Likud MK Dr. Anat Berko. Photo: Likud.

Today’s global fight against terrorism can be characterized as a “seventh-century clash involving 21st-century weapons,” an Israeli parliamentarian and counter-terrorism expert told The Algemeiner.

Likud MK Anat Berko, on a visit to the United States, said that in view of this dire situation, world leaders must come to realize they are “in the same boat.”  

“Every country should put its ego aside and collaborate against terrorism, because we are in the middle of World War Three,” she urged. “I said this many years ago and, I’m sorry to say, many of the warnings I made have become reality.”

Berko claimed that the global community is so concerned with political correctness that it loses sight of the truth. “Not all Muslims are terrorists, but the first victims are Muslims themselves,” she said. “What we are experiencing right now is a tsunami of terror carried out by Muslims and this cannot be ignored. We can be politically correct about this, but it will not help combat the problem. The international community does not understand Israel is fighting the same enemy.” 

However, added Berko, while countries are grappling with how to crush terror networks planning attacks around the world, an even greater and more obvious terror threat is being ignored: Iran.

“Shia Iran is the wrong horse that the West gambled on. Even without its nuclear umbrella, Iran conducts and sponsors terrorism all over the world. The West did not understand from the beginning that Iran wouldn’t be the ‘good cop’ in the Middle East and is in fact using its global proxies to carry out terror attacks, like we saw in its involvement in Buenos Aires [in the 1994 bombing of the AMIA Jewish Center]. The nexus between Shia Iran, Alawite Syia and Hezbollah has become the face of Shia terrorism. They have sleeper cells in the US, Europe, Africa, South America — everywhere,” she said, adding, “This doesn’t mean Sunni countries don’t have them, too.”

With Sunni and Shia terror groups already carrying out and threatening to carry out cross-border attacks against Israel, Berko said, “Israel will not be the policeman of the Middle East. We are a tiny country, the only state for the Jewish people, which is smaller than New Jersey and even Rhode Island. However, we will keep our borders free of terrorism.”

The MK’s resume is impressive for any politician. Berko served in the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) for 25 years and is now a Lieutenant Colonel in the reserves. She is the author of The Path to Paradise: The Inner World of Suicide Bombers and their Dispatchers, and The Smarter Bomb, Women and Children as Suicide Bombers — the fruit of her years of study of terrorists, particularly women and children. On Friday, she became the first ever woman to be appointed to head the Knesset’s Subcommittee for Intelligence and Secret Services, “the most prestigious and classified of all the subcommittees,” she said.