Brigitte Gabriel

GRASS IS GREENER ON THE OTHER SIDE
A PERSPECTIVE

By Rabbi Shlomo Uzhansky

A story is told about a king, who died and left his three sons without guidance as to whom he would like to succeed him as a ruler. The next morning, the oldest one approached his brothers. “Father came to me in a dream,” he said. “Father asked me to tell you that it was his wish for me to be king, and the two of you should serve me.”

“Not so fast,” exclaimed the younger two. “If father wanted us to be subservient to you, he would come to us in a dream and demand that we appoint you as king, not the other way around.”


In the world we live in today, filled with media backing a plethora of agendas, truth has become a rarity. For example, the liberal-backed media has yet to admit fault for misleading the world about “global warming,” even though e-mails have been leaked exposing the agenda-driven nature of the “green” movement. But the media is not to blame, for when one has a goal in mind, truth becomes subjective to the intentions of the beholder.

So it’s not surprising that neither the Israeli media, nor their Arab counterpart ever tell you the whole story. For each side has its own, blood-filled river of tears that flows through decades of violence, torture, desolation and suffering. And the victim is the truth. For how can we ever expect to hear a reasonable, balanced account of the situation in the Middle East when the antagonism experienced by one side toward the other will inevitably affect the manner in which information is presented to the public abroad? In the eyes of the Israelis their Muslim neighbors are blood thirsty animals, while the Arab world calls Israel “the Nazi occupier” that oppresses innocent Palestinians.

Meet Brigitte Gabriel, a Christian who was born and raised in one of Israel’s staunchest enemy states, Lebanon. Becoming a foreigner in her own land after being chased out of her own home, she was forced to accompany her wounded mother to the only place able to save her life, Israel. As the mouse stuck in between the two cats fighting, Gabriel has an astounding perspective of the “involved outsider” that has a unique vantage point over the sides involved in the conflict. She is an Arab and a Christian who lived in Lebanon, Israel and the United States of America. Having personally encountered the “hospitality” of both the Muslims and the Israelis, she now offers the world an inside look into the nature and structure of the conflict. For the “twilight zone” of her Arab Christian background might be the beacon of truth we are searching for.

In 2009, when Gabriel was the keynote speaker for the American Board for Certification in Homeland Security (ABCHS) national conference in Las Vegas. The author of “Because They Hate: A Survivor of Islamic Terror Warns America” also gave a speech, ostensibly to the Heritage Foundation, in 2006, quoted here at length.

Her eloquent, dignified manner of speaking and the aura of success and confidence she exuded did not do a good enough job covering up the sadness in her eyes. And once in a while, you could see her mentally drift away to a far-away place filled with pain and sorrow. You could feel her nostalgia as she described the Lebanon that once was. She told how, after getting the land from the French in early 1940s, her nation (at that time predominantly Christian) had developed into an oasis of opportunity for Muslims and non-Muslims alike. Lebanese education, commerce, art, and quality of life were top notch at that time, attracting multitudes from the Arab world to partake in its glamour. All of that with no oil!

But as the country became more Muslim, she said, things began to change. Did you know that Osama Bin-Laden is one of 53 children, who himself has 27 kids, she asked, pointing to a rapid demographic shift in the country, the only Arab state to accept Palestinian refugees.

By the year 1974, the Christian community of Lebanon had become a prisoner in its own county, Gabriel said, recalling the year that her family abandoned its tradition of traveling to Beirut for Christmas.

Muslim extremists, she recalled, would set up checkpoints, where they would ask the passers-by to present their ID’s. If the ID indicated its owner was anything other than Muslim, the person would be shot dead.

By 1975 the Lebanese Muslims and the Palestinians had created the so called “Arab-Lebanese army” and began invading Lebanese army bases, destroying infrastructure and taking control over government offices. The Army base near Gabriel’s house, she said, was the last one left at the hands of the Lebanese army. In an effort to capture the base, the Muslims had bombed the town where she lived. The house was, leaving her family homeless. And that is how at 10 years of age I learned that I could die just because of being a Christian, said Gabriel.

The speaker went on to describe her family’s survival in the mountainous region at the Israeli border, where they lived under constant threat of sniper fire:

Without food, electricity or running water, Gabriel and her mother risked death, crawling through trenches to fill bottles with worm-infested water. During cold nights around kerosene-fueled fires, members of her family took turns staying awake to ensure no one would die from carbon monoxide poisoning.

At that time, Gabriel said, Lebanese Christians lived in fear of “pogroms” as Palestinians burst into Christian towns and raped, killed, looted and tortured the population. Some who survived were driven mad by atrocities, said Gabriel, describing a woman who was forced to watch the rape of her two teenaged daughters and to stab her own child with a knife.

The American media, opined Gabriel, made a big mistake by not airing the beheading of Daniel Pearl and Nick Berg. The civilized world must understand the barbaric nature of its enemy, she said.

A few families from our town had crossed the border into Israel, said Gabriel, and refugees began forming an alliance with Israelis, their former “enemies.” As the Israelis started to comprehend what was going on, said Gabriel, they stepped in to help. From 1976 to 1978 Israeli troops came in at night to provide necessities such as food, blankets, and medications. They also provided weapons and training to university pupils not versed in the art of war.

One day in 1978, upon the onset of operation “Litani,” the militia warned Gabriel’s family that they were not likely to survive an attack anticipated that night. Gabriel recalled putting on her best dress. Her mother braided her hair and wove a white ribbon into the braid. At 13, Gabriel had wanted to make sure she would look pretty upon her death.

The Israelis crossed the border and entered Lebanon in order to push the Palestinians back. Four years later, they made it all the way to Beirut, providing us with and ability to live in relevant peace, said Gabriel. The intrusion was done for the benefit of Lebanon, she said, to free it from the Syrian-supported radical Muslim groups holding the country hostage. Obviously, the main reason behind it was to stop the barrage of rockets falling on the northern cities of Israel, whose inhabitants were also forced to spend their days hiding in bomb shelters, she said: And the attacks did not last for a month or two, but for a whole year before Israel decided to invade! They tried to get rid of the PLO and the extremists, but no one in the world understood it because of the well-oiled machine of Islamist propaganda that was heavily sponsored by the oil dollars coming from Syria and Iran, said Gabriel.

Then, said Gabriel, she experienced an incident that changed the way she looked at the world. As the Muslims were pulling back, her mother was wounded with a piece of a shrapnel, and had to be transported to an Israeli hospital. Her father gave her $60 for the journey. Her mother was transported to the border by a Lebanese ambulance, and then escorted to the hospital by Israelis. By the border, just as we were about to pull away, the Lebanese driver approached me and asked: Do you have any money on you? It would be nice if you could pay me something for the trip! So I gave him $30, half of what I had, Gabriel recounted.

The Israeli driver treated me like a daughter, with empathy and respect, said Gabriel. As we got to Tzefat, she said, I offered him the other half of my money, feeling for certain that if the Lebanese driver charged her $30, that this driver would want much more. When he refused to accept any money and instead wished her mother a speedy recovery, her expression of genuine shock was well-visible, she said. “I am not sure what had surprised me more,” she said, the kindness of the Israeli or the realization that the Lebanese driver had robbed her.

Gabriel recalled feeling a sort of culture shock as she watched patients, wounded Jews, Arabs and Christians who filled the whole floor, treated according to the severity of their wounds and not their religious background. Gabriel’s mother was tended to before the Israeli soldier near her, said Gabriel.

Suddenly, a helicopter roared outside, filled with wounded soldiers returning from Lebanon. Gabriel remembers feeling ashamed that they had suffered because of the war taking place in her country. She began to sob uncontrollably. A nurse standing nearby hugged and reassured her: “Don’t worry, all will be OK… We will take a good care of your mom.”

I have realized that if I was a Jew standing on the fourth floor in the Muslim-controlled section of Lebanon, they would push me down and lynch me to the screams of “Allahu Akbar!” The compassion that I found there for the “enemy” would never be found in any part of the Arab world, said Gabriel.

Over 22 days in the hospital, said Gabriel, she was nourished and treated kindly by the Jewish people, even as, she said, the Lebanese TV kept repeating: The Israelis are invading us, destroying our infrastructure and torturing our people. The infrastructure, she said, was destroyed by none other than the PLO and radical Islamists! And not much has changed since.

At 20, Gabriel returned to Israel as a correspondent for the world news agencies. She observed the development of this conflict, she said, from a local skirmish into a worldwide terror.

Planes kept on being highjacked, and we kept on hearing the same names: Ahmed, Muhammad and Ali, she said. …And the victims were always the Jews or the Christians. In the United States, she said, she has been pained to observe the “perverted” way information has been presented to the masses. Israel’s enemy of 60 years, Hamas, is now an enemy of the all Western civilization, she said. Its cells are extant in more than 40 states, she said, together with Al-Qaida and Islamic Jihad. Notably, she said, Hamas possesses the most sophisticated infrastructure of all.

Gabriel went on to say that in American masques, Jews and Christians are constantly referred to as pigs and monkeys, cursed by Allah, and the source of all wars and suffering is attributed to the spread of democracy, justice and freedom. Our value system, she said, would never allow such a profound level of disrespect toward any culture.

And if we do not stand up for what is right and do away with “political correctness,” she said, we will end up becoming the next breeding ground for the terrorist enemy. The results of tolerance for such radicalism are evident in Palestine, where homicide bombers are trained before being sent into Israel for their next mission, she said. In the last 100 years we have observed evil many times, but failed to act. It’s time to wake up and get to work!

By the end of watching Gabriel speak, I had tears in my eyes. To have suffered so much and still be able to come out on top, to be able to recognize goodness in others and a need to act for the benefit of humanity demonstrates what a wonderful human being she is. Having Muslim friends myself, I know that not all fit the stereotype portrayed by her presentation. I personally know many who are hard working, kind and peaceful Americans. But the point she made to a reporter who asked her to explain how she dares to generalize all Muslims as radicals make me think. Why don’t we hear from the moderates when these atrocities happen, she asked? Why are there no demonstrations when another reporter is beheaded, when another shop is blown up? How come when 9/11 happened, the Palestinians paraded through the streets giving out candy to the children and rejoicing like it was a holiday?

And no matter what you say, the question will always be better than the answer.

A speech given by Mrs Gabriel at The Heritage Foundation