In the real world, when someone says he's going to kill you, it's a good idea to pay attention. But first you have to hear the threat. My question is: have Christians recognized that they are among those targeted by radical Islam?

On April 17 the terrorist group Hamas, which now controls the Palestinian Authority, issued a statement threatening to attack "Zionist" targets outside of Israel if the Jewish States refused to give in to its latest ultimatum.

"Zionist" is the term used by media-savvy Islamo-fascists, neo-Nazis and assorted thugs when they really mean Jews. It's a deception aimed at getting around the average person’s revulsion of racism. "It's the State of Israel and Zionists we have an issue with – not the Jews," say sophisticated Jews-haters.

Christians have long understood this manipulation of the word Zionist. Martin Luther King, for one, was not fooled. King recognized and condemned early uses of the sly propaganda technique. Zionism is so intimately interwoven with Jews and Judaism, he said, that it is an intellectual fraud – or worse – to claim you can readily distinguish Zionists from Jews.

The effort to expose "anti-Zionist" doublespeak has mainly, and understandably, focused on the most obvious victims of it, our Jewish brothers and sisters. Largely overlooked though – or obscured by the naïve intercultural and interfaith "outreach" initiatives that are so much in vogue today – is the fact that to these fanatics, "Zionists" include Christians as well.

Fortunately for those seeking clarity, Hamas has no qualms whatsoever about expressing its true intent – and by extension, radical Islam’s true intent - vis a vis Christians.

According to Hamas' paranoid worldview, almost everyone is Islam's mortal enemy. Article 22 of the Hamas Charter observes that there are "clandestine organizations … spreading around the world, in order to destroy societies." What are these sinister entities? "[T]he Freemasons, Rotary Clubs, Lions Clubs, B’nai B’rith and the like. All of them are destructive spying organizations." Article 27 explains that these "Zionists" are in league with wicked "Orientalism" and "the Christian Mission."

Of course, according to Hamas, Christians and others need not give up hope altogether. Article 31 states that "it is possible" that Islam, Christianity and Judaism "can coexist in safety and security." But, here's the problem: "[s]afety and security can only prevail under the shadow of Islam." In other words, accept the supremacy of Islam, and you're free to remain Christian.

In this respect, the Hamas Charter is simply reflecting a centuries-old doctrine of extremist-Islam. To the radical-Islamic mind, Christianity is still the crusades; Christians, the crusaders. They must be destroyed or submit to Islam.

Osama bin Laden himself has helped to clarify this position. Just last month he declared that "[t]he blockade which the West is imposing on the government of Hamas proves that there is a Zionist crusader war on Islam." According to bin Laden, Canada is one of the "crusader nations" whose full-time occupation seems to be – in his twisted mind – the destruction of Islam. This is one reason why he has specifically targeted Canada for terrorist action.

Other senior Islamic figures have added their voices to this recurrent theme. Two years ago Saudi Arabia's highest ranking government-appointed cleric, Sheikh Abd Al-Rahman Al-Sudayyis delivered a series of sermons in which he referred to Jews as "the scum of the Earth," and exhorted his followers to fight Christian "worshippers of the cross" and "idol-worshipping Hindus."

Of course, when visiting the West, Al-Sudayyis presents himself as the very picture of the diversity-loving Sheikh, but it's a false picture.

The radical Islamic campaign against Christians has gone largely unnoticed in the West – but it rages on. Iraqi Christians are not faring much better today at the hands of radical Iraqi Muslims than they did under Saddam. The agony of Egypt's Coptic Christians is well known, as is virtual cleansing of Christians from those territories under the administration of the Palestinian Authority, including in Bethlehem, where the population has gone from majority Christian to majority Islamic in little more than a decade under PA control.

The inattention of the media to the threat radical Islam poses to the Christian world is matched only by the silence of groups like the World Council of Churches and others that should be defending Christianity rather than apologizing for those bent on destroying it.

The fact that Islamo-fascists have identified Canada as a target because Canada is primarily a Christian country should not be dismissed as mere rhetoric. Ahmed Ressam, the so-called "millennium bomber", is known to have been privy to plans to bomb Canadian targets, and Canadian intelligence agencies have intercepted communications between Canada-based Hezbollah terrorist operatives to this effect. And of those countries nominated by bin Laden for attack, virtually all have been struck except Canada.

Are Canadians getting the message yet – especially Christians?

The evidence is troubling. Some Canadian Arab and Islamic "human rights" organizations, in conjunction with their unwitting Canadian accomplices, continue to argue that Hamas and Hezbollah should be legal in Canada. And to the astonishment of many, representatives or affiliates of these so-called human rights groups – who have yet to condemn Hamas and Hezbollah by name – are now advising key government agencies on things like "Islamic sensibilities" while Jews, Hindus, and especially Christians – the very communities under explicit threat – are treated as pariahs.

And so Christians should not ask for whom the radical Islamic bell tolls.

It tolls for thee.

David B. Harris is a lawyer and Senior Fellow at the Institute for Canadian Values. He is the former Chief of Strategic Planning of the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS) and is currently Director, International and Terrorist Intelligence Program, INSIGNIS Strategic Research Inc.