Franklin Graham: Barack Obama very sympathetic to Islam

Newscast Media CHARLOTTE—The Rev. Franklin Graham has warned in an interview that President Barack Obama is "very sympathetic to Islam" and that America's foreign policy is influenced by Muslims. He added that this influence could lead to Christians and Jewish people being persecuted in the United States.

"There are Muslims that have access to him in the White House. Our foreign policy has a lot of influence now, from Muslims. We see the prime minister of Israel being snubbed by the president and by the White House and by the Democrats and it's because of the influence of Islam. They hate Israel and they hate Christians, and so the storm is coming, I believe," Graham told Gordon Robertson, host of CBN's "The 700 Club" interactive program.

Graham further pointed out that Obama had a Muslim father, and that as a child the president went to school in Indonesia, which has the largest Islamic population in the world.

"So, growing up his frame of reference and his influence as a young man was Islam. It wasn't Christianity, it was Islam," the evangelist said.

Graham has criticized Obama's foreign policy on a number of occasions, including the president's refusal to call terror group ISIS "Islamic."

"The truth is — their barbaric murderers openly said they killed them because they were 'people of the cross.' Why is the president seemingly continuing to protect Islam and refusing to open his eyes to the truth?" Graham asked when an initial statement by the White House in February failed to identify the 21 Copts beheaded by ISIS as Christians.

Obama has responded to conservative criticism by asserting that he does not identify ISIS as "Islamic" because he doesn't want to give the terror group the legitimacy that it wants.

"These terrorists are desperate for legitimacy. And all of us have a responsibility to refute the notion that groups like ISIL somehow represent Islam, because that's a falsehood that embraces the terrorists' narrative," Obama said, using another name for ISIS.

Obama's has often stated that he's a Christian, and in January said that anyone who questions his faith does not know him.

"In our lives, Michelle [Obama] and I have been strengthened by our Christian faith. Still, as you may know, my faith has at times been questioned — by people who don't know me — or they've said that I adhere to a different religion, as if that were somehow a bad thing," the president has said.

A poll released last week as part of the 2014 Cooperative Congressional Election Study found that many Americans don't believe "deep down" that Obama is a Christian, however.

As many as 54 percent of Republicans who responded to the survey said that Obama is really a Muslim, and only 45 percent of Democrats said that Obama is a Christian. More Independents, at 26 percent, said that Obama is a Muslim, than those who said he is a Christian, at 16 percent. Add Comments>>

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