Bob Roberts, a prominent Evangelical Pastor from Keller, Texas, just can’t help himself. He just loves to ingratiate himself with Islamists to show everyone just how easy going and friendly he is.
He did it in 2012 when he met with Muslim Brotherhood leader, Egyptian President Mohammed Morsi. Instead of asking Morsi to protect beleaguered Christians in Egypt, Roberts joshed with Morsi about his own conservative religious upbringing in Texas, telling him, “To us a Salafist would be a liberal!” According to Roberts, Morsi “died laughing and started pointing to someone saying something in Arabic.”
Ten years later, Roberts is still at it. Over Memorial Day weekend, Roberts was a featured speaker at the inaugural session of a convention organized by two Islamist organizations that operate in the United States — the Islamic Circle of North America (ICNA) and the Muslim American Society (MAS).
ICNA has deep ties to Jamaat-e-Islami (JI), an Islamist group in established in British India in 1941 by Syed Abul Ala Maududi who, in his 1940 book Let Us Be Muslims, called on his fellow Muslims to “take power and use it on God’s behalf.” It’s an idea that has caused untold suffering throughout the world in the years since.
MAS was founded by members of the Muslim Brotherhood, which itself was founded by Hassan al Banna, the author of the deeply antisemitic book, Our Struggle With the Jews in which he declared that the Jews were the “eternal enemies of Islam.” He also once declared that “A good man takes delight in launching Jihad.”
Shockingly enough, MAS cites al Banna on its website, stating that much of what he wrote could be categorized as “foundational thought” for Muslims “in his time and place, but not to Muslims in America.” A responsible civil rights organization would condemn al Banna’s Jew-hatred outright, not gloss over and “contextualize” it in such a manner.
Along these lines, most responsible pastors would not participate in an event organized by groups with such troubling ideological roots, but Roberts didn’t just show up. He did everything he could to ingratiate himself with his hosts and audience. In particular, he affirmed their narrative as victims of “Islamophobia” and emphasized his status as a “good” Evangelical.
“I’m a real live Evangelical,” he said. “I’m just not angry.”
After declaring that he loves Muslims, God, Jesus and the people in the audience, Roberts said, “Islamophobia is real” and that it is coming from his “tribe” of Evangelicals. “Our own research bears this out. Did you know that we have the most negative view of Muslims of anyone around?” He also said that over the years, he’s learned that not every Muslim wants to take over the United States and that Muslims are “some of the most kind, loving and gracious people on the face of the earth.”
It might have done Roberts some good if he had done some research about the organizers of the event before working so hard to ingratiate himself with the audience. The conference where Roberts spoke featured talks by Islamists who have declared Western society to be ‘filth,’ sanctioned sex slavery, called on Muslims to hate homosexuals and to support jihad in countries throughout the world.
One featured speaker Zahra Billoo, executive director of the San Francisco office of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR). She has warned Muslims to pay attention the Jewish Federation and “Zionist Synagogues.” She has declared “polite Zionists…are not your friends.”
Similarly demonizing rhetoric could still be heard at last weekend’s conference. During a talk about Hindu nationalism, Ajit Sahi, advocacy director of the Indian Muslim American Council, made his agenda very clear when he equated Zionism with white racism, declaring both movements to be “fundamentally anti-democratic ideologies that are supremacist to the core because they believe in the supremacy of one set of people in exclusion of all the other people.”
Sahi is taking a page out of the playbook of the Muslim Brotherhood as described by Markos Zografos, who in 2021 wrote that the organization “takes advantage of a progressive worldview, espoused by most mainstream Western media outlets and academic institutions” and “refers to opponents of the Muslim Brotherhood’s goals as ‘bigots,’ ‘white supremacists,’ and ‘islamophobia.’”
Roberts needs to bring his wet kisses to Islamists to an end.