In a telephone interview with the Jewish Tribune, Shore was discussing his latest film, The Third Jihad: Radical Islam’s Vision for America, produced by the Clarion Fund – the non-profit, non-partisan US-based organization that he founded in 2006 to educate the public about the threat of radical Islamists.

Also speaking to the Jewish Tribune was Dr. M. Zuhdi Jasser, the film’s narrator and a prominent Muslim physician, who has dedicated his life to fighting the threat of radical Islamists.

“I’m an orthodox Sunni Muslim. [I] pray five times a day,” Dr. Jasser, president of the Phoenix-based American Islamic Forum for Democracy (AIFD), explained. “America is the best place to practise that. Islam could thrive there, like any faith,” he said, adding that radical Islamists constitute a minority of Muslims.

The film is a chilling account of the profound danger looming at our doorstep. It shows radical Islamist organizations can be disguised as mainstream American Muslim groups.

The Third Jihad features interviews with several prominent experts, including Jim Woolsley, CIA director in the Clinton administration and vice-president of the Global Strategic Security Division, and British columnist Melanie Phillips, author of Londonistan, as well as leaders in the radical Islamist movement such as Imam Abdul Alim Musa, an American convert to Islam and leader of an allegedly pro-terror movement.

Violent footage and photos of abuse by radical Islamists both here and abroad, including widespread oppression of Christians, add to the frightening documentation.

According to Dr. Jasser, a former US Navy Lieutenant commander and recipient of the Meritorious Service Medal, most North Americans are oblivious to the profound danger.

“This is why the film is so important,” he stated passionately. “We’ve been lulled into complacency by the fact that it [radical Islam] is cloaked in the faÁade of religion. Within it is a faction that has radicalized the platform of our faith – even though I don’t view it as a religion, but as a political movement that uses a theocratic mindset and ideology to control and influence the population.”

The main obstacle to recognizing the situation is that North America is a “very liberal civilization,” Shore opined. “I say this very positively, and when I say liberal, I include the conservatives. We have a positive outlook – humanity is good, peaceful, wants to see conflicts resolved. All cultures are equally good. This leads to naivete when forces of evil are in the world. There’s a cognitive dissonance that makes it very difficult to see. We saw that prior to WWII.”

According to Dr. Jasser, “one of the litmus tests of identifying the radical Islamists is if they would support Israel without any ifs, ands or buts, like they do any other country, like America.

“I believe in the sanctity of the state of Israel, he said. “Israel is the canary in the coal mine. If the Arab-Israeli conflict were solved tomorrow, they’d find another reason to blame Israel, because they’re always blaming the other.”

Regarding US President Barack Obama’s claim in his Cairo speech that the United States is one of the largest Muslim countries, “I don’t know what he’s talking about,” Dr. Jasser said. “Diplomacy is important, but you need pragmatic realism. You can’t generate credibility by having a photo op with the Saudi Arabian king but not talking about ideology.

“Nobody wants to pay attention to the fact that Muslims have to do the work internally…a civil war – an intellectual war, not a violent war – between the Islamists and the non-Islamists, and that has to come from within. And that’s why I disagree with the president’s machinery.

“He said he was speaking to the Muslim world, and that implies that somehow this Muslim world is one entity and not diverse. In Egypt, where he spoke, there are bloggers put in jail, secularists, non-Muslims. It’s wonderful that he spoke of the beauty of the faith of Islam; that’s important. He talked about equality, minority rights, women’s rights and democratic principles, but he didn’t cover the main barrier. The problem is not with Islam, but with those who practise theocratic Islam,” he affirmed.

“In the early part of his speech, Obama praised Al-Azhar University. That would be like going to Moscow during the Cold War and praising the Kremlin.”

“What I see is initially a naÔve desire to make a quick peace and essentially [tolerate] the forces of evil,” Shore explained. “Talk of equal rights and talking to the same people he calls moderates, the very people who are funding the growth of radical Islam worldwide. I don’t think he understands it. The desire to come up with quick solutions, like getting Israel to lie down and give away Jerusalem and the West Bank [Judea and Samaria], is pushing them.”

Regarding numerous reports in the media like Palestinian Media Watch and MEMRI that include evidence of deception of the west among Palestinian leaders, “I don’t think they [western leaders] assimilate it,” Shore said. “They might glance at it sometimes and get a bit of a shock, but they don’t take it to heart. Politicians and media should be reporting constantly on what’s being said in the Arab world to their own people. They’re fooling us. We’re listening to the wrong message.

“We have a complete educational system and culture that is brainwashing an entire civilization,” he continued. “Palestinians, Iran, Egypt, Saudi Arabia. People are raised on a very radical vision and hatred of the west. This propaganda, unfortunately, is available in abundance, shown on their TVs every day, but the media largely ignores it.

“Jews, Israelis, have a very deep desire for peace and it’s hard for them to come to terms with reality. The desire for peace blinds them.”

Nevertheless, Shore is optimistic that people will wake up soon and things will change. “Perhaps I’m also naÔve, because I’m western,” he quipped.

For information, go to thethirdjihad.com. To read more on the American Islamic Forum for Democracy, check out aifdemocracy.org.