11/01/2006 Haaretz

Tourism Min.: Pat Robertson's PM-bashing endangers deal

By News Agencies

Israel will not sign a $50 million tourism partnership with evangelical broadcaster Pat Robertson, to protest his suggestion that the stroke suffered by Prime Minister Ariel Sharon was God's punishment for withdrawing from the Gaza Strip, a tourism ministry spokesman said Wednesday. The ministry was to have signed the deal with Robertson and a group of other evangelical leaders, committing the government to providing land and infrastructure for a Christian Heritage Center in the Galilee. Robertson's group would have raised $50 million in funding. The center was to be tucked away in 35 acres of rolling Galilee hills, near key Christian sites such as Capernaum, the Mount of the Beatitudes, where tradition says Jesus delivered the Sermon of the Mount, and Tabgha - on the shores of the Sea of Galilee - where Christians believe Jesus performed the miracle of the loaves and fish.

Robertson had told U.S. journalists last year he was thrilled "there will be a place in the Galilee where evangelical Christians from all over the world can come to celebrate the actual place where Jesus Christ lived and taught." But spokesman Jonathan Pulik said Tourism Minister Avraham Hirchson, a close political ally of the stricken premier, would not sign any agreement with Robertson after the evangelist linked the January 4 stroke and hemorrhage that has left the permier fighting for his life to Sharon's withdrawal of Israeli troops and settlers from the Gaza Strip last year. "The prophet Joel makes it very clear that God has enmity against those who divide my land," Robertson said during his television show. "For any prime minister of Israel who decides he is going to carve it up and give it away, God says 'no, this is mine,'" Robertson added. "I would say woe unto any prime minister of Israel who takes a similar course to appease the EU, the United Nations, or the United States of America," Robertson said. Israel was considering leasing the land to the Christians for free. 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. Another Tourism Ministry spokesman, Ido Hartuv, left the door open to continuing the project - but only with people who don't back Robertson's statements. "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." In response, Robertson's Web site quoted his spokeswoman as saying Robertson was "simply reminding his viewers what the Bible has to say about efforts made to divide the land of Israel." He also said Sharon was "a very likable person and I am sad to see him in this condition."

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