In a visit to California this week, British journalist and author Melanie Phillips stated the very thing that leaders of the western world have refused to say, and have gone to particularly great lengths to avoid.

In a lecture on “The Paris Massacres and the Freedom of Speech,” Phillips singled out Islam as being the root cause of the violent extremism in the Paris and Copenhagen attacks ,and warned that radical ideologies stemming from the interpretation of the religion’s teachings are a direct threat to western values and the civilization as a whole.

“The real point is that the attack on freedom of speech is part of a religious war of conquest being waged against the free world….It’s a civilizational battle,” Phillips said as she addressed a jam-packed audience at the University of Redlands on Monday.

“ISIS has identified itself as Islamic in everything that it does. To say that it is not Islam is just completely absurd….To deny that it is rooted in Islamic thought is a terrible mistake,” Phillips added.

The event was co-hosted by the university and the American Freedom Alliance and covered a topic Phillips has written and spoken about extensively, most notably in her 2007 book Londonistan. Her book documented the rise of Islamic-backed extremism in London and throughout Europe, and foreshadowed the present moment where leaders of western civilization are refusing to stand up and defend the morals and principles that have come under attack.

In America, she noted, President Barack Obama has outright refused to call the terrorist attacks Islamic; French President François Hollande said what happened in Paris had nothing to do with Islam; and Britain’s Prime Minister David Cameron said there is nothing in Islam that justifies terror. Cameron’s statements, Phillips pointed out, came after the near-decapitation of an off-duty soldier, in broad daylight.

Phillips provided accolades of praise for Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi who has called for a “religious revolution” and reformation within Islam in light of the rise in global terrorism carried out by Islamic fundamentalists.

She also pointed out that, in addition to the whole of Western Civilization, Muslims are among the most numerous victims of this sort of thinking–a thinking that is an attempt to purify the world for a particular, literal interpretation of Islam which cannot allow for secular human rights to coexist with it. “It turns victims into oppressors and oppressors into victims” in what she posited is “a completely mind-bending concept.”

The driving force behind the West’s denial? Fear of Islam’s jihad, or holy war. “Progressive circles in the west push the dialogue that war is barbaric. Obama is guilty of this very thing.” They fear the holy war because “it is uncontrollable” due to the fact that it is motivated by a divine inspiration, which takes precedence over any man-made rule of law. That way of thinking, Phillips said, suggests that this type of war will carry on for decades.

She explained that a two-fold disintegration is taking place. On the one hand there is a threat from within the Islamic world. On the other hand, there is the simultaneous eradication of Judeo-Christian values being replaced with atheism–and with it, the expulsion of absolute morality. “In order for Europe and the west to defend and save itself it must rethink and revitalize it’s values.”

In a 2011 column published in the Spectator, Phillips provided a warning:

In this civilizational battle now raging all around us, Col Kemp and Stephen Harper understand that there is a choice to be made. If you fight for Israel, you fight for civilization; if you are Israel’s enemy, you are an enemy of civilization. Yes, it really is as stark as that. These men get it. There are others who do too; some will never do so; and yet others eventually will, but too late.

It is no longer a question of if but when we will have another attack, Phillips cautioned on Monday night. “Russian and Chinese empires and would-be titans are reemerging… And where will the liberal west be with all of that? We will be absolutely nowhere.”

Follow Adelle Nazarian on Twitter @AdelleNaz