TEL AVIV – While recognizing the Jewish state is struggling against radical Islam, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Wednesday rejected comments on Muslim immigration made in recent days by Donald Trump.
The Republican frontrunner has called for a “total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States until our country’s representatives can figure out what is going on.”
In response, Netanyahu’s office released a statement to reporters affirming, “The prime minister rejects the recent comments by Donald Trump regarding Muslims.”
“Israel respects all religions and stickily preserves the rights of all its citizens,” the statement said, adding that “at the same time, Israel is struggling against the radical Islamism that targets Muslims, Christians and Jews as one and poses a threat to the entire world.”
The statement continued:
The Prime Minister has set a uniform policy to agree to meeting requests with all US presidential candidates who come to Israel. This policy does not reflect support of candidates or their positions, but expresses the importance that the Prime Minister attributes to the strong alliance between Israel and the US.
Netanyahu will be meeting with Trump when the presidential candidate visits Israel at the end of the month.
The Jerusalem Post on Wednesday cited a source “closely connected to organizing the trip to Israel” as saying that Trump’s campaign is looking into the logistics of visiting the sensitive Temple Mount in Jerusalem.
Speaking on ABC’s “Good Morning America” on Tuesday, Trump clarified that under his proposal American Muslims can come and go as they please.
Trump expressed his hopes that a shutdown “will go quickly,” as soon as “our leaders figure out what the hell is going on.”
“If a person is a Muslim, goes overseas and comes back, they can come back. They’re a citizen. That’s different,” Trump explained. “But we have to figure things out.”
Speaking on CNN on Tuesday, Trump further warned that the country risks more terrorist attacks if his plan for a temporary ban on Muslim immigration is not implemented.
“You’re going to have many more World Trade Centers if you don’t solve it – many, many more and probably beyond the World Trade Center,” Trump told CNN’s Chris Cuomo.
Trump speculated that there are already terrorists inside the country. “They want our buildings to come down; they want our cities to be crushed. … They are living within our country. And many of them want to come from outside our country.”
In a statement released to reporters on Monday, Trump cited a poll from the Center for Security Policy showing that segments of the Muslim population hold anti-American views.
According to Pew Research, among others, there is great hatred toward Americans by large segments of the Muslim population. Most recently, a poll from the Center for Security Policy released data showing “25% of those polled agreed that violence against Americans here in the United States is justified as a part of the global jihad” and 51% of those polled “agreed that Muslims in America should have the choice of being governed according to Shariah.”
Trump urged Americans to better understand the ideology of radical Islam before allowing Muslims into the country.
Without looking at the various polling data, it is obvious to anybody the hatred is beyond comprehension. Where this hatred comes from and why we will have to determine. Until we are able to determine and understand this problem and the dangerous threat it poses, our country cannot be the victims of horrendous attacks by people that believe only in Jihad, and have no sense of reason or respect for human life.
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