US leader’s pivot on Islam draws scepticism

Trump’s words of solidarity with Muslims fighting extremism is a transactional bid to sell arms to Arab states, US critics say

NEW YORK // Donald Trump has offered Riyadh a hand of cooperation, acknowledged that Muslims have suffered more from terrorism than anyone else and avoided references to “radical Islamic terrorism”.

The US president did make one apparent slip but his officials put it down to exhaustion. Mr Trump’s speech to Muslim leaders in Riyadh on Sunday won praise from his allies in the Middle East.

But in the United States, Muslim Americans voiced scepticism that Mr Trump, who has railed against the threat from Islam, has really changed his view.

A single tweet or an unscripted aside could undo his speech that was crafted for a specific international audience, said Hakim Ouansafi, chairman of the Muslim association of Hawaii and a key campaigner against Mr Trump’s travel ban on Muslim countries. “You don’t go to someone’s home like Saudi Arabia and bash their religion,” he said. “We knew that wasn’t going to happen but we did pay attention and we listened for certain phrases he used in the campaign and since then.

“There were certain words like the phrase ‘Islamic terrorism’ that he did not say and that’s a step in the right direction. However, I’m sceptical that he will avoid the term in his next tweet or his next gathering of supporters.”

Mr Trump’s campaign rhetoric and policy promises have been blamed for the rise in hate crimes against Muslims in the US.

In March last year, as he closed on the Republican nomination for president, he said: “I think Islam hates us. There’s a tremendous hatred there.”

Mr Trump insisted on referring to “radical Islamic terrorism” despite objections that it risked blaming an entire religion for the actions of a few hardline militants. One of his first actions in power was to impose a ban on visitors from seven Muslim-majority nations, which the courts swiftly overturned.

On Sunday, Mr Trump described Islam as “one of the world’s great faiths” and acknowledged for the first time that Muslims have suffered the most at the hands of terrorists. “They have borne the brunt of the killings and the worst of the destruction in this wave of fanatical violence,” he said.

Political pundits in the US praised his shift towards a more moderate tone as he tried to leave behind a string of scandals at home that are undermining his presidency.

But for others, the warm words were nothing more than a transactional effort to persuade Arabian Gulf states to buy US arms to combat ISIL.

“Trump: ‘I think Islam hates us, but a gold necklace, my face on a 5-storey building and arms deal worth billions mighta changed my mind’” was how Linda Sarsour, a Palestinian- American political activist who helped to organise protests at Mr Trump’s inauguration, characterised his speech on Twitter.

Abed Ayoum, legal and policy director of the American-Arab anti-discrimination committee, said for Mr Trump to simply read a prepared speech from a teleprompter was not enough to change the course of his presidency. Mr Ayoum said Mr Trump had done nothing to address the effect of his rhetoric on Muslims in the US. “He has not reached out to the American Muslim community. He is still defending his travel ban and he is still appointing Islamophobes and xenophobes throughout his administration,” he said.

“The speech hasn’t changed his standing in the American Muslim community. He is still someone that has targeted us and has not looked at us as an equal part of this country.”

Others found something positive in Mr Trump’s meetings with Muslim leaders. It may help Americans to understand Islam, which many view as a foreign religion.

Mustafa Akyol, a contributing opinion writer at The New York Times, said: “It is actually helpful, in my view, that American people, especially those who voted for Trump, see their president and his family happily hanging out with all the images they may typically see as scary: Arabic inscriptions on green flags, recitation of the Quran, Arab men with swords.

“For merely visual purposes, it is better that Trump appears in this conservative Muslim setting, rather than staying away from it.”