President Trump said he would “do a number” on countries persecuting Christians in the Middle East if he could find rock-solid evidence of the “disgraceful” claims.
“If you look at the way Christians have been treated in some countries, it’s beyond disgraceful,” Trump said Thursday during a news conference at the White House. “If I had information and if I had absolute proof — some of the stories that we’ve heard, which are not easy, which is not easy to get — I would go in and do a number to those countries like you wouldn’t believe.
He added, “What they do to Christians in the Middle East — it’s disgraceful.”
Trump made the comment while discussing the nascent “Abraham Accord” treaty to normalize relations between Israel and the United Arab Emirates.
The deal, finalized Thursday on a call between Trump, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Abu Dhabi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Zayed al Nahyan, is predicated in part on Israel’s agreement to halt sovereignty claims temporarily over land sought by the Palestinians for a future state.
At his own press conference, Netanyahu stressed that this was a temporary suspension.
The agreement is a “big start” to helping Christians persecuted in the Middle East, Trump said.
“It’s a very big part of the overall negotiation,” the president explained. “And as countries come in — for instance, UAE has agreed very strongly to represent us; I think they will very well with respect to Christianity, because in the Middle East, it’s not treated well. It’s treated horribly and very unfairly, and it’s criminal what’s happened — and that’s for many, many years.”
Netanyahu had called on Trump’s Christian evangelical supporters to advocate on behalf of annexation in the lead-up to the deal, including in remarks to Christians United for Israel, a U.S. group, where he billed sovereignty claims over annexed territory as “an integral part of Christian identity.”
A July report from Pew Research Center showed Trump’s support among white evangelicals, a group among which the president has typically held strong approval ratings, falling slightly since April amid the coronavirus outbreak and nationwide demonstrations over racial injustice.
In the survey conducted June 16 to 22, the share of white evangelical Protestants who say they approve of Trump’s job performance overall fell to 72%, a 6-point drop from 78% in April. White evangelicals who approve “very strongly” of Trump’s performance fell 8 points to 59%, from 67% in April.
Annexation could be helpful to Trump on Election Day, suggested Israel’s U.S. Ambassador Ron Dermer, who was also at the news conference.
