday, Robertson denied having said exactly what a video shows him saying. Today, we learn that Robertson’s lunacy sometimes has consequences. Israel won’t do business with Pat Robertson after the evangelical leader suggested Prime […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[617],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6311","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6311","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6311"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6311\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6311"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6311"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6311"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}