Because They Hate: A Survivor of Islamic Terror Warns America (2 page)

From Saudi-funded madrassas and mosques worldwide, to the parliament of Iran, to the cabals of al Qaeda and Hezbollah, radical Islamists have repeatedly declared and demonstrated that their goal is to impose Islamic rule throughout the world, by the sword or by the suicide bomb. Numerous radical Islamic “scholars” have declared that it is every Muslim’s religious duty to dominate or exterminate all infidels.
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What they write and say is what they are going to do. All we have to do is read and listen.

The United States has been a prime target for radical Islamic hatred and terror.
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Every Friday, mosques in the Middle East ring with shrill prayers and monotonous chants that call down death, destruction, and damnation on America and its people. The radical Islamists' deeds have been as vile as their words. Since the Iran hostage crisis, more than three thousand Americans have died in a terror campaign almost unprecedented in its calculated cruelty, along with thousands of other citizens worldwide. Even the Nazis did not turn their own children into human bombs, and then rejoice at their deaths as well as the deaths of their victims. This intentional, indiscriminate, and wholesale murder of innocent American citizens is justified and glorified in the name of Islam.

And yet, there are still Americans who are unable or unwilling to recognize the nature or the extent of the threat presented by radical Islam. Whether motivated by naive wishful thinking or rigid political correctness, they assert that Islam is a “moderate,” “tolerant,” and “peaceful” religion that has been hijacked by “extremists.” They ignore the repeated calls to jihad, Islamic holy war, emanating from the government-controlled mosques of so-called moderate Islamic countries such as Egypt, Pakistan, and Indonesia. They refuse to accept that in the Muslim world, extreme is mainstream.

American citizens have been murdered in this terror war for thirty years. However, America cannot effectively defend itself in this war unless and until the American people understand the nature of the enemy that it faces. Even after 9/11 there are those who say that we must “engage” our terrorist enemies, that we must “address their grievances.” Their grievance is our freedom of religion. Their grievance is our democratic process. Islamic religious authorities and terrorist leaders repeatedly state that they will destroy the United States and Western civilization, and replace it with the only true religion, Islam. Unless we take them at their word, and defend ourselves accordingly, they will succeed. For the sake of our children and our country, we must wake up and take action. In the face of a torrent of hateful invective and terrorist murder, America’s learning curve since the Iran hostage crisis has been so shallow that it is almost flat. The longer we lie supine, the more difficult it will be to stand erect.

Like the Christians in Lebanon, Americans today are not realizing the power of the Islamic call to jihad. The Islamic takeover of Iran and its subjugation of Lebanon were strategic victories in Islam’s war for world domination.

This book is in part my personal story and my observations. It is written in the hope that Americans and the West will recognize this imminent threat to their way of life and make the correct philosophical, legal, governmental policy, and military decisions to protect themselves from suffering the same fate as the Lebanese infidels.

In July 2006, four weeks before the scheduled release of this book in hardcover, a bloody war broke out in Lebanon between Hezbollah and Israel. The history described in
Because They Hate
suddenly came alive. History repeated itself in the same South Lebanon towns I wrote about—the villages in which I grew up and experienced the Lebanese war between 1975 and 1982. In 1982 we saw Israel push into Lebanon, fed up with the rockets that had been raining down on Northern Israel; they invaded Lebanon in order to push back the the PLO and Syrians. Similarly in 2006, Hezbollah captured Israeli soldiers and again sent rockets into Northern Israel. The world was upset with Israel in 1982, but in 2006 the situation had changed and the international community gave Israeli forces time to hit Hezbollah before the UN Security Council called for an end to hostilities by unanimously adopting resolution 1701, on August 11, 2006. The resolution called for a permanent cease-fire to be based on the creation of a buffer zone free of armed personnel other than the UN and armed Lebanese forces.
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The intervening twenty-four years of Muslim mayhem had knocked some sense into the world and altered its thinking and response to radical Islam. My publisher, St. Martin’s Press, released
Because They Hate
two weeks prior to its scheduled date, so it was available for readers who wanted to understand the situation in Lebanon in terms of its underlying conflict and sources.

The tragic summer conflict opened the doors for me with the media and launched
Because They Hate
along with hundreds of media interviews. I was one of the most knowledgeable experts on radical Islam in Lebanon—not only was I a survivor who lived through the Lebanese war but I was also a journalist who covered the area in the 1980s.

As I travel worldwide, I have been overwhelmed with the love and appreciation I receive when I speak at churches, synagogues, business and political functions, and private organizations. I have met many thousands of Americans who are frustrated with the current situation and who are all supportive of fighting Islamofacism no matter what it takes. Many have told me that they have been made to feel isolated in their thinking and appreciate my clear presentation of the realities and danger of radical Islam. In the many and varied communities in which I have spoken, hundreds and thousands show up to hear me speak. I have seen people from different backgrounds and religions who have come together to form friendships and associations that support their involvement in fighting radical Islam—a movement that threatens our freedoms and way of life. These gatherings are very heartening and have inspired me even more to continue with my vision for American Congress for Truth (ACT for America), which is not only to educate millions of Americans about the threat of Islamofascism, but also to mobilize millions of patriotic citizens into a national grassroots force—to give power to “we the people” and empower every concerned citizen to become a voice affecting their community and our great nation. ACT for America (a 501(c)(4) nonprofit organization) is an issues advocacy organization dedicated to effectively organizing and mobilizing a powerful American grassroots citizen action network, and is committed to informed and coordinated civic action that will lead to public policies that promote America’s national security and the defense of American democratic values against the assault of radical Islam.

ACT for America was founded to unify the voice of Americans who are not only concerned about the threat of Islamofascism but also understand that “political correctness” is causing government action— and inaction—that compromises American security, safety, and liberty.

ACT for America is now in the process of setting up chapters nationwide to network and organize citizens by empowering them and giving them the tools by which they can make a difference on their own level in their own community.

To be honest, I was not surprised by the positive reactions
Because They Hate
received. I had expected it. I have been an activist since 2002 and have been communicating since then with different groups and people through the activities and community on
www.americancongressfortruth.org
. I knew there were thousands of people nationwide who had become fed up with political correctness and were hungry to hear the truth regarding our enemy and our national security. Patriotic Americans were tired of journalists putting our country down, standing up for our enemy, and all the while sabotaging our government that was doing everything in its power to protect us and disrespecting our soldiers who were putting their lives on the line. The disdain, ridicule, and extreme posturing from the far left and some Congressional committee members toward General Petraeus during his Iraq report to Congress in September 2007 were typical of the uniformed position of the blind left. The whole performance was disgraceful to our country and helpful to our enemy.

But I knew there were readers out there who wanted the truth. One reader told me that when he went to a bookstore and inquired about “the book that is number one under terrorism on Amazon .com,” the store clerk reacted in disgust and answered with a scowl, “The author did something recently on C-SPAN and we keep running out of stock."

Readers such as this one put
Because They Hate
on the
New York Times
bestseller list as the readers flocked to buy copies, pushing the number of copies in print to ten times the initial printing. C-SPAN, which aired one of my Washington, D.C., presentations at the Heritage
Foundation,
was
so
overwhelmed with requests for the DVD of the presentation that they aired the interview multiple times on multiple weekends. Because of book-related publicity, over twenty thousand people signed up and joined my organization American Congress for Truth, asking to receive our e-mails and action alerts.

I worked sixteen hours a day for twelve months (and counting!) either traveling to speaking engagements or giving radio interviews from my hotel room or office. On some days I would give fourteen radio interviews, starting at 7:00 A.M. and going until 11:00 P.M. Radio talk show hosts would thank me for my honesty and tell me after the interview that I made their phone lines light up like they have never seen before. It was clear that the American public was ready to speak and to hear the truth, and to be inspired to learn what they could do to protect their communities.

As I worked to publicize
Because They Hate,
I learned a lot about the state of our society and the place honesty and forthrightness hold. I discovered that many organizations wanted to have me as a speaker for major events because of the popularity and effectiveness of my message, but they were afraid and intimidated by the possible reaction of Muslims in their community. Some organizations canceled bookings out of intimidation from influential members who thought that my ideas would inflame the Muslims in their communities. Many times I was instructed before speaking to be politically correct and not to offend anyone. And so I agreed to give only the facts without inserting my political opinion—I let the news facts reported around the world about current events and terrorists activities and attacks speak for themselves. By the end of my presentations to many even leftist groups, my audiences agreed with me on 90 percent of my presentation. The only disagreements came from Muslim invited guests—usually doctors and respected members of the Islamic community—who passionately argued that Hezbollah is not a terrorist organization, that we do not have terrorists in our communities, and that their Islamic community was different and peaceful. It was laughable to say the least hearing these arguments in Toronto where sixteen local Canadian Muslims tried to blow up government buildings and behead politicians;
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in Miami where many local Muslims have been charged with terrorist activities;
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in New York where local Muslims were charged with a terrorist plot to blow up JFK;
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in LA where a massacre was planned by local Muslims against two Los Angeles synagogues;
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and in Australia where nine men were tried in a terrorist plot to blow up Australia’s only nuclear reactor.
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One organization flew me across the country to be their keynote speaker for their annual event, and then, after hearing my first presentation, instructed me to change facts reported in the news—I wasn’t to offend people with the truth even if it meant I had to lie.

Discussing news events has apparently become a bigoted and racist activity because terrorists are Muslims. Discussing those facts may offend some people and so we must stay silent.

In all the presentations that I have done with crowds large and small at a variety of venues, I have not run into one Muslim who stood up and apologized for the murder and attacks that were perpetrated in the name of their religion. Whenever a Muslim stood up from the crowd, it was to argue that I was making Muslims look bad. No one stood up to call for reform in their religion or used the opportunity to ask other Muslims if they would like to join in a movement to publicly condemn terrorist organizations by name.

The Muslim community recognized quickly that my message had a welcome audience and that I present it effectively and without fear. And so they tried to organize to stop me from coming to their communities in the first place. They tried everything from intimidating and threatening me by phone and e-mail in detailed terms, to intimidating the groups who invited me to speak, especially universities. They knew that anyone who attended my lectures would walk away with a different reality than the one that has been perpetrated for the last thirty years by the PLO and presented by sympathetic media and “progressive” Muslims on campus.

Speaking boldly earned me passionate enemies and faithful supporters. When I was scheduled to speak at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, an e-mail originating out of an organization in California was sent to members in the Detroit community. The title of the e-mail said: “Islam-Basher Brigitte Gabriel to visit Ann Arbor on December 4” and the text included the following: “Muslims, Arabs, and their friends and allies should give Gabriel a proper welcome.” College campuses I visited, occupied by deceptive, self-loathing Americans and Islamist sympathizers, became battlegrounds—in order to exercise America’s right to freedom of speech, I had to be surrounded by an army of police officers insuring my safety. Extensive security, bodyguards, and K9 units at university lectures became the norm. Many times I thought that America’s freedom of speech, much attacked and laying in an intensive care state, was in dire straits.