I like _the_ ice cream?

Some languages I'm familiar with have very different usage for the definite article. This never fails to puzzle me. For example, take the sentence "I like ice cream".

In English: "I like ice cream"
In Hebrew: "אני אוהב גלידה" (ani ohev glida)
In Arabic: "be7ebb il-buza" ('7' standing for a fricative 'h' sound)
In French: "j'aime la glace"

Note that English and Hebrew don't use any article before "ice cream", while French and Arabic use the definite articles "la" and "il" accordingly. I don't see what they're for. "Ice cream" is a generic term in this context, isn't it?

Update: An interesting discussion develops after a cross-post to linguists.