Brigitte Gabriel
| Brigitte Gabriel بريجيت غابرييل |
|
|---|---|
| Born |
Hanan Qahwaji October 21, 1964 Marjayoun, Lebanon |
| Residence | Virginia Beach, Virginia, U.S. |
| Nationality | Lebanese and American |
| Other names | Nour Semaan (alternative nom de plume) Brigitte Tudor |
| Occupation | Author, activist, journalist |
| Years active | 1986–present |
| Website | American Congress for Truth, ACT! for America |
Brigitte Gabriel (Arabic: بريجيت غابرييل; born Hanan Qahwaji, 21 October 1964) is a conservative American journalist, author, political lecturer, anti-Islamic activist, and founder of two non-profit political organizations, the American Congress For Truth and ACT! for America. She has given hundreds of lectures and frequently speaks at American conservative organizations such as The Heritage Foundation, Christians United for Israel, Evangelicals, and Jewish groups.
Her sometimes controversial statements include that Islam keeps countries backward and that it teaches terrorism.
Brigitte Gabriel claims to have been born in the Marjeyoun District of Lebanon to a Maronite Christian couple, a first and only child after over twenty years of marriage. She recalls that during the Lebanese Civil War, Islamic militants launched an assault on a Lebanese military base near her family's house and destroyed her home. Gabriel, who was ten years old at the time, was injured by shrapnel in the attack. She says that she and her parents were forced to live underground in all that remained, an 8-by-10-foot (2.4 by 3.0 m) bomb shelter for seven years, with only a small kerosene heater, no sanitary systems, no electricity or running water, and little food. She says she had to crawl in a roadside ditch to a spring for water to evade Muslim snipers.
According to Gabriel, at one point in the spring of 1978, a bomb explosion caused her and her parents to become trapped in the shelter for two days. They were eventually rescued by three Christian militia fighters, one of whom befriended Gabriel but was later killed by a land mine.
Gabriel wrote that in 1978 a stranger warned her family of an impending attack by the Islamic militias on all Christians. She says that her life was saved when the Israeli army invaded Lebanon in Operation Litani. Later, when her mother was seriously injured and taken to an Israeli hospital, Gabriel was surprised by the humanity shown by the Israelis, in contrast to the constant propaganda against the Jews she saw as a child. She says of the experience:
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