As a peaceful American Muslim, I would like to think I’m not that irrelevant
Nour Saman, the angry woman in the video, had her life destroyed by Muslim militias. Her hatred and intolerance of Muslims is understandable and even compelling. But what actual Islamic government is actually behind the growth and spread of Islamic extremism? That’s clearly Saudi Arabia. The 9-11 terrorists were Egyptian and Saudis supported by Saudi money. What governments are behind the rise of the Taliban? The Saudis provided money for indoctrination and the United States provided weapons and military training to use them as a weapon against the Russians in Afghanistan. When the Russians left Afghanistan the US just let the Taliban run amok. Yet while the US seeds hate against itself in Pakistan by drone killings, to this day Saudi Arabia and the United States continue to support Islamic extremism to use them as a weapon against Syria and Iran. This is a good reason to dislike Obama’s government.
Brigitte Gabriel (a.k.a. Nour Saman, born October 21, 1964), is an American journalist, author, social commentator and activist.[1][2] Gabriel says that Islam keeps countries backward,[3][4] and that it teaches terrorism.[5][6][7] To promote her views, she founded the American Congress For Truth and ACT! for America, a citizen action network that promotes "national security and the defense of American democratic values against the assault of Radical Islam."[8]
She frequently speaks at American conservative organizations such as The Heritage Foundation, Christians United for Israel,Evangelicals and Jewish groups. In her own words, she gives voice to "what many in America are thinking but afraid to say out loud, for fear of being labeled a racist, bigot, Islamophobic, or intolerant."
In her first book Gabriel discusses her experiences as a Maronite (Eastern Catholic) Christian living in Lebanon during the civil war in the 1970s.[26] She describes the story of her family and her childhood, hiding in a bomb shelter. She details her opinions that her country's inherent multicultural acceptance of all faiths and cultures including the then dominant Lebanese Christian phalangists, led to Lebanon's ruin by the continuous attacks from indigenous Muslims, other Christian groups and migrant Palestinians.[27]
Gabriel comments that "anyone who voices his or her opinion contrary to 'politically correct think' is immediately tagged a "racist" or "bigot" and that this has resulted in a "social paranoia which discourages free thought and expression."[28] Moreover, she states that societies and cultures must be held accountable for their actions and that "by not judging others... we have helped create the monsters we are dealing with today."[29]
The book made The New York Times hardcover best seller list.[30] The introduction of the 2008 edition of Because They Hate claimed that the book was put on the reading list at the FBI Academy and that it was assigned as mandatory reading for Navy SEALs heading to the Middle East.
Gabriel is critical of Islam and believes that "the degraded state of Arab societies is caused by Islam",[3] and that Arab Muslims are "lagging behind" because of social and religious values.[4] She considers "Islamic terrorists" simply as devout followers of Islam,[7]following an example set by Muhammad's behavior.[5][6] According to the New York Times, she portrays radical Islam as "thoroughly bent on destruction and domination" and her message is anti-Islam.[1]
| “ | It is not politically correct to say that our Western societies are better than the Muslim Arab societies, but we are, we have been, and we always will be. | ” |
—Because They Hate[33] | ||
Stephen Lee, a publicist at St. Martins Press for Gabriel's second book, has called her views "extreme",[30] and Deborah Solomon of the New York Times Magazine, who interviewed Gabriel in August 2008, described her as a "radical Islamophobe".[34] According to Clark Hoyt from The New York Times, over 250 people wrote in to protest that label in the days that followed.[30]
Gabriel is critical of Americans who "find all sorts of things wrong with America", who "badmouth and put down our culture, government, and country", while having "never experienced life in an oppressive culture or under an oppressive leadership such as is found in the Middle East."[33] She believes that Americans should "acknowledge that our Western culture is better than others."[29]
In viewing America as "a powerful and great nation" possessing "superior culture and values", Gabriel sees the entitlements thatAmerican Western culture has bestowed through "the Judeo-Christian value system" and the ideals of the Founding Fathers, who "worked to establish rights for the individual, rights that did not exist under other forms of government at that time."[35]
According to Gabriel, since Radical Islam views the destruction of Israel alongside the United States as "a parallel strategic objective",[36] she therefore sees the survival of Israel as being of paramount importance as a vanguard of Western culture and as "the only Western-style nation in the Middle East, one that Arabs despise, feel threatened by, and vow to destroy."[35]
In a symposium held in January 2009 titled "Homegrown Jihadis" by FrontPage Magazine, she stated Islam itself "promotes intolerance and violence", and that "Moderate Muslims must organize and engage those enlightened, educated and westernized Muslims in the community to begin a dialogue to discuss the possibility of reform in Islam just as Christianity and Judaism have been reformed."
Gabriel views the Arab–Israeli conflict as being "intractable because the Arab world refuses to accept the right of a Jewish state to exist." This animosity, having once been rooted in Pan-Arabism has evolved, according to Gabriel, into the more sinister spectre of "radical Islamic supremacism" which now appears to seek "bigger game in the West." She cites examples such as the Iranian Revolution of 1979 and the rise of Hamas as bringing to the forefront radical Islamic ideologies that are rooted in "religious hatred, humiliation, and resentment" of Israel and the West.[38]
Gabriel believes this can be seen in the Israeli–Palestinian conflict where, in her view, Palestinian nationalism has largely been replaced by "holy obligation" motivating adherents to commit "terrorist murder."[39] She states that the legitimization of Palestinian suicide attacks within Israel has now evolved to where, "Islamists believe that they may commit mass murder anywhere in the world to advance their holy cause." As a result, she believes the world now suffers "from a plague of Islamic terrorism... authored and perfected by the Palestinians."[40]
With regard to the two-state solution, Gabriel states: "Forcing Israel to accept a two-state solution is not going to work unless the Palestinians first are forced to clean up their act and eliminate hatred from their schoolbooks, teach tolerance to their people, and preach acceptance of Israel and the Jews as a neighbor."[12]
Controversy at speaking engagements
When Gabriel was invited to speak as part of a lecture series organized by Duke University's Jewish community in October 2004, many in attendance were angered by her referring to Arabs as "barbarians." The Freeman Centre for Jewish Life at Duke University later apologized for her comments.[20] Following her speech at women's campaign event for the Jewish Federation of Ottawa (JFO) in November 2008, many in attendance registered their protests, leading Mitchell Bellman, president and CEO of the JFO, to write a letter in which he acknowledged that Gabriel made, "unacceptable gross generalizations of Arabs and Muslims," distancing his organization from her views.[34]
In 2007 at the Christians United For Israel annual conference, Gabriel delivered the following speech:
The difference, my friends, between Israel and the Arab world is the difference between civilization and barbarism. It's the difference between good and evil [applause].... this is what we're witnessing in the Arabic world, They have no soul, they are dead set on killing and destruction. And in the name of something they call "Allah" which is very different from the God we believe....[applause] because our God is the God of love.
This speech was subsequently criticised by journalist Bruce Wilson as being "hate speech" and stated that Brigitte Gabriel "paints a wide swath of humanity as subhuman", comparing her to Goebbel's Reich.[41]
I was talking about how Palestinian mothers are encouraging their children to go out and blow themselves up to smithereens just to kill Christians and Jews. And it was in that context that I – that I contrasted the difference between Israel and the Arabic world, was the difference between democracy and barbarism.[42]
She further added:
How easily journalists, or people and comments especially now with the Internet age, can take few words and either paste them together or edit them together to basically express their own point of view.[42]
References to Nazi Germany are at best an indication of lack of arguments and at worst a scoundrel alarm. I do not want to apologize for Islam. I do believe religion is a bad thing. Islamic extremism is a problem for Muslim countries. Compare the angry diatribe to the courageous words of a girl fighting Islamic extremism at the risk of her life: http://arnulfo.wordpress.com/2014/06/02/malala-yousafzai/
The Heritage Foundation hosted a Benghazi panel on Monday that took a turn for the worse when a Muslim law student asked the panel a question about their portrayal of Islam as universally bad. Their answers, detailed in Dana Milbank'sWashington Post column,
it is perhaps not so surprising when you know that two of the Foundation's panelists were Brigitte Gabriel of ACT! for America, and Frank Gaffney of the Center for Security Policy. Gabriel is a prominent anti-Sharia activist who is a regular commentator on Fox News. Gaffney is one of the architects of a conservative approach to national security that advocates for the profiling and surveillance of Muslim Americans.
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