Because They Hate: A Survivor of Islamic Terror Warns America [Hardcover]

Brigitte Gabriel (Author)

Book Description

Release date: September 5, 2006

Brigitte Gabriel lost her childhood to militant Islam. In 1975 she was ten years old and living in Southern Lebanon when militant Muslims from throughout the Middle East poured into her country and declared jihad against the Lebanese Christians. Lebanon was the only Christian influenced country in the Middle East, and the Lebanese Civil War was the first front in what has become the worldwide jihad of fundamentalist Islam against non-Muslim peoples. For seven years, Brigitte and her parents lived in an underground bomb shelter. They had no running water or electricity and very little food; at times they were reduced to boiling grass to survive.
 
Because They Hate is a political wake-up call told through a very personal memoir frame. Brigitte warns that the US is threatened by fundamentalist Islamic theology in the same way Lebanon was-- radical Islam will stop at nothing short of domination of all non-Muslim countries. Gabriel saw this mission start in Lebanon, and she refuses to stand silently by while it happens here. Gabriel sees in the West a lack of understanding and a blatant ignorance of the ways and thinking of the Middle East. She also points out mistakes the West has made in consistently underestimating the single-mindedness with which fundamentalist Islam has pursued its goals over the past thirty years. Fiercely articulate and passionately committed, Gabriel tells her own story as well as outlines the history, social movements, and religious divisions that have led to this critical historical conflict.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

With strident confidence, American Congress for Truth founder Gabriel rebukes the American public for being "weak, asleep or careless" in the face of Muslim terrorism. A Christian survivor of the vicious civil war between Lebanese Christians and Muslims in the 1970s, Gabriel leans on her own terrifying experiences to condemn Muslims, without apparent regard for their ethnicity, ideology or historical role. Consistently using the words "Muslim" and "Arab" as if they were interchangeable, she concludes that the U.S. is "facing total destruction" at the hands of people who are uncultured and cruel, and prescribes such solutions as "profile, profile and profile," and banning "hate education" in Islamic institutions. Though her writing is eloquent and her passion tremendous, Gabriel's strict dichotomy between "evil versus goodness" is too extreme to be informative. Readers will be forced to decide whether or not to accept her heart-felt bias. (Oct.)
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Review

"Brigitte Gabriel eloquently reminds America what is truly at stake in this struggle against terrorism: our families, our way of life, and our hopes. Ms. Gabriel's personal account of her own experience is riveting, compelling and spellbinding. This is a must read for the entire American public . . . This book contains monumental revelations that will shock and disturb you. But it is also a story of an indomitable spirit--Brigitte's-- that will move you."
--Steve Emerson, author of American Jihad: The Terrorists Living Amongst Us, Executive Director, the Investigative Project on Terrorism
 

"A compelling and captivating personal story with a powerful lesson about threats to freedom in our time."

--R. James Woolsey, Director of Central Intelligence, 1993-95

"Brigitte Gabriel's story is at once intensely personal and possessing global significance . . . the story of her family and her childhood encapsulates the threat that faces the entire free world today. Brigitte Gabriel's words should be read, and studied carefully, by all the law enforcement and government officials of the West -- as well as by everyone who values freedom."

-- Robert Spencer, author of The Politically Incorrect Guide to Islam (and the Crusades)
 
"Because They Hate should be read by all to understand radical Islam. Brigitte . . . . This book gives dire warning of what is to come if the democratic and Western world does not take responsible action to protect its people and societies.  The United States is the primary target as Islamic Radicalism attempts to spread its worldwide dominance."

--Paul E. Vallely, Maj. General US Army (Ret.), FOX News Channel Military Analyst, and coauthor of Endgame: The Blueprint for Victory in the War on Terror

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 272 pages
• Publisher: St. Martin's Press; First Edition edition (September 5, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0312358377
• ISBN-13: 978-0312358372
• Product Dimensions: 0.9 x 8.4 x 5.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 14.4 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (447 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #288,582 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #93 in Books > Biographies & Memoirs > Reference & Collections

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

365 of 426 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Eye popping opening September 8, 2006

By Kat Bakhu

Format:Hardcover|Amazon Verified Purchase

This is a really great book. As I read it, I became aware that what is wrong with so many Americans (including me) is we are so uninformed, so uneducated about other parts of the world. I had little understanding, for example, of what the Lebanon "civil war" was all about. This book brought me up to speed on that and taught me so much much more. Reading the events of some 30 years ago seems very much like a deja vu for today. It's all so familiar. What happened then is happening now in exact parallel. I did not know, for example, how Lebanon of the 70s was so similar culturally (and governmentally) to the US of today. And how we are making the same mistakes that led to Lebanon's descent from a pinnacle of culture to hellish chaos.

Gabriel's story is so illuminating, so educational, so human, so revealing, so insightful passionate caring. It provided me with a still deeper picture of the true face of radical Islam than almost anything else I've read on the subject. It should be mentioned that the book is well written indeed, gripping and movingly paced. My thanks to Gabriel for writing this book, and my hope that her efforts not be wasted. She really deserves to be listened to.

443 of 524 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars First hand account of Islamist Evil September 14, 2006

By Kendra

Format:Hardcover

I had the opportunity to see Brigitte Gabriel speak the other night. She is an amazing person. I bought her book and read it within the next day. She has an important story to share and a talent for telling it.

Brigitte was raised a Maronite Christian in Lebanon but spent her formative years hiding with her parents in a bomb shelter. She saw her country destroyed by Muslims intent on Jihad and intent of the triumph of dar-al Islam.

Brigitte's history is compelling. She was raised in a society that was mostly tolerant and westernized-- to the point of being too tolerant of those that are intolerant (Muslims). This openness and tolerance and multiculturalist ideal was Lebanon's ruin. And, the free and open society the Lebanese prided themselves for having is, in effect, gone now and taken over by Islamofascist leaders (currently Hezbollah).

Brigitte reminds us (and teaches those that don't know) that the culture of Islam is truly incompatible with Western culture and Western ideals. Islam glorifies death and destruction in the name of Islam, or submission (to Allah). I am well-aware of those in the U.S. who do NOT want to recognize the truth and who do NOT want to recognize the threat we are facing. These people continually choose to ignore all the evidence that confronts them and ignore and denigrate those that speak the truth and share their stories.

The author's words of warning should be heeded. It seems those in the West continually ignore the Islamists' continual shouts of hatred and unequivocal warnings to achieve their goals of Islamic rule in addition to ignoring their continual attacks of war. The Islamists continually state their aims and act on it while the West-- at the risk of our own demise-- continually ignores the evidence that proves the Islamists are doing exactly what they say they are doing and will continue to do until their goal is achieved.

145 of 169 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars By Turns Poignant, Important, and Extreme November 12, 2006

By Danusha V. Goska

Format:Hardcover

Brigitte Gabriel's "Because They Hate" is a combination memoir and screed. The memoir is very strong. It is poignant and thrilling. The screed is flawed. Overall, though, the book's message is important and its importance transcends Gabriel's flaws as a writer. Throughout, Gabriel demonstrates the kind of dauntless courage that one wishes our political leaders and media elites would exercise.

Brigitte Gabriel was born to a 54-year-old Lebanese Christian woman who had had no other children. This unusual birth communicated to Gabriel that she had been born for a higher purpose, and she is determined to fulfill that purpose.

Her father was a successful restaurateur and landlord in an idyllic Lebanese village. Gabriel's parents loved her dearly.

The world came crashing down when jihadis began attacking Lebanese Christians.

Gabriel describes these assaults with all the power of a page-turning thriller and all the poignancy of many a great child's memoir of war. This portion of her book is so strong that I wish Gabriel had produced a memoir by itself.

Gabriel describes being shelled, living in a bunker, being wounded by shrapnel, and close-call visits to hospitals to have shrapnel removed without anesthesia. Again, when Gabriel barely survives being seriously wounded, her conviction that God put her on earth for a reason is reinforced.

Gabriel grows up and makes her way to Israel. In Israel she encounters humanitarian behavior that she had not encountered among Arabs. Israeli hospital employees work to save the lives of Muslims, though the Muslims curse them. An Israeli interpreter is very kind to Gabriel. Israeli doctors impress Gabriel with their off-duty conversations about literature. Israeli passers-by impress Gabriel with their cleanliness. She sees an Israeli child seek out a garbage can to throw away trash; she sees an Arab throw his garbage in the street.

Gabriel compares the compassionate, intelligent Jews she meets in real life with the stereotypical Jewish monsters, "monkeys and pigs," that are depicted in Muslim propaganda.

Gabriel has an epiphany. She realizes that the Muslim world is drowning in its irrational hatred of Jews, and that Israelis are operating under a different, more humanitarian, worldview.

These scenes are poignant and powerful.

The memoir takes up about half of the book. The rest of the book consists of a strident screed arguing that Jihad is a threat to America and that Americans are not doing enough to stop that threat.

It is not enough for Gabriel to point out the threat; she also offers solutions. These include this very important point: we need to find new energy sources. Petroleum funds jihad.

So far so good. But Gabriel could have benefited from some editing. While admiring Gabriel's blazing courage, the kind of courage that could serve as an example to everyone from political leaders to college presidents to NPR announcers, who are too intimidated by Political Correctness to speak harsh truths, Gabriel's anger does become grating.

Though Lebanese, for example, Gabriel works to distance herself from Arabs, saying that she descended from the Phoenicians. Her comments about Arabs will needlessly alienate readers. A critique of the dangerous dictate of jihad need not focus on Arab people and denigrate them racially.

Gabriel makes tacky and gratuitous comments about Bill Clinton and Dick Durbin, and expresses a great deal of anger and contempt against "ignorant and lazy" America and the West for not adequately protecting Lebanese Christians.

She hops from topic to topic, often not providing adequate background necessary for full understanding, for example, in her brief and incomplete mention of the massacre at Sabra and Shatila. Though the book contains footnotes, it does not contain an index, and it should have one.

Extreme statements in the book include the following: "...it is foolish to allow Muslims to take any type of science courses..." (227). Does Gabriel really mean this? If so, how does she plan to justify such a rule, or to enforce it?

I mention these flaws in the hopes that Gabriel and her editors will correct them in her next book. In her main point, Gabriel is not only correct, she is blazingly courageous in a world where people are afraid to speak this simple truth: jihad is a threat. It takes courage to say this; the fate of people like Pym Fortuyn, Theo van Gogh, and Salman Rushdie alerts us exactly to how much courage Gabriel, who was nearly killed by jihadis, displays here. I hope that in her next book, she displays a bit more cool headedness. But I do hope for her next book.