Talking with Terrorists: Part 2

A Jewish journalist’s new book entitled “Schmoozing with Terrorists” reports on the real agenda of Islamic extremists

Catholic Online Special Report: Part Two of Catholic Online's Two Part Interview with Aaron Klein on the Jihadist Agenda. While the interview -- the second part is presented below- reveals Klein's personal perspective, it is important to note that his conclusions do not necessarily coincide with official Catholic views.

LOS ANGELES (Catholic Online)- Here is Part 2 of Catholic Online's exclusive interview with Aaron Klein, the Jerusalem bureau chief for the online journal WorldNetDaily.

Klein interviewed some of the toughest Islamic extremists imaginable and has written a book about these conversations.

The book, released last month, is titled "Schmoozing with Terrorists: From Hollywood to the Holy Land, Jihadists Reveal Their Global Plans -- to a Jew!" (WND Books, $25.95). The book is available at retailers and through Amazon.com.

(For more background on Klein and his work, see Part 1 of our interview)

Catholic Online: Are the United States and its coalition allies winning the war on terror? For that matter, are we having any real effect on world terror?

KLEIN: That's actually why, in part, I wrote this book. I don't think we're doing a good job in the war on terror, and I don't think we understand our enemy. We don't understand where they're coming from, what they think, how we embolden them and how they operate.

These Islamic terror groups around the world are all fighting for the same thing, and that is to impose an Islamic regime around the world. This is a religious war. We're not fighting this war against some sort of ideology of terror. In my book, the terrorists mock our war on terror, and you can't disagree with them because they say, "How can you fight a war against an ideology?" Let's call it what it is, and we're not doing that.

I think that until we wake up -- until we realize, that we're fighting an enemy that won't be negotiated with, that sees negotiations as a sign of weakness and that is in the war to the finish -- we have to realize that either we demolish these guys, or we just leave the war and give up because there's no negotiation, no dialogue.

COL: You mention in your book the terrorists have described to you what life in the United States would be like if their brand of Islam takes over. What did they say?

KLEIN: They explain how women would have to have their heads covered, and they couldn't hold certain kinds of jobs. Thet would not allow new churches or synagogues to be built under Islamic sharia law. Existing churches and synagogues can do no new construction and they can't be loud -- they will not be allowed to ring church bells or to have events outside. No alcohol will be served in the Islamic states. Non-Muslims - and obviously there are a lot of non-Muslims in America - would have to pay a special "protection tax" just to live in the Muslim state of America.

By the way, that "protection tax" is not something they just made up. This protection tax is called the jisyah, and it is levied all the time against non-Muslims in the Middle East even today.

They also told me about American music, culture, movies - these will all be shut down, and only Islamic movies and music would be allowed. They usually got into what they thought about some of our pop-culture icons. They have never heard of people like Julia Roberts and Tom Cruise, but every Islamic terrorists that I interviewed knew about Madonna and Britney Spears. They actually threatened that if Islam takes over America, that they would first try to forcibly convert Madonna and Britney to Islam, and if these two singers - they actually called them "prostitutes" - kept singing, they would cut off their heads.

That, by the way, just shows you - they don't think that Britney Spears is somebody trying to make money in the entertainment industry. They think Britney Spears represents American women. They basically see Britney as our daughters. There is a small part of their war against us is because they are truly offended by some of our American culture.

COL: Is taking control of the United States a long-range goal of these radical Muslims? Do they want to take over America and impose shariah law, or do they just want us to stop meddling in the Middle East?

KLEIN: That's another thing I learned from all of these groups. It's not about America meddling in the Middle East. In fact, Sept. 11 obviously happened before America invaded Iraq. They see us as though we are in the days of Saladin, the Muslim conqueror of Europe. Islamic terrorists think that those days are back again.
Islam is on the rise. It's on the rise in Europe; you see the change in demographics in London, in Paris, and they think the same thing is going to happen in America. To them, absolutely -- and I hear this from the lips of the terrorists themselves, and Americans need to read this and understand - they are in a war to spread Islam around the world, not just to get America out of the Middle East.

COL: You state that the Christian population in Bethlehem and throughout the Middle East is dropping because so many are moving out of the area. Is this directly attributable to the systematic persecutions that so many experience in Muslim countries?

KLEIN: It used to be that the vast majority of people in Bethlehem were Christian. Bethlehem is the birthplace of Jesus, the site of the Church of the Nativity, one of the holiest sites in Christendom - but now the population is about 22 percent Christian, and actually that's a really generous number because it includes some satellite parts around Bethlehem. The actual city of Bethlehem probably has about 12 percent Christians, and they are thinning every year.

If you ask the terrorists, as I did, why the Christians are fleeing Bethlehem, they'll blame it all on Israel. They'll tell you that Israel built a security fence in 2000 and that is driving the Christians out. The only problem with this is that the Christians have been fleeing since 1995 -- which is the year that, under heavy American pressure, Israel evacuated Bethlehem and handed it over to Yasser Arafat and the Palestinian Authority.
Now you have the reports of Muslim intimidation against the Christians left and right. The Muslim gangs are going around confiscating Christian land. I've talked to Christian families who have come home one day to find their property confiscated unilaterally, and they have not been able to do anything about it because the court system and the security forces are controlled by the Palestinian Authority. That is what is driving the Christians out.

Christian leaders are really nervous because if the current trend continues, in just a few years there might not be a single Christian living in the believed birthplace of Jesus. It's really alarming, and I think America needs to realize that this is what happens all the time when Israel evacuates a territory -- right away, the Christians who are left there are persecuted.

Look at the Gaza Strip. Believe it or not, there are Christians who live in Gaza, a few thousand Christians. Israel evacuated the strip in 2005, and ever since then you have reports of churches and Christian schools being bombed. I personally went and talked to the owner of a Christian bookstore whose shop was bombed. A United Nations school was bombed because it was accused, incredibly, of spreading Christianity.

COL: Then there are the reports of Islamic extremists who have desecrated the Christian holy sites....

KLEIN: They regularly do. In 2002, Israel conducted an anti-terror operation in Bethlehem because terrorists were carrying out a lot of attacks on Israel. So Israel went in, and all the terrorists ran into the Church of the Nativity, one of the holiest sites in Christianity. There are reports that when the terrorists were in there, and they held nuns and priests hostage, they actually tore pages out of the Bible and used them as toilet paper.

n Nazareth, which is a very important site in Christianity, Muslims are trying to build a massive mosque in front of the Church of the Annunciation. They could build a mosque anywhere, but they want to build it right in front of the Annunciation church, to tower over the church. It's the same story over and over again.

This repression exists even with America's allies. In Saudi Arabia, Christians are persecuted. You're not to bring Bibles in there. They receive millions of dollars of aid from America each year. The Christian Copts of Egypt are being persecuted. There were reports just a few months ago that they tried to add on a bit to their church in Cairo. and suddenly the Christian Copts were killed by the Muslims. It's happening all over with America'a allies, and yet we don't speak out, and we continue to give a lot of money and a lot of military aid to these Christian-persecuting countries.

COL: There is surely a long history of America turning a blind eye toward religious and human-rights abuses in other nations because our relationship offers strategic or economic advantages. Terrorists seem to follow American foreign policy and politics rather closely. Have you picked up from them any particular views regarding the upcoming 2008 presidential elections?

KLEIN: They're hoping, incredibly, that the Democrats get elected to office. I was stunned by how closely the terrorists pay attention to our news cycle. We think that what happens in America doesn't reach the Middle East, doesn't reach our enemies, but it does. There was actually a Democratic primary debate a few months ago where Hilary Clinton, Barak Obama and John Edwards were all competing with each other as to who would withdraw from Iraq first. And the terrorists heard it - it was covered by Al Jazeera and the Arabic media, and they heard about the policies of the Democrats.

House speaker Nancy Pelosi has gone to Syria, one of the largest state-sponsors of terror, and called Syria a "route to peace." She also called for dialogue with Iran. The terrorists themselves won't dialogue with Iran. They saw that America had dialogue with North Korea during the Clinton administration, and North Korea is now a full-fledged member of the nuclear world.

So the terrorists and the Democrats incredibly share some of the same goals. They're hoping the Democrats get elected to power. Some of them told me they're endorsing Hilary Clinton. That's not because they are endorsing Hilary over Barack Obama or John Edwards, it's just that they don't know too much about the other candidates who are not as high profile. They just think Hilary is the big Democratic candidate, and so they're endorsing her. I have never talked to a single terrorist -- and I've talked to hundreds -- who wants the Republicans in power.

Americans really need to wake up and realize the kind of war we're in. We're fighting an enemy bent on our destruction, an enemy what won't negotiate, an enemy that won't give up, an enemy that's fighting to the death, an enemy that's looking to spread Islam around the world. Until we get our anti-terror strategists to understand this, we're not going to be in good shape. I hate it when writers shamelessly plug their own book, but I really do thing Americans need to read "Schmoozing with Terrorists" so they can hear all of this not from a commentator, not from an analyst, but from the terrorists themselves.

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