Differences In Values and Why this is a War Between Civilizations

Concerned Citizen: The article below was forwarded to me by a friend. Please read it carefully and then ask yourself whether anyone can honestly say that "we are all the same" when talking about Islamist Arab culture, and whether we are not, indeed, in a war between civilizations, between Judeo-Christian values and Islamist hatred and exclusionism. I have heard stories like these from people as diverse as Yemenis, Lebanese, Jordanians, Egyptians, Iranians (non-Arab, but still very much Islamic) and Palestinians. The unifying thread is hatred for non-Muslims and the need to achive supremacy over them. Thanks to Mitch Blank for this one.

Brigitte Gabriel is an expert on the Middle East conflict and lectures nationally and internationally on the subject. She's the former news anchor of World News for Middle East television.

Brigitte Gabriel’s speech at Duke University

"I'm proud and honored to stand here today as a Lebanese speaking for
Israel, the only democracy in the Middle East. As someone who was raised in
an Arabic country, I want to give you a glimpse into the heart of the
Arabic world.

I was raised in Lebanon where I was taught that the Jews are evil, Israel
is the devil, and the only time we will have peace in the Middle East is
when we kill all the Jews and drive them into the sea.

When the Muslims and Palestinians declared jihad on the Christians in 1975,
they started massacring the Christians city after city. I ended up living
in a bomb shelter underground from age 10 to 17, without electricity,
eating grass to live, and crawling under sniper bullets to a spring to get
water.

It was Israel who came to help the Christians in Lebanon. My mother was
wounded by a Muslim shell and was taken into an Israeli hospital for
treatment. When we entered the emergency room, I was shocked at what I saw.
There were hundreds of people wounded, Muslims, Palestinians, Lebanese
Christians, and Israeli soldiers lying on the floor. The doctors treated
everyone according to their injury. They treated my mother before they
treated the Israeli soldier lying next to her. They didn't see religion,
they didn't see political affiliation; they saw people in need and they
helped.

For the first time in my life, I experienced a human quality that I know my
culture would not have shown to their enemy. I experienced the values of
the Israelis, who were able to love their enemy in their most trying
moments. I spent 22 days at that hospital; those days changed my life and
the way I believe information, the way I listen to the radio or to
television. I realized that I was sold a fabricated lie by my government
about the Jews and Israel, which was so far from reality. I knew for a fact
that if I were a Jew standing in an Arab hospital, I would be lynched and
thrown to the ground as shouts of joy of "Allahu Akbar" (God is great)
echoed through the hospital and the surrounding streets.

I became friends with the families of the wounded Israeli soldiers, one in
particular, Rina, whose only child was wounded in his eyes. One day, I was
visiting with her and the Israeli army band came to play national songs to
lift the spirits of the wounded soldiers. As they surrounded his bed
playing a song about Jerusalem, Rina and I started crying. I felt out of
place and started walking out of the room, and this mother held my hand and
pulled me back in without even looking at me. She held me, crying, and
said, "It is not your fault." We just stood there, crying, holding each
other's hands.

What a contrast between her—a mother looking at her deformed, 19-year-old
only child and still able to love me, the enemy—and a Muslim mother who
sends her son to blow himself up to smithereens just to kill a few Jews or
Christians.

The difference between the Arabic world and Israel is a difference in
values and character. It's barbarism versus civilization. It's democracy
versus dictatorship. It's goodness versus evil.

Once upon a time, there was a special place in the lowest depths of hell
for anyone who would intentionally murder a child. Now, the intentional
murder of Israeli children is legitimized as Palestinian "armed struggle."
However, once such behavior is legitimized against Israel, it is
legitimized everywhere in the world, constrained by nothing more than the
subjective belief of people who would wrap themselves in dynamite and nails
for the purpose of killing children in the name of god.

Because the Palestinians have been encouraged to believe that murdering
innocent Israeli civilians is a legitimate tactic for advancing their
cause, the whole world now suffers from a plague of terrorism, from Nairobi
to New York, from Moscow to Madrid, from Bali to Beslan.

They blame suicide bombings on the "desperation of occupation." Let me tell
you the truth. The first major terror bombing committed by Arabs against
the Jewish state occurred 10 weeks before Israel even became independent.
On Sunday morning, February 22, 1948, in anticipation of Israel 's
independence, a triple truck bomb was detonated by Arab terrorists on Ben
Yehuda Street in what was then the Jewish section of Jerusalem. Fifty-four
people were killed and hundreds were wounded.

Thus, it is obvious that Arab terrorism is caused not by "desperation" or
"occupation", but by the VERY THOUGHT of a Jewish state.

So many times in history in the last 100 years, citizens have stood by and
done nothing, allowing evil to prevail. As America stood up against and
defeated communism, now it is time to stand up against the terror of
religious bigotry and intolerance. It's time for everyone to stand up and
support and defend the State of Israel, which is the front line of the war
against terrorism.

Thank you."