Guest Column
Remarks of Brigitte Gabriel, delivered at the Duke University Counter Terrorism Speak-Out
I'm proud and honoured to stand here today, as a Lebanese speaking for
Israel , the only democracy in the Middle East . As someone who was raised
in an Arabic country, I want to give you a glimpse into the heart of the
Arabic world.
I was raised in Lebanon, where I was taught that the Jews were evil, Israel
was the devil, and the only time we will have peace in the Middle East is
when we kill all the Jews and drive them into the sea.
When the Moslems and Palestinians declared Jihad on the Christians in 1975,
they started massacring the Christians, city after city. I ended up living
in a bomb shelter underground from age 10 to 17, without electricity,
eating grass to live, and crawling under sniper bullets to a spring to get
water.
It was Israel who came to help the Christians in Lebanon . My mother was
wounded by a Moslem's shell, and was taken into an Israeli hospital for
treatment. When we entered the emergency room, I was shocked at what I
saw. There were hundreds of people wounded, Moslems, Palestinians,
Christians, Lebanese, and Israeli soldiers lying on the floor. The doctors
treated everyone according to their injury. They treated my mother before
they treated the Israeli soldier lying next to her. They didn't see
religion, they didn't see political affiliation, they saw people in need
and they helped.
>For the first time in my life I experienced a human quality that I know my
culture would not have shown to their enemy. I experienced the values of
the Israelis, who were able to love their enemy in their most trying
moments. I spent 22 days at that hospital. Those days changed my life and
the way I believe information, the way I listen to the radio or to
television. I realized I was sold a fabricated lie by my government, about
the Jews and Israel , that was so far from reality. I knew for a fact
that, if I were a Jew standing in an Arab hospital, I would be lynched and
thrown over to the grounds, as shouts of joy of Allah Akbar, God is great,
would echo through the hospital and the surrounding streets.
I became friends with the families of the Israeli wounded soldiers: one in
particular Rina, her only child was wounded in his eyes.
One day I was visiting with her, and the Israeli army band came to play
national songs to lift the spirits of the wounded soldiers. As they
surrounded his bed playing a song about Jerusalem , Rina and I started
crying. I felt out of place and started walking out of the room, and this
mother holds my hand and pulls me back in without even looking at me.
She holds me crying and says: "it is not your fault". We just stood there
crying, holding each other's hands.
What a contrast between her, a mother looking at her deformed 19 year old
only child, and still able to love me the enemy, and between a Moslem
mother who sends her son to blow himself up to smithereens just to kill a
few Jews or Christians.
The difference between the Arabic world and Israel is a difference in
values and character. It's barbarism verses civilization. It's democracy
verses dictatorship. It's goodness verses evil.
Once upon a time, there was a special place in the lowest depths of hell
for anyone who would intentionally murder a child. Now, the intentional
murder of Israeli children is legitimized as Palestinian "armed struggle".
However, once such behaviour is legitimized against Israel, it is
legitimized every where in the world, constrained by nothing more than the
subjective belief of people who would wrap themselves in dynamite and nails
for the purpose of killing children in the name of god.
Because the Palestinians have been encouraged to believe that murdering
innocent Israeli civilians is a legitimate tactic for advancing their
cause, the whole world now suffers from a plague of terrorism, from Nairobi
to New York , from Moscow to Madrid , from Bali to Beslan.
They blame suicide bombing on "desperation of occupation". Let me tell you
the truth. The first major terror bombing committed by Arabs against the
Jewish state occurred ten weeks before Israel even became independent.
On Sunday morning, February 22, 1948 , in anticipation of Israel 's
independence, a triple truck bomb was detonated by Arab terrorists on Ben
Yehuda Street , in what was then the Jewish section of Jerusalem .
Fifty-four people were killed, and hundreds were wounded. Thus, it is
obvious that Arab terrorism is caused not by the "desperation" of
"occupation", but by the VERY THOUGHT of a Jewish state.
So many times in history in the last 100 years, citizens have stood by and
done nothing, allowing evil to prevail. As America stood up against and
defeated communism, now it is time to stand up against the terror of
religious bigotry and intolerance. It's time to all stand up, and support
and defend the state of Israel , which is the front line of the war against
terrorism.
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