Brigitte Gabriel Reflects on Her Experience with Islamic Extremism

Brigitte Gabriel discusses Islamic extremism not as a distant observer, but from a personal perspective shaped by her own history.

“I was born in Lebanon, the only majority Christian country in the Middle East. It’s a republic much like the United States,” she shares with BlazeTV host Nick Freitas.

She continues, “Unfortunately, we welcomed individuals into our society who didn’t hold our values. When they expressed their hostility, saying things like, ‘We hate you. We want to kill you. We want to transform your country,’ we couldn’t grasp the seriousness of their words. We thought, ‘We’re the Paris of the Middle East, invulnerable.'”

Gabriel laments, “But they used our democratic system against us, taking advantage of our openness and tolerance to dismantle our way of life.”

In what she refers to as her personal 9/11, Islamists destroyed her home.

“I spent two and a half months in the hospital and then lived in a bomb shelter for seven years, in a cramped 8×10 room with no electricity or running water, surviving on scant food,” she recounts.

Fetching water was a dangerous task for her—she recalls having to navigate under sniper fire due to the presence of armed Islamists.

Gabriel vividly remembers a harrowing moment from when she was 13: “A friend came to warn me about an impending attack, and he said, ‘If you don’t see me tomorrow, I wish you a merciful death.’ I dressed in my Easter best, to look pretty when I died, knowing that if they came for me, no one would be left to bury me.”

Her parents assured her, “If they come for us tonight, we’ll create a diversion. You’re young; we’re old. Just run towards Israel and don’t look back.” But fate had other plans, as Israel intervened instead.

“We survived until 1982 when Israel invaded Lebanon to assist Christians in reclaiming their democracy and expelling the Palestinians,” she adds. “That was how I finally emerged from the bomb shelter and started to rebuild our lives.”