Trump ‘converts’ on Islam
Trump speech lauds faith Never mind his hate campaign
A SOFT-SPOKEN President Trump, on his first foreign tour since winning the White House, called on leaders from dozens of Muslim nations Sunday to unify and join the fight against terrorism.
In a speech in Saudi Arabia, Trump used mellow tones in an about-face from his previous comments to spell out the difference between religion and violent extremism.
“This is not a battle between different faiths, different sects, or different civilizations,” Trump said at the Arabic Islamic American Summit. “This is a battle between barbaric criminals who seek to obliterate human life, and decent people of all religions who seek to protect it.”
Speaking in Riyadh, the birthplace of Islam, Trump avoided the bombastic remarks he rode to the presidency, expressing, instead, a message of religious tolerance that was all but absent during his campaign.
“We are not here to lecture,” he said. “We are not here to tell other people how to live, what to do, who to be, or how to worship. Instead, we are here to offer partnership — based on shared interests and values — to pursue a better future for us all.” Trump remained subdued through most of the speech, only working himself up in a repeated call to countries that are harboring terrorists: “Drive them out.” “Drive them out of your places of worship,” he commanded. “Drive them out of your communities. Drive them out of your holy land, and drive them out of this Earth.” The address did not include one instance of the term “radical Islamic terrorism,” which Trump as a candidate and President has insisted on using, despite concerns from critics that it sounds like the demonizing of Islam. He did, though, call for Middle Eastern countries to confront “the crisis of Islamic extremism, and the Islamists and Islamic terror of all kinds.” Beyond that, Trump framed the war on terrorism as a “battle between good and evil.” “Barbarism will deliver you no glory,” he said. “Piety to evil will bring you no dignity. If you choose the path of terror, your life will be empty, your life will be brief, and your soul will be condemned.” The speech demonstrated
a stunning reversal from the anger Trump unleashed on Islam, and Muslims, through most of his mainstream political career.
As a presidential candidate, he notoriously called for a “complete and total shutdown” on Muslims coming to America until the U.S. government could “figure out what the hell is going on.”
He supported the idea of creating a Muslim registry and allowing law enforcement to spy on mosques and Muslim communities.
Trump also said “Islam hates us” and that the religion, as a whole, held “tremendous hatred” for America. He also peddled a bogus story about thousands of Muslims in New Jersey celebrating the 9/11 attacks.
Just days into his presidency, Trump issued a travel ban on seven majority-Muslim countries. He later issued a second, revised version of the ban. Federal judges halted both orders on the grounds that Trump’s campaign rhetoric indicated the bans were about bigotry, rather than national security.
Muslim leaders and scholars weren’t willing to forget all of that after the President’s statesmanlike address.
“One speech cannot outweigh years of anti-Muslim rhetoric and policy proposals,” Nihad Awad, the national executive director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, said in a statement.
Awad noted that Trump said nothing about combating Islamophobia across the globe, or supporting the civil rights of Muslims in his own country.
“New policies and concrete actions — not mere rhetoric — are what is needed to reset relations with the Muslim world,” he said.
The former justice minister from Jordan pointed out that Trump gave no details on whether American policies toward Muslims, at home and abroad, would change under his administration.
“I would not call it a constructive tone,” Ibrahim Aljazy told CNN.
H.A. Hellyer, an Atlantic Council fellow who writes about the Arab world, said the speech did not close Trump’s “credibility gap.”
“You can’t go from saying ‘I think Islam hates us’ to saying ‘Oh, what a wonderful religion,’ ” Hellyer told Time.
Secretary of State Tillerson (photo, facing page) insisted Trump’s speech was just the beginning of new dialogue he would open about Islam.
“The President himself has said he has learned a lot on this trip, and he’s learned a lot about the people, he’s learned a lot about their culture,” Tillerson said on “Fox News Sunday.”
“I think this is a really important process in terms of how we move forward with this relationship between the Muslim world and the non-Muslim world.”
As a candidate, Trump targeted Saudi Arabia for its oppressive treatment of women and gays. He also hammered his Democratic opponent, Hillary Clinton, for letting the Clinton Foundation charity accept up to $25 million in donations from the Saudi kingdom.