Brigitte Gabriel Speaks On Her Childhood Experiences in Lebanon

July 13, 2022247 views0

Brigitte Gabriel Speaks On Her Childhood Experiences in Lebanon

2022-07-13T12:50:52+01:00

By Church News

Brigitte Gabriel born Hanan Qahwaji is a Christian Lebanese-American conservative author, anti-Islam activist and founder of the anti-Muslim group ACT! for America.ACT! for America was founded in 2007 and is a U.S.-based anti-Muslim advocacy group dedicated to combating what it describes as “the threat of radical Islam” to the safety of Americans and to democracy.Gabriel was born in the Marjeyoun District of Lebanon to a Maronite Christian couple, a first and only child after over twenty years of marriage. She said that during the Lebanese Civil War, Islamic militants launched an assault on a Lebanese military base near her family’s house and destroyed her home.Gabriel, who was ten years old at the time, was injured by shrapnel in the attack. Afterwards, she and her parents were forced to live underground in all that remained, an 8-by-10-foot (2.4 by 3.0 m) bomb shelter for seven years, with only a small kerosene heater, no sanitary systems, no electricity or running water, and little food. She also stated that she had to crawl in a roadside ditch to a spring for water to evade Muslim snipers.At one point in the spring of 1978, a bomb explosion caused Gabriel and her parents to become trapped in the shelter for two days. They were eventually rescued by three Christian militia fighters, one of whom befriended Gabriel but was later killed by a land mine.Gabriel wrote in her book, ‘Because They Hate: A Survivor of Islamic Terror Warns America’ that in 1978 a stranger warned her family of an impending attack by the Islamic militias on all Christians. She said that her life was saved when the Israeli army invaded Lebanon in Operation Litani.Later, when her mother was seriously injured and taken to an Israeli hospital, Gabriel was surprised by the humanity shown by the Israelis, in contrast to the constant propaganda against the Jews she saw as a child. She said of her experience:“I was amazed that the Israelis were providing medical treatment to Palestinian and Muslim gunmen…These Palestinians and Muslims were sworn, mortal enemies, dedicated to the destruction of Israel and the slaughter of Jews. Yet, Israeli doctors and nurses worked feverishly to save their lives. Each patient was treated solely according to the nature of his or her injury.She continued, “The doctor treated my mother before he treated an Israeli soldier lying next to her because her injury was more severe than his. The Israelis did not see religion, political affiliation, or nationality. They saw only people in need, and they helped.”In a video, she describes her traumatic childhood experiences in Lebanon and criticizes radical Islamic expression in the Middle East and elsewhere. She said, “My 9/11 happened to be in 1975 when radical Muslims blew up my home bringing it down, burying me under the rubble wounded…”

She released another similar book, They Must Be Stopped. In February 2017, Gabriel said that she provided a “national security briefing” at the White House.Brigitte Gabriel was a news anchor for World News, an Arabic-language evening news broadcast of Middle East Television, which was then run by Pat Robertson’s Christian Broadcasting Network to spread his politically conservative, Pentecostal faith in the Middle East.The broadcasts covered Israel, Egypt, Syria, Jordan and Lebanon.Gabriel reported on the Israeli withdrawal from central Lebanon, the Israeli Security Zone (occupied South Lebanon), and the Palestinian uprising in the West Bank and Gaza. She moved to Israel before emigrating in 1989 to the United States.