Today, President Donald Trump took a direct flight from Riyadh to Tel Aviv. His plane is believed to be the first to fly directly from Saudi Arabia to Israel. Trump and Netanyahu will be talking about ways to achieve Israeli-Palestinian peace.
The President, his wife, and his daughter Ivanka all prayed at the Western Wall.
Social media went nuts over the images of Trump and Salman touching a “glowing orb.” Multiple “evil global domination” sci fi references and photoshops flooded the twitterverse. The Church of Satan even tweeted: “For clarification, this is not a Satanic ritual.”
I didn’t find them very funny, given that the whole point of the GCCEI is to educate people away from the evil ideologies that actually do want to dominate the world.
Foreign Minister Adel Al-Jubeir said that Saudi Arabia hopes to send a message to the West that the Muslim world is “not an enemy,” adding that Riyadh comes second after the United States in the fight against Daesh.
“We are the second army after the US military in the international coalition against terrorism. The efforts will be an effective partnership between the Islamic world and the West in general to combat terrorism,” he said.
President Trump and Saudi Arabia’s King Salman signed ajoint strategic declaration, reassuring the relationship between the two countries, and financial agreements on defense, technology, and energy.
According to the White House, the agreement will help Saudi Arabia face the threat of Iran and fight terrorism in the Middle East as well as support new jobs in the defense industry. The deal is expected to include $350 billion in investments over ten years
Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said thedeal would create hundreds of thousands of jobs.
Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi tells US President Donald Trump he has a “unique personality that is capable of doing the impossible.” Trump laughs and jokingly agrees. [2:51]
The First Lady received rave reviews from the Saudi press.
When the Trumps arrived in Israel,they were greeted by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his wife Sara, who told Melania,“I talk every place about … how great you are.”
Benjamin: “I can testify to that.”
Sara: “Because a majority of the people in Israel, unlike the media, they love us. So we tell them how you are great so they love you.We have very much in common.We’ll talk about it over dinner.”
The Trumps prayed at the Western Wall and again at the Church of the Holy Sepulchre.
On CNN’s Reliable Sources, Bob Schieffer reported the glaringly obvious truth that President Trump gave a good speech in Saudi Arabia.
Schieffer is an old-school newsman. There’s no doubt that the former Face the Nation host leans left, but he is still capable of reporting, you know, the news. That is too much for denizens of the modern MSM to tolerate.
Guest host John Berman had to push back: “You know, Bob, though, that there will be people who look at that last comment you made and say you’re normalizing the president.”
Schieffer gave the perfect response. He wasn’t trying to normalize Trump, he was trying to do what reporters are supposed to do: REPORT.
The fact that Berman could chastise Schieffer for “normalizing” the American president should be all the proof any thinking person needs of how totally corrupt new-school journalists have become.
[My apologies to Pistol Pete. He gave us all a lot of great stuff today that I have been breaking up into smaller bites, partly so the site loads faster and partly so I can add my two cents here and there.]
Obamatold his audience how deep an influence Islam had had on America from the very beginning of the republic. He lamented the activities of “violent extremists.” He apologized for the bigotry of Americans. “Fear and anger” was understandable in the wake of 9/11, he said, but those emotions “in some cases . . . led us to act contrary to our ideals.” He never mentioned the word “terrorism,” much less “Islamic terrorism.”
Trumpsought solutions guided by “common sense,” “principled realism,” and “experience,” not “ideology.” He praised Islam as a great and beneficent religion, but also sternly rejected “Islamic extremism,” “Islamicism,” and “Islamic terror of all kinds.” He used the words “terror” and “terrorism” more than thirty times. He castigated ISIS, Hamas, and Hezbollah as terrorist organizations, and was particularly tart about the role of Iran in funding, abetting, and exporting terror.
The media made a big deal of Trump allegedly “bowing” to accept a medal from his host. Clearly, they KNOW that Obama blew it when he bowed before a foreign potentate.
From Stilton Jarlsberg on Trump’s Middle East tour:
There’s a lot more testosterone in the President’s statements overseas than we saw previously. Obama, as we painfully recall, basically declared that Islam created everything good about Western civilization, and that the evil, moronic, Bible-clutching simpletons of the United States of America then screwed it all up. And regarding terror, Obama basically stuck to the Reverend Jeremiah Wright’s assessment that we were to blame for “America’s chickens coming home to roost.”
Trump is taking a different approach to terror, telling the Muslim world: “Religious leaders must make this absolutely clear: barbarism will deliver you no glory – piety to evil will bring you no dignity. If you choose the path of terror, you life will be empty, your life will be brief, and your soul will be condemned.”
Admit it, you can’t imagine those words coming out of Barry. While you don’t have to imagine that he actually declared, following the terrorists’ slaughter of our people in Benghazi, “the future must not belong to those who would slander the prophet of Islam.”
There may be those who complain that there’s too much of a men’s locker room atmosphere surrounding Trump…but to us, it smells like fresh air.
Donald Trump gave an absolutely flawless speech before a meeting of Muslim leaders in Saudi Arabia over the weekend. The differences between his visit and the FORMER president could not be more stark.
Obama could not get his mouth to form the words “Islamic terrorists” or “radical Islam.”Trump told them“Drive Out the Terrorists!… Drive Them Out! Drive Them Out!”
Top Arab leaders from 50 majority Muslim countries, including the Saudi, Egyptian and Jordanian leaders posed for a photo with the US president on Sunday before his speech in Riyadh.It will be hard for the liberals to spin this photo and historic event.
IF YOU CAN SPARE THE 34 MINUTES, TRUMP’S SPEECH IS WELL WORTH WATCHING.
CtH POSTED ONE SHORT CLIP. HERE’S ANOTHER:
Trump: Muslims must confront ‘Islamic terror’
The Mideast MAGA (MMEGA) Platform …
“Our goal is a coalition of nations who share the aim of stamping out extremism and providing our children a hopeful future that does honor to God.” – DJT
“We are not here to lecture — 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.” – DJT
“Every time a terrorist murders an innocent person, and falsely invokes the name of God, it should be an insult to every person of faith.” – DJT
Whoever wrote those lines deserves a pat on the back and a raise.
Key quotes and highlights from Trump’s speech:
“We are adopting a principled realism … Our friends will never question our support, and our enemies will never doubt our determination. … [W]herever possible, we will seek gradual reforms – not sudden intervention.”
“Our goal is a coalition of nations who share the aim of stamping out extremism and providing our children a hopeful future that does honor to God.”
“We are not here to lecture — 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.”
“Every time a terrorist murders an innocent person, and falsely invokes the name of God, it should be an insult to every person of faith.”
“But we can only overcome his evil if the forces of good are united and strong — and if everyone in this room does their fair share and fulfills their part of the burden.”
“Terrorism has spread across the world. But the path to peace begins right here, on this ancient soil, in this sacred land.”
“America is prepared to stand with you … But the nations of the Middle East cannot wait for American power to crush this enemy for them.”
“This is not a battle between different faiths, different sects, or different civilizations. This is a battle between barbaric criminals who seek to obliterate human life, and decent people of all religions who seek to protect it.This is a battle between good and evil.”
“That means honestly confronting the crisis of Islamist extremism and the Islamist terror groups it inspires. And it means standing together against the murder of innocent Muslims, the oppression of women, the persecution of Jews, and the slaughter of Christians.”
“Religious leaders must make this absolutely clear: Barbarism will deliver you no glory — 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 Resurrection of Christ] Now, brothers and sisters, I want to remind you of the gospel I preached to you, which you received and on which you have taken your stand.”