that sounded an awful lot like former president obama or former president bush. well, certainly if you use as the benchmark what president trump said as a candidate last summer when he said islam hates us, then yes, it is a dramatic improvement. however, if you use as the benchmark performance of previous presidents, whether it was george w. bush and ronald reagan or president obama or bill clinton, the fact that a president of the united states goes to saudi arabia and not even mention once the issue of human rights, and it s not just the president, other members of the administration, including the secretary of state, say we are de-emphasizing human rights. we are the united states of america. that would be a historic first and something that would, frankly, i think shame previous presidents of both parties. so, my concerns remain. his rhetoric is certainly better than the awful rhetoric of the campaign, but compared to previous presidents, it s still
trump as a candidate was talking about islam being a threat to america. he comes to saudi arabia and makes a much more measured speech, talking about islam not being the enemy. he s coming to israel backtracking on his promise to move the embassy from tel aviv to jerusalem. he goes to visit the western wall, which is a powerful symbol to send about the jewish nature of jerusalem and israel. remember, israel as a jewish state is the key part of negotiations with palestinians that its jewishness would be affirm affirmed. here the president is not doing so with the israeli prime minister so he s sending a strong signal but still pulling back from any major change in u.s. policy. in other words donald trump is being careful here. to is ittic to tradition. it is significant the israelis did and the cabinet did make some significant important gestures towards the palestinians just ahead of this president s visit, easing up their movement restrictions, trying to open up a little bit
his words weren t too bad. we heard some very positive things, him stating that islam is one of the great faiths of the world, something that he hadn t said before, and something that his advisers would refuse to even admit. so we saw a change in tone but we really need to see a change in policy. we need to see concrete actions, like not defending in court the muslim ban, executive orders, any racial and religious profiling at the borders, speaking out against the rising tide of islamaphobia and hate incidents targeting american muslims. if we see this kind of more positive rhetoric backed up by concrete actions, then we can say that there are some changes being made. until then it s just talk. if you d all stay with me we ll get in a break again. you re looking at live images out of jerusalem, where it is