Activist Ayaan Hirsi Ali says US has its head in the sand when it comes to ISIS

A leading voice on the rights of Muslim women said Sunday U.S. lawmakers continue to take a “head in the sand” approach to the “ideology of radical Islam.”

“You cannot defeat the idea of ISIS if you won’t talk about the idea itself,” Ayaan Hirsi Ali told Maria Bartiromo on “Sunday Morning Futures.” “And it’s unfortunate that this idea is embedded—it’s entrenched—in Islam.”

Ali, who testified before the Senate Homeland Security Committee in June, wrote an op-ed in The Wall Street Journal on Aug. 10 where she criticized President Trump for not following through well enough on his campaign promise to take a firmer approach to combatting “Islamic extremism.”

“Mr. Trump has had more than six months to make good on these pledges. He hasn’t gotten very far. The administration’s first move—a hastily drafted executive order limiting immigration from seven Muslim-majority countries—backfired when it was repeatedly blocked in court,” Ali wrote, adding, that “with regard to radical Islam, he simply seems to have lost interest.”

The rights leader added that extremists are abusing what America offers to all who enter the country.

“Radical Islamists in the United States are taking advantage of the freedoms we have and the free institutions to isolate Muslim Americans and inculcate into their heads to reject American values and promoting this idea of hatred. Unless we understand that, we won’t be able eradicate the idea of ISIS anywhere,” Ali said.