Controversial Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump announced Thursday he was “postponing” his Israel trip, saying he would meet Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu after he is “elected United States president”.
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A planned visit to Israel by U.S. Republican hopeful Donald Trump is turning into one big headache for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
Adding that it was a “semi-scheduled” visit, the business tycoon said that his postponement was also “because I’m in the midst of a very powerful campaign that’s going very well”.
Ali, a Muslim, did not mention the Republican frontrunner by name, but a statement by the former heavyweight champ – reported by NBC and ABC – appeared directed squarely at Trump.
“Here’s what I want Republicans to understand”, Graham said.
Trump sparked widespread outrage this week after he proposed temporarily banning all Muslims from entering the United States in the wake of a mass shooting by a husband-and-wife pair of Islamic militants that killed 14 people in San Bernardino, California.
Like other Republican candidates, Trump has been a strong backer of Netanyahu in his various battles with President Obama.
“He’s a good man”, Trump said of the Israeli leader on Thursday. “I can’t make them up”, he said on Fox News.
Ali said on Wednesday that Islamic jihadists do not represent the religion.
He wrote in a message to fans that terror group Islamic State were “misguided murderers” and called on Muslims to stand up against “those who use Islam to advance their own personal agenda”. “I think there’s a degree that people are, like, saying, you know, ‘I’m frustrated, ‘” He said.
Netanyahu defends his meeting with Trump as inline with his general policy to meet with each and every US Presidential candidate.
Though Netanyahu will not cancel the meeting, he did join in on the surprisingly diverse chorus of politicians from around the world condemning Trump’s comments about Muslims.
He said Trump’s comments on Muslims and Jews were in “poor taste” and showed that the real estate mogul and reality TV star does not have what it takes to be president. “But, my deal would be they treat me fairly and I’m going to treat them fairly”.
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“You can’t win this war without Muslims helping you, and the way to victory is to form an alliance between the 90 percent who reject radical Islam in a fashion that will allow us to destroy the ideology over time”.
