Brigitte Gabriel Makes Islamophobia Sexy
Gabriel asks, “where’s my honorarium?”
A short New York Times interview with one of the anti-Arab native informants on the scene, Brigitte Gabriel, further demonstrates the potentially ludicrous market for Arab and or Muslim public figures who will tell the American conservatives and liberal pro-Israeli-types what they want to hear.
She comes from a growing line of scoundrels who assuage the Islamophobia of western book buyers with non-analytic, personal tales of the terrorist-infused Middle East. They go on speaking tours offering no insight into policies, scholarly history, or even an attempt to communicate their important messages to the communities they want to reform — Arabs and Muslims.
These third-rate poseurs, sometimes marketed preposterously as “former terrorists,” make best seller lists for mostly crude writings drawing broad, highly skewed and personalized conclusions about subjects much bigger than their limited-expertise should allow. And they hawk their wares at Jewish community centers, right-wing churches, and campuses around the country for honoraria — thus proving P.T. Barnum correct.
It’s rank opportunism of the worst kind and September 11, 2001 was their payday. They’re still cashing in.
Gabriel, who founded the ambitiously and ambiguously titled group, American Congress for Truth, reveals what can only be a latent idiocy and blatant pomposity in this short interview. The interviewer, Deborah Solomon, draws these out with her questioning and challenges her on a few points, but misses some larger criticisms of Gabriel’s messages and past affiliations.
LATENT IDIOCY
Her proof she’s not backed by the CIA — she voted for Gore in 2000 (she did not mention her 2004 vote, curiously). She falls back on conflating the CIA and Republicans, as when she holds up a Democrat, a DOJ prosecutor on her board, as an example. Solomon’s skepticism did not meet a convincing, or even logical, response.
Solomon properly called out her non-sensical self-exhibitionism while Gabriel claimed to also fear for her life. She says she’s in danger because an Al-Qaeda website mentioned her, and “sent a press release” about her work. I was not aware that Al Qaeda has a media outreach office, issuing press releases and such. If she is in danger, then mentioning where she lives is far less hazardous then putting her image up on her book.
Most hilarious is her “analysis” about last year’s non-story http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,291569,00.html about the University of Michigan-Dearborn’s decision to install some foot-washing basins for Muslim students. She described this as shoving Islam down America’s throat and warned, “This is the way they are taking over the West. They are doing it culturally inch by inch.” Who knew foot-washing basins would bring down the West? What next, halal food products at McDonalds? Solomon is correct to point out the banality of such basins. Gabriel’s alarmism looks silly in contrast.
BLATANT POMPOSITY
Her lame get-up in her photo — gold-on-gold-on-gold — is her version of “glamorous.” It is the worst of boater chic, an outfit I would not let my aunt wear to a wedding.
Forget my fashion critique though, I am in no position to talk even if I know gaudy when I see it. She betrays the vanity that also colored her response about her best-selling book. No, she was not surprised it was a best-seller, because she has a universal experience to share (except, presumably, one that Muslims cannot relate to – especially the civilian-victims of Sabra and Shatila, who were massacred at the hands of her former employer, the South Lebanon Army).
The arrogance is grotesquely transparent. Who refers to herself as “glamorous”? Apparently, fashion is not all she got from the French.
We can be sure that Gabriel’s first loyalties lie with Israel, even before her SLA comrades. Otherwise she would mention their struggles in Israel. Last week over 100 former SLA members and their families protested for more state benefits from Israel. They complain about discrimination from the state and many are working menial jobs despite their long service to Israel as its proxy in Lebanon.
I doubt she mentions this when she speaks publicly as a Hasbara fellow – hasbara, which means “explanation” in Hebrew is better known as “propaganda” in Israel. After all, she’s no longer on SLA’s payroll.
Gabriel’s own “hate” record did not come up in the interview neither. There was no mention of her work with the South Lebanon Army, which “had a reputation for cruelty, confirmed when its torture chambers at Khiam were opened after the Israeli withdrawal in 2000,” according to Charles Glass.
There was no questioning of her infamous equation of “Arabs” with “Barbarians” at a speech at Duke University in 2004. It was condemned by the event’s organizers, Duke’s Freeman Center for Jewish Life, and by Barbaric… I mean Arab students at the University. One of the event’s sponsors wrote,
Had we known Brigitte Gabriel’s speech would have been as inflammatory and offensive as it was, we would have unhesitatingly removed her from the speaker list. Despite her detestable aberration, the message of the concert and rally still came through.
When her own sponsors turned against her, she turned against her own words. In her book, “Because They Hate: A Survivor of Islamic Terror Warns America,” she backtracked from the Duke speech:
I admit today that some so called “terrorists” do not, I repeat, do not represent the bulk of all Arabs and Muslims. Terrorists supported the killing of innocent civilians but Arabs and Muslims were willing to criticize and condemn terrorism.
But they also want foot-washing basins so they could safely perform wuduu’ before they pray. And Gabriel treats them as wanting to destroy the West for doing this.
Gabriel needs to make up her mind. Is it the practice of Islam or purveyors of violence against civilians we should condemn? Right now, she only attacks Muslim terrorists and spreads fear about the harmless practice of Islam in the West – freely conflating the two. She would have more credibility if she condemned related terrorism done in the name of other country’s and principles – whether it is Christianity, Judaism, freedom or national security.
Gabriel is a proponent of hatred, plain and simple. And it pays.
[Tarboush tip: Sarah, Fadi]
Gabriel is a proponent of hatred, plain and simpleTrue. She is basically your opposite number.
I was not aware that Al Qaeda has a media outreach office, issuing press releases and such.Then you are poorly informed. Al Qaeda's central media operations wing is called Al-Sahab. It is highly active, even as al Qaeda operations have been declining. Furthermore, al Qaeda regional nodes tend to have their own propaganda departments, such as al Furqan in Iraq, Labik in Afghanistan and al-Jama'a in Maghreb.No, I'm not finished dissecting your misinformation and bloviation, just short on time.
They go on speaking tours offering no insight into policies, scholarly history, or even an attempt to communicate their important messages to the communities they want to reform — Arabs and Muslims.She is a Lebanese Christian, right? Does it really shock you so much that a Lebanese Christian might have a great deal of animosity towards Arab Muslims? And reform? Gimme a break. Brigitte Gabriel was born in 1965 in Lebanon to a Maronite Christian family.lets see… 1965. That means she was about 10 years old when Christians in Lebanon first started getting slaughtered by Palestinians. Yep. I'm QUITE SURE she is only interested in "reform", Will… it couldn't possibly have anything to do with justice, or revenge. Speaking of Christians trying to reform Islam, Will… you are Christian, right? How hard do you work at that?
<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brigitte_Gabrielhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brigitte_Gabriel<br />Brigitte Gabriel was born in 1965 in Lebanon to a Maronite Christian family.Gabriel has said that during the Lebanese Civil War Muslim militants launched an assault on a Lebanese military base near Gabriel's house and bombed her home, collapsing it. Just ten years old at the time, Brigitte was severely injured and spent 2 1/2 months in a hospital recovering. The only child of elder parents, their life savings were destroyed in the attack, as their money, their restaurant and their rental rooms all perished in the bombings.Gabriel reports that she and her parents were forced to live in an 8'x10' bomb shelter underground for seven years with no heat, save for a small kerosene heater, no sanitary systems, no electricity, no running water and little food.(pg. 43; Because They Hate Copywrite 2006) To get water she had to crawl in a ditch alongside a road to a spring in order to evade Muslim Snipers (pg 44, ibid). Before they left, they said prayers, because they did not know if they would come back alive.Later, in 1978, a man she called Chuck, warned Brigitte’s family of an impending attack on Christians by Islamic militias. She claims her life was saved that night when Israelis invaded Lebanon in Operation Litani. Later, her mother was seriously injured and was taken to an Israeli hospital where Brigitte noted the humanity of the Israelis in contrast to the propaganda against the Jews she had endured as a child.Yep, with a background like that, I am QUITE SURE she wants to reform Islam, Will. Maybe even as much as Palestinians want to reform Israel. Right?
What is it you have trouble understanding about the idea that people other than Arab Muslims also have memories? And that they also want justice?
Craig,by reading the NY Times interview alone, you can see what a narrow-minded dipshit she really is. Poor girl was scarred for life, eh? Well, I don't see her doing anything productive by criticizing everything that muslims do and turning blind to anything Israel or the US does. And who said anything reforming at the age of 10?! She's grown into old hag and is writing a book for publicity. Yes, if she was that considered about the Western world, she would give insight into how to reconcile rather than completely shut them out of her life. I wonder if you'd respond this favorly towards a Palestinian who wrote a book about the atrocities experienced at the age of ten by the hands of Israelis?For Ms. Gabriel, "moderate muslims are irrelevant" – interesting considering her whole book criticizes everything Islam stands for. Kudos to the writer for outlining her stupidity so blatantly.
As if she is the only person who suffered during the civil war. Both Muslim, Christian, leftist, and rightist militias were vicious. She's a narrow minded bigot riding on the wave of anti-Muslim sentiment in the US.
To the last two commenters: How come she's a narrow minded hate monger bigot, but her Muslim counterparts are not?
I wonder if you'd respond this favorly towards a Palestinian who wrote a book about the atrocities experienced at the age of ten by the hands of Israelis?And there area shortage of those, right?
Firouz,Everyone and their mother has heard of so-called Al Qaeda videos and seen dingy little news pieces on Al Sahab and its websites. I could not find any evidence via google of them putting out press releases, a particular form of media communications document — official announcement sent out to media outlets. Maybe they put something up on their website about her. I just found it hard to believe that they send out press releases given the traceability of such communications. Was I being too literal, or was Gabriel being loose with her language?Also, I do not doubt that Gabriel suffered during the civil war, nearly everyone did as a commenter said. I am sure that is what drives her politics today, making her logic an extension of that era. She is driven by the primordial hatred of that specific time and place. That such views — albeit she tries to moderate hers' for popular consumption — have currency in the United States exposes popular sentiments we should be alarmed by. Will
That such views — albeit she tries to moderate hers' for popular consumption — have currency in the United States exposes popular sentiments we should be alarmed by.Why, Will? Why do you expect anyone to be "alarmed" by her views, when you expect the same people to embrace the hateful views of Palestinian militants? Does that make sense to you? Don't you feel like a hypocrite when you say things like that?
PC, you just don’t get it. You are mixing up two completely different issues.
On one hand, you have the expressed desire to kill Jews.
On the other hand, you have the need to prevent America from interfering in the internal affairs of the “Arab nation” (just one of those affairs happens to be killing Jews).
You see, these are separate, nuanced issues.
Gabriel is a collaborator peddling dangerous ideas like “arabs teach their children that Christians and Jews are apes and pigs”, but Norman Finkelstein or Naturei Karta… they are the true Jews, not like those fake ones who still resist Arab/Islamist domination.
Yeah, PC, you just don't get it:Pew Poll Table from 2005Anti-Jewish sentiment is endemic in the Muslim world. In Lebanon, all Muslims and 99% of Christians say they have a very unfavorable view of Jews. Similarly, 99% of Jordanians have a very unfavorable view of Jews. Large majorities of Moroccans, Indonesians, Pakistanis and six-in-ten Turks also view Jews unfavorably.Full Poll.
Unrealistic. It would be great if the world was full of reasonable people but it isn't and to get any sort of balance we need to counter every extreme with the opposite.Sure, most Muslims are as decent as anyone else, but those the West who pretend that Islamic extremism is the province of some tiny minority are not doing anyone any favours, least of all the many Muslims in Iran and other islamic countries who would love more freedom.I dislike the "Paedophile Prophet" sort, pointless abuse for the sake of it is unessary, but as for that lady, I can't see anything in that very brief article that is necessarily untrue.
I am not sure you really understand the nature of the opposition many of us have to Islam, which is not simply about extremism.Islam has the big problem that, above all other religions, it does not accept the separation of religion and state. There are some 50+ Islamic states that tell us that. While laws of some other countries are influenced by religion, there are no others (except Israel arguably)where religious principles are embodied into the state.Those of us who believe in a free secular society with rational laws (! we live in hope) don't want them determined by 1000 year old religious dictats even if that is acheived peacefully via lobbying and the ballot box and it would be no consolation if those doing it were jolly nice people who really thought they were us a favour.
Interesting, what's your opinion on Israel then? Will you join me in calling for a secular, democratic state? Or are you only against Muslim states?
israel is already a secular democratic state. i call for the creation of a secular Palestinian state. let's see you people govern yourselves properly, before we let your bull in someone else's china shopi don't see how israel is supposed to magically fix your people undergoing civil war along religious, tribal and political ideological lines fix your own house first
Hate to have to state the obvious here, but Israel is actually a Jewish state.
That's interesting because it is not governed by Jewish law. Name another country with a state religion that does not abide by the religion?All Muslim countries that claim to be Muslim countries follow Shari'a.
And how about that secular democratic Palestinian state?
Unlike what some people believe, the majority of the member states in the Organization of the Islamic Conference are not governed by Islamic law. While it is true that Israel is not governed by Jewish law (as if that were a singular thing with one interpretation), the state does fund religious programs, employs "official" rabbis, and does define itself by a religion.
the majority of the member states in the Organization of the Islamic Conference are not governed by Islamic lawWhich ones ARE governed by Islamic law. Tell us.as if that were a singular thing with one interpretationAre you kidding me? What the hell do you think you know about Jewish law? That's like a non-Muslim telling you how to beat your wife. Stick to what you know.the state does fund religious programsThe State does not fund religious programs. The State distributes money based on political representation. Several Israeli political groups are religious. The groups themselves decide how to distribute the money. The State also distributes money to Islamic and Israeli Arab political parties.
And how about that secular democratic Palestinian state?
God Bless Brigitte Gabriel for shining the light on the truth of Islam. And gues what ! shes not the only one. Please google the following Walid Phares, Walid Shoebat, Wafa Sultan, Steve Emerson, Ayaan Hirsi Ali, Noni Darwish. and much more…What the west needs to know is to : stop being so stupid about the fact that there is someone out there whose trying to cause you harm…On September 10 2001, the fact of airplanes crashing in buildings on american soil seemed like a joke ! Stupid americans such as the ones who published this article will not know the real islam until its to late for them and suffer what many have suffered. The publishers of this post have no clue about life in Egypt, Syria, or Iran !. puh leez your idiots ! stop trying to bash someone b/c he or she is simply showing you the TRUTH that you are SO SCARED TO HANDLE ! thats right your scared from the truth !Go learn more about islam it will do you a lesson and the rest of society in the west. Signed,Arab by Birth, American by Choice.
Untold facts about Hanan Tudor aka Brigitte Gabriel
Hanan Tudor alias Brigitte Gabriel pretentiously declares on the ACT site, “I founded this organization to give Americans their voice back…”
Brigitte! Americans never lost their “voice,” unless the “voice” you want to give back is the Jim Crow voice that unleashed the dogs and water hoses on Southern blacks fighting for civil rights and against White racism because that is the historical parallel which fits into your rhetoric.
ACT is an organization shot through and through with Christian fundamentalists. That is why at many of their events one will see a Christian missionary preaching the Gospel while other ACT custodians will be passing out anti-Islam literature. In this video a representative for a Florida Chapter of ACT for America spews his hate filled beliefs about Islam. He brags about using the Quran as toilet paper and urinating in Muslim ablution sinks. The ACT member, who put up this video on YouTube, later removed it. Obviously realizing that it hurts their credibility, but luckily someone else downloaded it.
Brigitte, who immigrated to the United States from Lebanon in the 1980s, has painted the problem of Islamic terrorism as one having to do with all Muslims. She has said that “Every practicing Muslim is a radical Muslim.”
Brigitte Gabriel was born in the Marjayoun District in Lebanon to a Christian family.
According to Gabriel, during the Lebanese Civil War, militants launched an assault on a Lebanese military base near her family’s house and bombed her home. Gabriel reports that she and her parents were forced to live in an 8′x10′ bomb shelter underground for seven years with only a small kerosene heater, no sanitary systems, no electricity or running water and little food. To get water she states that she had to crawl in a ditch alongside a road to a spring in order to evade Muslim snipers.
Later, in 1978, Gabriel says a man warned her family of an impending attack on Christians by militias. She says that her life was saved that night when Israelis invaded Lebanon in Operation Litani. Later, her mother was seriously injured and was taken to an Israeli hospital where Gabriel noted the humanity of the Israelis in contrast to the propaganda against the Jews she says she saw as a child.
Critics of Gabriel state that her biographical account is riddled with factual inaccuracies. While she claims that she lived for seven years in a bomb shelter, her former neighbors in Marjayoun say that her family, like that of others in the village, may have spent a few nights in their shelter or basement at times, but that they otherwise lived relatively normally.
Gabriel also used to tell audiences that Hezbollah was the group that terrorized her family for the seven years between 1975 and 1982. She stopped making this claim after people objected; pointing out that Hezbollah was formed after she left Lebanon, as a direct result of the Israeli invasion and occupation of 1982.
When Gabriel was invited to speak as part of a lecture series organized by Duke University’s Jewish community in October 2004, many in attendance were angered by her referring to Arabs as “barbarians.” The Freeman Centre for Jewish Life at Duke University later apologized for her comments. Following her speech at women’s campaign event for the Jewish Federation of Ottawa (JFO) in November 2008, many in attendance registered their protests, leading Mitchell Bellman, president and CEO of the JFO, to write a letter in which he acknowledged that Gabriel made, “unacceptable gross generalizations of Arabs and Muslims,” distancing his organization from her views.
Commenting on Brigitte Gabriel, eminent blogger Debbie Schlussel said: “You don’t need phonies like Hanan Tudor (who goes by the porn name, “Brigitte Gabriel,” she isn’t a radical or a Muslim though, but, just a fraud, a complete ignoramus, and a liar and who helped raise money for an organization that praised Muslim death, rape, and torture threats on my life and my family members’ lives).
“The road to preserving the American way of life is not led by this woman with an Arabic accent who tells you what you want to hear to sell books someone else wrote for her.”
Debbie further said “In speaking to a Black Detroit-area church, she gushingly praised Barack Obama and said how glad she is that he’s President. On FOX News’ “O’Reilly Factor,” she praised Obama’s Muslim outreach (she repeated this on “Real Time” on HBO) and said he’s “doing a better job than Bush” did at it. This was just after Obama pandered in several speeches and comments to Muslims in Turkey and called America a “Muslim nation.” Then, Tudor/Gabriel” sent a mass e-mail featuring an article someone ghostwrote for her (as they did her books), denouncing Obama on Islamic outreach. (Yup, this woman isn’t just two-faced, she’s got several of them.) But she’s a fraud, and, because she’s not a very good fraud, she slips up.”
So, here is the conclusive information about Lebanese born Hanan Tudor aka Brigitte Gabriel, who is not only a damn liar but also a fraud. She owns an organization named ACT for America and cashing millions of dollars simply by fooling the Americans with her trick. Though she is not an expert on terrorism or Jihad, she continues to appear in major television networks in USA and also gets the help from a person named ‘Steven’, who ghostwrites books for her. At the age of 14, Hanan Tudor fell in love with a Lebanese Muslim boy named Fikri. Once she was caught by her schoolmates at the backyard, while she was kissing her Muslim boyfriend. On another day, she was caught while having sex with her boyfriend in an abandoned house on way to her home. Later the boy, after having multiple sexual relations with Hanan Tudor alias Brigitte Gabriel, declined to marry her, as it was ultimately known to many that, this teen-aged girl was flirting around with boys and even had physical relations with many.
When he parents fled to United States, the smart Hanan Tudor quickly adopted the policy of telling fake stories to people, and was very successful in drawing attention of many, thus finally turning into a multi-millionaire terrorizer.
We definitely need to combat Islamism and Jihadism, while at the same time; we definitely need to be cautious while buying fake stories from questioned people like Brigitte Gabriel. Because, their ultimate agenda is not to see a terror-free United States, but to hope for further rise of Islamic militancy, so that their ‘story telling’ shops will remain profitable for ever.