Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu marked the tenth anniversary of the "9/11" Al Qaeda attack on America Sunday by noting that the terrorists were all Islamists -- and that terrorism is a tool of war.
Speaking at the weekly Cabinet meeting in Jerusalem, Netanyahu told the ministers:
"We are in this struggle, the struggle against terrorism, and while there is no doubt that this is terrorism, it is a tool of war. This is not a conventional war. This is a war of terrorism – by the forces and regimes of radical Islam. Radical Islam threatens moderate Islamic and Arab regimes. It threatens the very existence of the State of Israel and in its linking up with radical regimes, it brings the tools of terrorism – rockets and missiles – to Israeli civilians.
"This network, which has several heads, composed of two basic movements, denies the principles of progress and peace, and the principles of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries," he continued.
"They seek to make a historic change, an historic regression, through the use of violence that knows no borders and no bounds. Terrorism is their tool and therefore, we must know that we are in a decade of terrorism, of that same radical Islam that is implanted deep in the expanse between east and west, and – most of all – runs amok in the heart of our region."
Netanyahu noted that it is not only Israel who has been targeted by Islamic terrorists over the past decade, nor even at present.
"Today it hangs over all of us, over the regimes and the stability of the Middle East, over the security of Israel, over the security of Europe and the US and, in my opinion, over the security and stability of Russia and many other countries.
"This struggle is not over," he warned. "We are still in the thick of it." The worst, he said, will be if terrorists manage to acquire nuclear weapons -- the number one fear of Israel and Western civilizations.
"It is clear that it will be indescribably disastrous if the radical Islamic forces or regimes acquire the ultimate weapon – weapons of mass-destruction, and the terrorists stand together and are able to operate under the nuclear umbrella of a radical regime, or even with tools for mass-destruction that they acquire," Netanyahu said.
Iran, which acts as a major patron of terrorist groups such as Hizbullah, Hamas, Islamic Jihad and other jihad organizations, is in the process of refining its nuclear development technologies. Russia has assisted Tehran to complete construction of its first nuclear plant at Bushehr, which recently was connected to the country's electrical grid for the first time.
Iran is continuing to enrich uranium in defiance of all United Nations mandates to cease the program, and appears to be hurtling towards developing of nuclear weapons capability despite denials of an intent to create them.
In numerous speeches, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has also vowed to "wipe the Zionist entity (Israel) off the face of the map."
Netanyahu warned that the world must take action now, before it is too late.
"The struggle against radical Islamic terrorism, which is, in effect, a description of the past decade, is at its peak; it is not yet over," he said. "We must all unite, countries that aspire to life, certainly the democracies that cherish life, and act in concert against this blight."