Jewish Groups Praise Trump Call To Fight Islamist Extremism

(JTA) — Jewish groups praised President Donald Trump for calling on Muslim nations to confront Islamist extremism during a speech to Muslim and Arab leaders at a summit in Saudi Arabia.

“President Trump’s refreshing honesty is welcome and needed in describing the Islamist extremist threat,” said David Harris, CEO of the American Jewish Committee. “The fight against Islamist extremism is a battle between the forces of good and decency, on the one hand, and evil and a death cult, on the other.”

Zionist Organization of America President Morton Klein in a statement issued late Sunday called the speech “historic, important, courageous.”

Klein said his organization was pleased that Trump strongly condemned Iran, that he condemned “ISIS, Hezbollah and Hamas and Iran in the same sentence – for they are all part of the same scourge of Islamist terror.”

“However, the President should have demanded that Muslim leaders and religious leaders should likewise condemn and delegitimize these terrorist groups by name,” Klein said.