Brigitte Gabriel Reveals How She Survived Islamic Terrorists
Editors Note: This is a next in a series of speech texts from last Friday’s conference at the United Nations titled, “Not Peace but a Sword: The Persecution of Christians in the Middle East as a Threat to International Peace and Security.” Here’s Brigitte Gabriel, one of the leading terrorism experts in the world providing information and analysis on the rise of global Islamic terrorism
I was 10 years old when Islamists blew up my home, burying me under the rubble wounded. My only crime was that I was a Christian. At 10 years old, I learned the meaning of the word “infidel.”
I had a crash course in survival, living in a dark cold bomb shelter drinking stale water and having grass and dandelions for food. At the age of 13, I dressed in my burial clothes waiting to be slaughtered and by the age of 20, I had buried most of my friends, killed by Muslims.
When I was growing up I knew that only three kinds of people existed in the world: killers, victims and bystanders. The lesson I learned gave me a fierce determination to fight evil and become a passionate leader against apathy and indifference.
Today, throughout the world, more Christians are persecuted for their religion than any other religious or ethnic group. Approximately 200 million Christians in 60 countries are oppressed, abused or murdered solely because they are Christian. But it is in the Muslim world where the genocide has begun. Fourteen of the world’s 15 most repressive countries for Christians are Muslim countries: Somalia, Iraq, Syria, Afghanistan, Sudan, Iran, Pakistan, Eritrea, Nigeria, Maldives, Saudi Arabia, Libya, Yemen, and Uzbekistan. Thirty-six of the worst 50 are Muslim countries, including Qatar, Egypt, the Palestinian Territories, Jordan, Algeria, Tunisia, Malaysia, Turkey and Indonesia .
In many of these countries, Churches are bombed or burned, while worshippers are inside. Christians are kidnapped, brutalized, raped, sold into sex slavery, mutilated, shot, beheaded and/or burned alive. These are not isolated occurrences.
I read a story about a mother searching for her kidnapped son. ISIS fighters gave her some meat to eat and water to drink. When she asked about her son, they answered laughing: “You’ve just eaten him.”
I could cite hundreds of examples, each more stomach-churning than the one before, but I’ll provide one example, horrific but also inspiring. In Iraq, four Christian children, all of them under 15, were abducted by ISIS and given a choice: conversion to Islam or decapitation. The children replied, “‘No, we love Yesua [the Iraqi name for Jesus], we have always followed Yesua.” The choice was put to them again, and the children again chose Jesus. All four were immediately beheaded.
I don’t cite this example just for it’s shock value. I cite it to illustrate a mindset. It is not just a mindset of murder. It is a mindset of extermination. Especially in parts of Syria and Iraq, Christian communities that predate the arrival of Islam by centuries, are being eradicated. Radical Muslims, whether Sunni or Shiite, are not only killing or driving out Christians. They are systematically erasing every trace of Christian presence. That’s genocide.
Christians slaughtered by evil feel abandoned by humanity, forsaken by the world’s conscience and rendered dead by the apathy of the United Nations.
Almost exactly 100 years ago, on April 24, 1915, the first genocide of the 20th century began. On that date, the Islamic Turks commenced their campaign of deportation, murder and starvation against Christian Armenians. Next week, as we observe that solemn anniversary, we should remember the repeated failure of the world community to act against genocide even in the face of overwhelming evidence, and contemplate what we can do to stop genocide occurring on our watch.
The world needs to be awakened to the fact that this is not just a matter of persecution of Christians. This is not an issue of right and left, of conservative or liberal. Nor is it an American, French, British, Danish, Canadian or Australian issue. It is one that encompasses all of us, including moderate Muslims. Radical Islam seeks to subjugate everyone who does not adhere to their version of “religion.” Just because we are not at war with radical Islam does not mean that radical Islam is not at war with us. Pretending that war does not exist only ensures our defeat. The consequences of that defeat will be catastrophic for the civilized world.
The United Nations’ Security Council is, as usual, impotent. And while The Human Rights Council ceaselessly foams at the mouth about perceived Israeli violations of Palestinians’ rights, it doesn’t seem to notice documented massacres of Christians by Muslims all over the world. It’s ironic that Israel is the only country in the Middle East which has an increasing Christian population. Since 1948, the Christian population of Israel has increased 400 percent. But outside of Israel, Christians are disappearing. At the beginning of the 20th century, Christians represented 20 percent of the Middle East population. In 2015, they are only approximately 4 percent.
It’s time to call evil by its name: Islamic jihadists killing in the name of their religion. It’s time to throw political correctness in the garbage. It’s time to silence the apologists for evil including members of the United Nations.
Today, history and fate meet at a single time in a single place at the United Nations to shape a turning point in a world standing on the cliff of the abyss of intolerance, barbarism and a new age of darkness.
Today the world is witnessing the mobilization of a barbaric, hateful army more deadly than the Nazis. Even the Nazis did not feed children to their mothers. The world stood by in 1948 allowing the genocide of millions in concentration camps. Are we going to allow genocide under our watch? Is the United Nations going to have the blood of millions on its hands in the 21st century?
Indifference is the death of conscience. Indifference is the enabler of evil, it is the weapon by which millions die a slow, painful death of being forgotten and forsaken by the world as if they are exiled from human memory. And in denying their right to live we betray our own existence.
Tolerating evil is a crime. Appeasing murderers doesn’t buy protection. It earns disrespect and loathing in the enemy’s eyes. Yet apathy is the weapon with which the west is committing suicide. Political correctness forms the shackles around our ankles, with which Islamists are leading us to our demise.
I use to lay sleeping as a teenager on my bomb shelter floor praying to survive another day while waiting for the world to ACT. It never oven occurred to me in my fondest dreams that I might have the chance to be standing here at the United Nations in 2015 asking the world today to ACT against evil.
Several months ago, a close friend of mine made a remarkable comment. She said, “If we choose to look the other way, or choose the path of acquiescence, our grandchildren will demand to know why we didn’t take action.”
And they will have every right to.
Ladies and Gentlemen, We are witnessing genocide and we are compelled by simple human decency to act. It requires us to stand up and resist — as nations if we can, as individuals if we must.
I, as the leader of ACT for america.org, the largest national security organization in America with chapters in 11 countries around the world, am committed to do whatever possible to stand up against evil. Join us!
There must be no delay, no hesitation and no compromise with our purpose to defeat Islamic radicalism. We cannot, we must not stand on the sidelines allowing genocide in our lifetime. Thanks to all the people who are here today taking a stand at the UN especially Act for America members and guests who came from all over America, Canada and even Australia making a statement: not in my life time, not under my watch, Not as long as I have a voice, I will not be silent, I will stand up and demand action. Together we call on every member nation represented in the United Nations to take action. Our enemy understands only Strength. I say: Let’s give it to them.
Thank you.
Brigitte Gabriel is one of the leading terrorism experts in the world providing information and analysis on the rise of global Islamic terrorism and a regular analyst on Fox News.
