A couple of months ago, I attended a pro-Israel march and rally at Boston City Hall.  The event was organized by Boston’s small but influential Russian Jewish community.  The array of speakers gathered was impressive.  They included Martin Peretz, editor of The New Republic; Ilana Freedman, a Republican candidate for the U.S. House of Representatives and Dennis Hale of the Episcopal-Jewish Alliance for Israel (yes Virginia, there are Episcopals for Israel).

But the speaker that stood out from all the others was a Lebanese woman named Brigitte Gabriel.  Her first five words banged with Biblical proportion:

“I am an Arab Zionist!!!”

When I spoke with her briefly after the rally, I said, “Boy, you have chutzpah.  I like it.”

If anyone has earned the right to speak with chutzpah it is Gabriel.  She spoke about her family’s ordeal during the Lebanese Civil War.  Gabriel, a Christian, told us that her family was persecuted by Muslims intent on spreading Jihad.  She and her family lived in an underground bomb shelter for seven years surviving on little food and water.  Finding food and water were death defying acts as she dodged sniper bullets.  When she was 17, the shelter was destroyed and Gabriel was seriously injured.

Miraculously, Gabriel was rescued by Israeli Defense Forces and taken to an Israeli hospital.  That is when her life changed.   Gabriel had been taught that Israel and Jews were the “enemy” but her experiences in the hospital taught her otherwise.  She described staying in a hospital room alongside a wounded Israeli soldier.   The Israeli soldier was visited by his fellow soldiers and his family.  As they began to sing the Israeli national anthem Hatikvah,  Gabriel said she felt horrible for what had happened to the Israeli soldier and did not believe that she belonged in the room.    However, she was stopped by the wounded soldier’s mother who told her that what had happened to her son “was not her fault.”    Gabriel was comforted by the soldier’s mother and experienced an epiphany.  Gabriel remarked, “I was betrayed by my country, rescued by my enemy Israel, the Jewish State that is under attack for its existence today.”

Gabriel moved to Israel in 1984 where she lived for five years before coming to the United States.  While in Israel, Gabriel was an anchorwoman for World News on Middle East Television.  This newscast was seen in Israel, Egypt, Syria, Jordan and Lebanon.   

Gabriel founded the American Congress for Truth in 2002.  9/11 hit home with Gabriel in more ways than one.  “9/11 changed most American lives forever, but it struck an especially sensitive chord with me.  It reminded me that the entire world is threatened by the same radical Islamic theology that succeeded in annihilating the “infidels” in Lebanon,” she wrote.  In that spirit, ACT’s mission is to “empower millions of uninformed Americans about the threat of militant Islam to America, Israel and Western civilization.”

Currently, ACT is trying to gather 100,000 signatures for two petition campaigns.  The first petition calls upon the Knight Foundation and the Hewlett Foundation to stop funding the re-broadcast of news from Al Manar in the United States.   Al-Manar is considered the voice of the terrorist group, Hezbollah.  ACT’s other petition drive is stop Saudi-funded Islamic Fundamentalist schools in the United States.  Many of the textbooks used by the schools contain anti-Semitic and anti-Christian pronouncements, such as the Book of Abed which contains statements such as, “O Muslim, O slave of Allah!  There is a Jew behind me, come and kill him!” and “The Jews and the Christians are the enemies of the believers.”  Gabriel notes that 15 of the 19 9/11 hijackers were Saudis and undoubtedly educated with this sort of material.   Putting a stop to such indoctrination may serve to prevent another 9/11 and perhaps far worse.

Brigitte Gabriel may be to Arab Christians what Irshad Manji has become for Muslims; a voice of reason who is not afraid to let herself be heard.  Gabriel wants to give voice to Americans, Jews and Christians “who have lost their tongue to political correctness.”  In order to win the War on Terror not only must we win militarily we must also win the war of words and ideas.  With Brigitte Gabriel on our side, we have a fighting chance.

September 4, 2004 Correction from Aaron Goldstein: Speaking of someone who was inspired to do good by the events of 9/11, a couple of weeks ago I profiled Brigitte Gabriel, founder of the American Congress for Truth in an article titled, “I am an Arab Zionist!!!”  Gabriel contacted me after she read the article and asked me to correct a couple of items.  I had written that Gabriel had been wounded after her home had been destroyed in the Lebanese Civil War when she was 17.  Gabriel was actually injured when her home was destroyed at the age of 10.  It was after that she and her family moved to a bomb shelter where they remained for seven years.    When the shelter was destroyed, it was her mother who was wounded and taken to an Israeli hospital although she regularly visited her mother in the hospital.    Otherwise, the remainder of the account is correct and it was at the time that Gabriel had her epiphany about Israelis and Jews.  Nonetheless, my apologies to Ms. Gabriel for any confusion that may have been caused by the column.  I would encourage readers to check out Gabriel’s activities at www.americancongressfortruth.com.

Aaron Goldstein, a former member of the socialist New Democratic Party, writes poetry and has a chapbook titled Oysters and the Newborn Child: Melancholy and Dead Musicians. His poetry can be viewed on www.poetsforthewar.org.