Because They Hate: A Survivor of Islamic Terror Warns America

by Brigitte Gabriel

  I broke out crying again, but this time not from fear and uncertainty, but because of the compassion and love being bestowed upon me. For the first time in my life, I experienced a human quality that I knew my culture would not have shown to its enemy. I experienced the values of the Israelis, who were able to love their enemy in their most trying moments. Lea didn’t even know whether I was a Lebanese Christian or a Muslim, or a Palestinian. I realized at that moment that I had been sold a fabricated lie by my government and culture about the Jews and Israel that was far from reality. I knew for a fact, as someone raised in the Arab world, that if I had been a Jew in an Arab hospital, I would have been lynched and then thrown to the ground, and joyous shouts of “Allahu Akbar” would have echoed through the hospital and the surrounding streets.

  I took Mama’s hand and gave it a little squeeze. I may have imagined it, but I thought I felt her give my hand a weak squeeze in return. For the first time since the shelling had begun that morning, I thought we both would live, at least a little while longer.

  The doctor had said Mama might have to be here for four or five days. I knew that as long as we were in this hospital we would not be bombed or shelled. This, in and of itself, had a psychological effect that is impossible to describe. After seven years I had forgotten what is was like to live without war. The threat of imminent death had been my constant companion, physically, mentally, and emotionally, since I was ten years old. Every thought of life was shadowed by the fear of death. To have this shadow suddenly removed, even if for only four or five days, would be a relief. But I was simply too numb to enjoy it yet.

  I thought about Papa, still in Lebanon. I knew he would be out of his mind with worry about both of us. I had to find a way to let him know that we had made it to the hospital. From this point on I was confident that Mama would be okay. The Israelis would feed her and take care of her. I wasn’t so sure what I was going to do for myself. I was tired, dirty, and hungry I had not brought any food with me. I had no change of clothes. I didn’t even have a comb or a toothbrush. I had only thirty lira left, and I thought I would need that for the trip back to Lebanon. But I figured I would be able to scrounge something, and besides, I thought five days was not such a long time to go without eating.

  Thoughts of the day again filled my mind, but the memory of explosions and blood were slowly replaced by reflections on the compassion and generosity that I’d seen the Israelis exhibit over and over, all day long. My mind kept returning to the realization that the Israelis were providing lifesaving medical services to Palestinian and Muslim gunmen who had been injured in the process of trying to kill Israelis. It suddenly dawned on me that the efforts of the Israelis were not just isolated, individual acts of compassion. Individual Israelis drove the ambulances and performed the medical services, but this was possible only because the Israelis, as a state, as a society, as a culture, made a conscious, deliberate decision to devote precious resources to saving the lives of their enemies.

  I was stunned at the implications of this revelation. I recalled all of the horrible things that I had heard about Jews in general and Israelis in particular as I was growing up: they were greedy, brutal, and treacherous; they were the cause of all misery in the world. I had seen with my own eyes that nothing could be further from the truth. I was to learn this lesson many times while Mama was in the hospital.

  I also learned about hatred, intolerance, and bigotry. The Muslim woman who was in the room with my mother had stayed in the hospital for about twelve days. And even after ten days, when the doctors left the room after changing her bandages and checking on her in their morning tour, she said, with an evil, hate-filled look on her face, “I hate you all. I wish you were all dead.” And for the first time in my life I saw evil. I realized that this Muslim couldn’t love the Jews even after they had saved her life. And when you are unable to be grateful to the people who saved your life, you have no soul. When humans become devoid of compassion, a sense of forgiveness, and open-mindedness, when they surrender their humanity to hate, they become an evil force of darkness that is irreconcilable with hope, love, and peace.

  Because of her weakened condition after living in a bomb shelter for seven years, Mama did not heal as quickly as she should have. After four days with no improvement in her condition, the doctors decided she needed an operation. By this time, I was desperate with hunger. I hadn’t had a thing to eat except for a few scraps that Mama left on her food tray. While I waited for her to return from the operating room, Lea came in and asked me if I would like something to eat. I was ashamed to tell her how hungry I was, so I told her that I had been buying food in the canteen. She said that she had asked in the canteen and they had never seen me. Caught in my lie, mortified by shame and weak with hunger, I burst into tears and admitted I hadn’t eaten in five days. She put her arm around me and said, “I thought so. Come on. Let’s go get something to eat while the doctors fix your mother’s leg."

  As she led me toward the staff cafeteria, all of the floor nurses greeted both of us by name. She asked me how they knew me and I explained that I’d been acting as an unofficial translator between the patients and the doctors whenever there were no other translators available. The patients would speak to me in Arabic, and I would translate what they said into the English I had learned from American TV shows. She looked at me with mock sternness and asked, “Brigitte, are you trying to take away my job?” She could tell from the look of horror on my face that I didn’t know she was kidding, so she hugged me and told me she thought it was wonderful. Not only that, she said she would add my name to the list of official hospital volunteers so I would be able to eat in the staff cafeteria three times a day. All of that watching television and writing on my arm was paying off.

  When we got back to the room, someone had set up a small cot at the foot of Mama’s bed so I wouldn’t have to sleep in the chair anymore. This made me happier than my newly full stomach because that chair had been was the most uncomfortable one I had ever sat in. Then I saw a small bag sitting under the cot. Inside the bag I found a toothbrush, toothpaste, a comb, a hair clip, four new pairs of underwear, and a set of clothing: a skirt and a blouse. Outside of my own family, I had never seen such thoughtfulness and generosity.

  As it turned out, Mama was in the hospital for almost three weeks. During that time I learned a great deal about the ethics and values of the Israelis. There were also constant reminders of the differences between the Israelis and the Arab world. After the mercy the Israelis showed their enemies, the thing that impressed me the most was the respect with which women were treated. I loved to watch the Israeli women, particularly the young women in the army. Some of them were only a year or two older than I.I was amazed at how assertive and self-confident they were. I did not yet understand the language that they spoke, but I could tell from their tone of voice and the way that they carried themselves that they felt accepted and respected by the men. Some of them were even officers! This was such a stark contrast to the Arab world in which I had grown up. No Arab soldier would take an order from a woman. In the Arab world, women were property. We were owned by our parents, and then we were reowned by our husbands. Israel was truly a different world.

  As my mother’s condition improved, and the time to leave the hospital approached, I became very depressed. I was very happy about Mama getting better, but I hated the idea of going back to Lebanon, the bizarre world of death and uncertainty. When the day arrived, I went to the nurses' station to check us out. Lea was there. She had tears in her eyes as she filled out Mama’s papers and handed them to me. She took me in her arms and gave me a big hug, saying, “Don’t forget about us, now.” I looked at her and said, “I could never repay you. How could I ever forget you? Thank you for everything.” The phone rang and she had to go back to work. As we turned away from each other, tears were running down our cheeks.

  The one-hour ride back to the border was pure torture. The closer we got to the border, the more I tried to convince Ma
ma that we should stay in Israel. I said we could sell our house and restaurant and bring Papa to live in Israel. She told me that was crazy, that no one would ever buy our bombed-out property, and Papa would never leave anyway. I knew she was right. I was racked with guilt over not wanting to go back to Lebanon. I knew that Mama and Papa could not make it on their own. It was my responsibility to take care of them.

  I knew that, for now, I had to leave Israel. I also knew that someday I would come back. As we crossed the border back into our personal hell I realized that our stay in the Israeli hospital had not only saved my mother’s life, but had changed mine.

  6.

  REBUILDING OUR LIVES

  Papa was delighted when we returned from the hospital in Israel. He had missed us terribly, and we had missed him just as much. For the next few days the shelling stopped and our house was packed with people from ten in the morning till ten at night. It seemed as if the whole town came to visit my mother and check on her. The days went by fast for me because I was so busy serving coffee and cake to all the people who visited. Even though it was wonderful seeing so many old friends and being one family again, I felt much sorrow and emptiness over missing my new friends in Israel and the exciting and different lifestyle I had experienced for a few weeks. From now on I would compare everything that happened to me in Lebanon with what I had experienced in Israel. War and peace, fear and tranquillity, bias and tolerance, close-mindedness and open-mindedness, inequality and equality... now that I was back in Lebanon, many nights I cried myself to sleep.

  For a while, there was no more fighting in our region, no more shelling and no snipers to hide from. Israel had pushed the Palestinians and their few remaining Muslim allies all the way to Beirut, so their rockets and artillery could no longer reach us. Mama had been injured by the last barrage from the town of Nabatiyah on the second day of Israel’s Operation Peace for Galilee. When Mama and I returned home, the Israeli siege of Beirut was in its third week. In southern Lebanon we were relatively unaffected by the turmoil up north. As a result of the Israeli military presence, roads opened up all over southern Lebanon. It was now safe for us to travel without being kidnapped or killed at Muslim checkpoints.

  We came out of the shelter and began to rebuild our lives. Living in our house instead of the bomb shelter immeasurably improved the quality of our life. We were now able to cook a variety of foods with our gas stove, and have coffee any time we wanted to. More important, we could now bathe and go to the bathroom whenever necessary. It is amazing how the little things in daily life that most people take for granted have an impact on how we feel and our outlook on life.

  The frequent shelling had taken a huge toll on our utilities. Electricians worked every day fixing the cables, transformers, and poles so that electricity could be restored. When they finished, electric power was available for only a few hours a day. Electricity was rationed between towns because there was only one functioning power station in the area. Repairs were made on the water system so the pipes could deliver water to our houses for household chores such as cleaning, bathing, and washing dishes. However, it was six months before the water system could deliver water that was good enough for drinking. During that time, we still had to go down to the spring for drinking water.

  We thought the war was over, or at least we hoped so. Papa started fixing the window shutters ruined by shrapnel. He bought cement to fix the cracks in our walls. However, hope that the war was ended was not strong enough to convince him to replace the glass in our windows. Plastic sheeting would keep out the wind and let in some light, but glass would turn into shrapnel if the bombs came back.

  My mother’s leg was getting better, slowly but surely. She could now move around in the house, water her plants, and do a little laundry. The injury on her shin had left a big long scar. It hurt my mother to see her shin look like that. In Lebanon older woman do not wear pants, so Mama could not cover the scar, which was above her ankle and visible no matter what she wore. Even though the scar was obviously not her fault, she felt great shame.

  The economic situation in town improved as people emerged from their shelters. There was a whirlwind of weddings, and all of the newlyweds started looking for houses to rent. Papa, old and weak as he was, worked himself to exhaustion repairing our three apartments so they could be rented. They soon filled up. Papa also rented the restaurant to a husband and wife who returned to Lebanon from Kuwait, where they had lived since the beginning of the war.

  My days were sad and my heart was broken because I missed the friends I had made in Israel. I spent most of my time looking at their pictures and the other reminders that I had brought back with me: clothes, books, lipstick, a pair of sunglasses. These were simple, everyday things, but each one represented a separate thought, a separate gesture of generosity from an Israeli to a stranger.

  After the electricity was restored for four hours per day, we were able to watch the news on TV. The images and lies regarding the Israelis were shocking, and couldn’t have been further from reality. The Palestinian and Muslim propaganda PR machine had launched a fullblown attack against Israel.

  The Palestinians and Muslims were eager to offer theatrical performances in front of the TV cameras. They would beat their chests and wail about Israeli bombardment of their homes. Even Muslims who had received lifesaving medical treatment in Israel cursed the “barbaric” Israeli enemy. The Palestinians screamed and yelled about Israeli “theft” of their “homeland.” They swore in the name of Allah that they would destroy Israel and slaughter the Jews.

  The blind hatred and victimhood mentality of the Palestinians toward Israel was so obvious that any educated and experienced Western journalist should have been able to see through it in a second. However, journalists, both Lebanese Muslims and Westerners, broadcast to Lebanon and the rest of the world the Palestinians' distorted version of the war without checking its validity or accuracy, or even its relationship to reality, although that is their responsibility. The Christians of southern Lebanon barely had any media attention. Few journalists came to the security zone to interview any of us. When they did they referred to the SLA in derogatory terms, hardly a neutral journalistic position. No journalist visited any Israeli hospitals and interviewed any of us there. There was no mention whatever in broadcasts of the incessant cross-border artillery and rocket bombardments and terrorist infiltrations which provoked Israel into entering Lebanon. There wasn’t a word about the Israeli humanitarian aid to the Lebanese. There was no mention of the Israelis giving lifesaving medical treatment to wounded Lebanese and even Palestinian gunmen in Israeli hospitals. There was no mention of the unprecedented mercy and compassion that the Israelis had shown to a relentless, brutal enemy. Every media outlet that we heard blamed Israel for protecting itself, painting Israel as the aggressive monster bent on killing and inflicting pain on the poor Palestinians living peacefully and suffering in their refugee camps along with the Lebanese population.

  Their bias was shocking. The media reported a one-sided story, focusing only on the Palestinians and Muslims whose lives had been destroyed by Israel. I thought, What about our lives, which had been destroyed by the Muslims and the PLO? What about the massacres, slaughter, rape, and torture of Christians and the destruction of our churches by Muslims shouting “Allahu Akbar"? What about Lebanese democracy now under the thumb of the Syrians? What about the people of Lebanon, who were so open-minded, tolerant, and fair? What about the hatred, intolerance, and bigotry of the Palestinians who were given refuge in Lebanon, and then destroyed and terrorized what was once the beacon of culture, education, and modernity in the Middle East?

  While the Arab channels were broadcasting a hatefest demonizing Israel, Israeli television was showing the humanitarian aid that was given to the Lebanese. We were able to watch Jordanian, Lebanese, and Israeli newscasts one after the other. The Israelis aired interviews of officials talking peace and the initial negotiations with Lebanon over a peaceful coexistence. Even though they
also aired stories about their bombing of Palestinian camps, they never gloated about their successful attacks, as Arab news anchors did, as they smiled when reporting Israeli casualties. They reported balanced news that showed Israel in both a good and a bad light. The Israelis also showed positive stories of Lebanese rebuilding their lives, reopening their stores, which had not been in business in years, and resuming their daily lives. Israel showed stockpiles of weapons given to the Muslims and Palestinians by Iran, the USSR, and Syria.

  Two momentous international events had occurred during the seven years that my family and I lived in the bomb shelter. First was the Israeli-Egyptian peace agreement of 1979. In exchange for full withdrawal from the Sinai, which Israel had captured in the 1967 Six-Day War, Egypt “normalized” relations with Israel. Although it has turned out to be a very cold peace between the two countries, the accommodation between Israel and the most populous and powerful state in the Arab world effectively eliminated the possibility of a major war between Israel and the Arab world.

  The second event, which had the most profound effect on Lebanon and the world, was the Iranian Islamic revolution of 1979. Prior to this time, although there was friction and sometimes fighting among the various religious communities in Lebanon, they all saw themselves as Lebanese. After the Iranian Revolution, Muslims throughout the world began to see themselves only as Muslims, with a religious duty to wage a holy war, a jihad, to make Islam supreme over the entire world. Fundamentalist hate ideology began to take hold in different parts of the world, inspired by the Iranian mullahs. Islamic terrorism began to escalate around the world. According to these radical Islamists, any civilization or culture that did not submit to Islam must be destroyed. In Lebanon, this led to the decline of the moderate Amal Shia militia and the rise of Hezbollah, the modestly named “Party of God.” Hezbollah is made up of Lebanese Shia Muslims, but it is financed and supported by Iran and Syria. From its inception in 1982, Hezbollah has been as dedicated to the destruction of the United States as it has been to the domination of Lebanon. With the rise of Hezbollah, the turmoil in Lebanon mutated from a civil war over the future of Lebanon into one of the fronts in the worldwide jihad of radical Islam. Hezbollah today is one of the most lethal terrorist organizations in the world, with insurgent training centers spinning off terrorists worldwide.