Writer: Trump Helped Start Conversation About Radical Islam
PHILADELPHIA (CBS) -- David French, a writer for National Review, gives Donald Trump credit for raising the issue of Muslim terrorism and contends the Middle East rife with extremism and hatred.
French, talking with Chris Stigall on Talk Radio on 1210 WPHT, says Trump did Americans a service by attracting headlines to controversy.
"You've got to give Trump credit for one thing, he's started a conversation, a serious conversation in this country about the extent of the threat from radical Islam and some of the things that need to be done about it."
He claims his research shows there is reason to be concerned about the Middle East continuing to breed and export terrorists.
"I took a lot of data of surveys of Muslim attitudes, attitudes of people in Muslim countries, attitudes of people of the Muslim faith toward various issues. One that was among the most sobering findings is, for example, in North Africa and the Middle East, which is an overwhelmingly Muslim part of the world, 74 percent of people held anti-Semitic attitudes. 74 percent, which is dramatically higher than any other region."
French asserts the terrorist attacks we've seen recently are a logical result, based on amount of extremism that is accepted and tolerated in Muslim countries.
"You've got an awful lot of hatred out there, globally speaking. And it's not everybody and I say that right up front and, of course, the statistics bear out that it's not everybody. But it's a huge problem and that's the fertile soil from which jihad springs. We can't fool ourselves into thinking that the Islamic world is incredibly peace loving and tolerant and then just some tine few go bad. It's that there's a well spring of hatred there from which hundreds of thousands grow up to become jihadists."