Gabriel, Brigitte 1965–

PERSONAL:

Born 1965; immigrated to the United States, 1989.

ADDRESSES:

Office— American Congress for Truth, P.O. Box 6884, Virginia Beach, VA 23456.

CAREER:

Writer, public speaker, activist, entrepreneur, and journalist. Worked as a news anchor for World News, Middle East Television; owner and operator of a television production and advertising company, 1989. AmericanCongressforTruth.com (an informational Web site), founder. Frequent guest on television and radio programs. Member of the board of advisors of the Intelligence Summit.

WRITINGS:

Because They Hate: A Survivor of Islamic Terror Warns America, St. Martin's Press (New York, NY), 2006.

SIDELIGHTS:

Author and journalist Brigitte Gabriel is a former news anchor for World News, an Arabic-language news program broadcast in the Middle Eastern countries of Egypt, Israel, Syria, Jordan, Lebanon, and Cyprus. Fluent in Arabic, Hebrew, French, and English, Gabriel has covered events throughout the international community, but with a special focus on events in the Middle East. Much of her journalistic work was performed in areas of intense political and military activity, including Lebanon, Palestine, and the West Bank. As a frequent speaker and guest on television and radio programs, Gabriel applies her expertise to explaining Middle Eastern politics and the causes and effects of the Middle East conflict. Gabriel immigrated to the United States in 1989, and shortly thereafter started an advertising and television production company. Her clients have included the major U.S. television networks, plus CNN, the Discovery Channel, the History Channel, and the Learning Channel.

In the aftermath of the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on the United States, Gabriel founded American Congress for Truth, a nonprofit organization with the mission of "educating millions of uninformed Americans about the threat of radical Islam to world peace and national security," noted a biographer on the organization's Web site.

Gabriel persists in that mission with her book,Because They Hate: A Survivor of Islamic Terror Warns America. As a teenager, Gabriel experienced the horrors of life during the vicious civil war between Christians and Muslims in Lebanon during the 1970s. This traumatic and wrenching experience forms the basis of her unflinching and often unforgiving attitude toward Muslim extremists. The only child of older parents, Gabriel "had the ideal childhood, the love, adoration and attention of two mature adults who looked at me as a miracle in their lives, and were thankful for god for blessing them with a child," she told Jamie Glazov in an interview on FrontPageMagazine.com. The outbreak of the conflict in 1975 brought this idyllic childhood to an end. "When the Moslems and Palestinians declared Jihad on the Christians in 1975 we didn't even know what that word meant," she told Glazov. "We had taken them into our country, allowed them to study side by side with us, in our schools and universities. We gave them jobs, shared with them our way of life. We didn't realize the depth of their hatred to us as infidels. They looked at us as the enemy not as neighbors, friends, employers and colleagues."

After enduring the hardships and privations the war caused, after experiencing daily terror and fear for her life and the lives of her family, Gabriel came to understand what it was like to be hated just because she was Christian. Throughout her book, she relates stories of Islamic atrocities, and warns that the United States is in grave danger from those who want to destroy it simply because it exists. "Americans just don't realize the viciousness of the Militant Islamic fundamentalist," she remarked to Glazov.

"We really need to realize, all Americans need to realize that these people hate us and want nothing but to eliminate us because as far as they are concerned we are the infidels. These are religiously motivated fanatics who you cannot negotiate with. These are people who are convinced that god has ordered them to kill us," Gabriel told Glazov. "We cannot drop our guard for a minute," Gabriel concluded. "We must be more vigilant than ever before." Commenting on the book in Publishers Weekly, a reviewer stated that Gabriel's "writing is eloquent and her passion tremendous." Readers, however, must evaluate Gabriel's experiences and statements for themselves, the Publishers Weekly reviewer stated, and must decide if they can "accept her heartfelt bias."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

America's Intelligence Wire, January 1, 2007, "Interview with Brigitte Gabriel"; March 15, 2007, "Interview with Brigitte Gabriel."

Publishers Weekly, September 4, 2006, review of Because They Hate: A Survivor of Islamic Terror Warns America, p. 54.

ONLINE

American Congress for Truth Web site,http://www.americancongressfortruth.com/ (October 28, 2007), biography of Brigitte Gabriel.

FrontPageMagazine.com,http://www.frontpagemagazine.com/ (August 11, 2005), Jamie Glazov, "Islam's Torture of Lebanon," interview with Brigitte Gabriel.