The Wake Up Call

Book excerpt

This week I’m featuring two new books that have been released, by friends of mine, about Israel and Jewish affairs.

The first is by Toronto-based writer Israel Ellis, and it is The Wake Up Call: Global Jihad and the Rise of Antisemitism in a World Gone Mad (Wicked Son/Post Hill Press 2024).

The below is from the author about his book, which is available for purchase here.

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After the horrific events of 9/11, air travel security became the obsession of a shell-shocked and paranoid Western world. Today, some flight check-in processes are longer than the flight itself. What remains dangerously unaddressed, however, is the root cause of our security concerns: the teaching and spread of Jihad.

The January 1st ISIS-inspired rampage in New Orleans' French Quarter, which the FBI has declared a "premeditated and evil act," is yet another wake up call that Western nations continue to ignore. When I wrote the book, The Wake Up Call (2024 Wicked Son/ Post Hill Press). I warned that Global Jihad wasn't planning an invasion—the invasion has already happened, taking root in our neighbourhoods, universities, and cities.

"The world needs not worry about being invaded," a senior Israeli intelligence official told me during my research. "The invasion has already happened!"

This is not about a conflict over political or philosophical ideologies; this is a conflict about theological subjugation by any means necessary. The advantage of our Jihadi adversaries is quite simple: we will never think like them. We are doing the jester's dance because Jihad plays up the lover of death over the lover of life. How can we not lose? Until we start to accept that mutually assured destruction does not apply to those who embrace martyrdom, we will not have the agency to do what must be done.

Problematically, incidents of violence from radicalized individuals are often cited as "lone wolf" attacks, implying the person acted alone and without formal affiliation. However, taken in a broader context, when we look at individual events, these lone wolf attacks are part of a larger, globalized campaign that plays itself out in a variety of ways. While not every attack may be specifically directed, they act together in the general idea of singular martyrdom.

Radicalization tends to begin with the weaponization and manipulation of minds by cult-type fundamentalists. They'll institutionalize their ideas, which typically appeal to vulnerable people who may be going through a personal crisis, feel marginalized or discriminated against. Those who radicalize are often predatory, gifted at speaking, charming, and adept at reducing complex socio-political narratives to simplistic black-and-white explanations of good and evil. The New Orleans attacker's trajectory—from U.S. military service to posting ISIS-inspired videos just hours before his attack—illustrates this pattern of radicalization with chilling clarity.

The protests and violence we're seeing on American streets today didn't suddenly emerge in a moment of rage. These acts of jihad terrorism is the direct result of decades of radicalization happening right under our noses, enabled by our own institutions and funded, often indirectly, by our own tax dollars and international interests as proxies of the Iranian regime. October 7th wasn't just an attack on Israel—it was a preview of what's possible when we fail to confront radical ideology before it turns violent.

I specifically warned that rising incitement would lead to precisely this type of scenario: "Homicidal maniacs will wake up one morning and say to themselves 'Someone has got to do something. Fuck it! I'll get it done myself.'" The more hatred is stoked, the more people are apt to act on it. This has proven true in Paris, London, Boston, and now New Orleans.

Every time Western leaders negotiate with terrorists or validate their grievances by giving these terrorists a seat at the table, we embolden future attackers. Every time we rationalize away obvious warning signs in the name of political correctness, we make ourselves more vulnerable. The New Orleans attack is not an isolated incident—it's part of a pattern I've been warning about, where Global Jihad methodology gets adopted by local actors.

The wake up call is clear: what begins as online radicalization and campus protests doesn't stay there. What starts as chants, too often gives license to violence. Until we confront this reality and stop treating these incidents as isolated events, we risk watching this pattern repeat with devastating consequences that cost American lives. Its time to wake up and finish the war on terror by legislating laws against the syllabus of hate, online radicalization, using the United States as a safe havens for terrorists, and stopping terror at its root - Iran.

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Tonight there will be a book launch event at Beth Tikvah Synagogue, details below: