The latest word from Reverend Pat: God is punishing Ariel Sharon for Gaza pullout

It's been a few weeks since the last time Pat Robertson said something stupid (then it was about how residents of the town of Dover, Pennsylvania shouldn't pray to God when he destroys their town for voting out the school board that backed 'Intelligent Design,' and before that, it was about how black voters, 88% of whom voted for John Kerry, wouldn't vote for a Democrat who wasn't named Bubba, and before that, it was about assassinating Hugo Chavez), so this bit of oral flatulence was pretty much right on schedule.

Today, Robertson in effect said that Ariel Sharon was being punished by God for evacuating Israeli settlements in Gaza.

NORFOLK, Va. — Christian broadcaster Pat Robertson suggested Thursday that Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's stroke was divine punishment for "dividing God's land."

"God considers this land to be his," Robertson said on his TV program "The 700 Club." "You read the Bible and he says `This is my land,' and 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.'"

Sharon, who ordered Israel's withdrawal from Gaza last year, suffered a severe stroke on Wednesday...

[Robertson] also said, however, that in the Bible, the prophet Joel "makes it very clear that God has enmity against those who 'divide my land.'"

Sharon "was dividing God's land and I would say woe unto any prime minister of Israel who takes a similar course to appease the EU (European Union), the United Nations, or the United States of America," Robertson said.

In discussing what he said was God's insistence that Israel not be divided, Robertson also referred to the 1995 assassination of Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, who had sought to achieve peace by giving land to the Palestinians. "It was a terrible thing that happened, but nevertheless he was dead," he said.

So, according to Robertson, God punished Rabin and Sharon for attempting to make peace. Reverend Pat seems to prefer war. It is almost chilling to contemplate what he would do if he were somehow to be named Prime Minister of Israel. (Hint: the Lord commands Joshua in the old testament to smite unto complete and utter destruction the ancient occupants of the land, and to spare neither man nor woman nor child nor domestic beast).

This guy would be easy to dismiss as a charismatic but loopy nutcase, except that he has millions of people who listen to him and hang on his word every day, send him millions of dollars, and vote the way Rev. Pat tells them to (which has been straight ticket Republican for at least twenty years). In that context, he is genuinely frightening.