UK prime minister: Trump’s rhetoric ‘helps the extremists’

British Prime Minister David Cameron says Donald Trump’s rhetoric toward Muslims is aiding radical Islamic terrorists.

“I think the problem with what Donald Trump has said, and what some others say too, is they are making a fundamental mistake of trying to blame all of Islam and all Muslims for what is the ideology and the actions of a minority,” he said, according to Mic.

{mosads}“I think that’s wrong,” Cameron continued at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. “In many ways, it actually helps the extremists, because they want to create a clash of civilizations between Islam and Christianity, or Islam and the West.

“So, what Donald Trump says is, in my view, not only wrong, but actually it makes the work we need to do to confront and defeat the extremists more difficult,” he added.

Cameron argued that Islam is currently in the midst of a struggle for the hearts and minds of Muslims worldwide.

“It is a fight within Islam, where the overwhelming majority rightly see Islam as a religion of peace,” he told the forum.

“[They] want to live in successful multi-racial, multi-ethnic, multi-faith democracies like ours, and make an incredible contribution to our country,” Cameron said of the majority of Muslims.

“[That is] opposed to a small minority that believe this rhetoric of poisonous extremism, and many of this tiny minority then believing in violence.”

Cameron said Islamic extremism is the modern era’s greatest danger.

“It’s the battle of our time,” he said. “I do think it’s going to be with us for many years [and] I do think it’s a huge threat.”

Trump has repeatedly called for a temporary ban on Muslims entering the U.S. following several terrorist attacks last year.

He defends the measure as necessary to preventing attacks on American soil.

His proposal has drawn widespread condemnation from critics at home and abroad who call it discriminatory.

The British parliament on Monday debated a popular petition to ban Trump for the U.K.’s shores. The majority seemingly sided against the measure, saying the real estate tycoon is not a serious threat to British interests.