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Toronto – Calling the Arab Islamic American Summit “unprecedented,” King Salman addressed more than 40 Arab leaders on Sunday, claiming the meeting “of the utmost importance between the Muslim world and the West.”
The Saudi monarch pledged Saudi support of Trump’s vision for the fight against Islamist terror and urged fellow Arab leaders to “stand united against forces of evil wherever they are.”
Reasserting Islam as a religion of “peace and tolerance,” the king emphasized that Saudi Arabia shares “the same objectives with Donald Trump to fight terrorism and extremism.”
In Trump’s speech, he acknowledged that the Arab world is on the verge of a “new Renaissance” but warned that the only way to realize the energy of Arab youth, who will embody that Renaissance, is for the Arab world to unite with the west to defeat the spectre of terror.
King Salman reiterated Saudi support for fighting all forms of terror and putting an end to its spread across the globe.He also backed up Trump’s call to eradicate all sources of financing to Islamist extremists, “to dry up its sources and stand firm in confronting this scourge that poses a danger to all of humanity.”
Singling out Iran as “the spearhead of terrorism since the Khomeini revolution,” the king echoed the sentiments of the US president Trump who, in his speech, did not mince his words. Trump charged Iran with “spreading destruction and chaos” across the region through the funding and training of terrorists.
With the unabashed assistance of Iran, Trump asserted, Syria’s Bashar al Assad has reached new heights of depraved barbarity against his own people, all in the name of protecting his own interests.
He cited the Iranian people as Iran’s greatest victims and insisted that, until Iran begins to cooperate with the rest of the world, it will continue to be an international pariah. Trump urged the Arab world to “Isolate Iran, deny it.”
Although Saudi support of Trump and his plan to stamp out Islamist terrorism was a foregone conclusion ahead of the summit, it remains to be seen what impact, if any, the rhetoric had or will have on the other Arab leaders present and the millions of Muslims they represent.
For some, echoes of Trump speeches past may still be ringing in their ears with inflammatory claims of Muslims celebrating 9/11.
He also claimed during his campaign in 2015 that Saudi Arabia wouldn’t exist if it were not for the US. Most famously, however, was his claim that Muslims hate America. What a difference a presidential oath makes.
