Way To Go, Girl

Questions for Brigitte Gabriel

The Crusader
Interview by DEBORAH SOLOMON

As a Lebanese-Christian immigrant who spent her girlhood amid the bloody devastation of the Lebanese civil war, you have lately emerged as one of the most vehement critics of radical Islam in this country. Are you concerned that your new book, “They Must Be Stopped,” will feed animosity toward Muslims?

I do not think I am feeding animosity. I am bringing an issue to light. I disapprove of any religion that calls for the killing of other people. If Christianity called for that, I would condemn it...moderate Muslims at this point are truly irrelevant. I grew up in the Paris of the Middle East, and because we refused to read the writing on the wall, we lost our country to Hezbollah and the radicals who are now controlling it.

...You also lament the public foot baths that have been installed at the University of Michigan and elsewhere to accommodate Muslim students.

I lived in the Middle East for the first 24 years of my life. Never once did I see any foot-washing basins in airports or public buildings. So why are they pushing them down the throats of Americans?...This is the way they are taking over the West. They are doing it culturally inch by inch. They don’t need to fire one bullet...

...Are your parents still in Lebanon?

I became an orphan at the age of 23. Both my parents are buried in Israel, on Mount Zion, with Oskar Schindler.

Why did you bury them in Israel?

I wanted to honor my parents. After all, it is the Holy Land. And I wanted to ensure that both my children will know where my loyalty lies — with Israel, because Israel for me represents democracy, respect and human rights, something that no other country in the Arabic world offers.

...Where do you live?

I do not share that information because of the death threats I receive.

...If you are worried about death threats, why would you put a glamorous photograph of yourself on the cover of your new book?

In Lebanon, we were raised to be glamorous, feminine and sensual. It’s the only good thing we inherited from the French.