Because They Hate: A Survivor of Islamic Terror Warns America (32 page)

When someone is born with a physical or emotional problem, the malady or handicap becomes apparent right away because there are plenty of examples of what the norm is as seen in other people. On the larger scale of societies and cultures, it is more difficult to recognize problems within. Since societies and cultures are made up of the very people who are born into and raised with the community’s traditions and standards, it is hard for those same people to recognize problems within, as they often have no point of reference to anything better. Any attempt to become countercultural and improve the situation or correct problems is often discouraged or outright forbidden, with dire consequences. What’s a rebel going to do?

When I first saw a dollar bill in the Middle East, I looked it over to see what it had to say or show me about this country that had captured my imagination. It gave me a couple of surprises. First, there was an Egyptian-style pyramid on the Great Seal, and second, there were the words “EPLURIBUSUNUM,” which I had never seen or heard while watching
The Love Boat
or
Dynasty.
It wasn’t till I was studying for my U.S. citizenship that I learned the words meant “Out of many, one.” It introduced me to the fact that this country was originally made up of people who recognized the problems and drawbacks their societies and cultures had, and wanted better. I also learned about the Washington whose picture was on that bill. I found out that he and others risked their lives as they spent their time and resources fighting for the ideals they knew would be the foundation for a better country. They worked to establish rights for the individual, rights that did not exist under other forms of government at that time. Their wisdom made this country a powerful and great nation, and there are people who will do anything to leave their societies and cultures and come here.

To borrow from the army recruiting slogan, you can be all you can be here in America. I recall visiting a chamber of commerce when my husband and I were starting our business and seeing a large display of informational pamphlets put out by the government to help small businesses prosper. Appreciating the wealth of information being freely offered, I said to him, “If you can’t make it in America, you can’t make it anywhere.” Your only limitations are the barriers created in your own mind. In Lebanon, the place I am most familiar with, to start a business you have to budget especially for bribery just to get the necessary legal documents you need to begin operations. Government employees and agencies not only are of no help but are actually a part of the problem. If you need special information about anything, you don’t even know where to start to get it.

America is a place of opportunity. It’s people-friendly! Very much so, compared to the Muslim countries in the world. People looking for better lives flock to America because we as a society do not mutilate young girls' genitals, do not cut off people’s hands for stealing. We do not stone people to death for committing adultery. We do not rape women and men for speaking up against our government. We do not forbid people to go to school and to learn because of their gender. We assume people are innocent until proven guilty. We give people the freedom to criticize our government and even burn our flag as an expression of speech. This is but a partial list of why America is superior in culture and values to many other countries in the world. This type of culture also thrives in Israel, the only Western-style nation in the Middle East, one that Arabs despise, feel threatened by, and vow to destroy.

Raised within the Judeo-Christian value system, we are taught from childhood “Do not judge others lest you be judged,” “Do unto others what you want others to do unto you,” and “Hear no evil, see no evil, speak no evil.” We in America have taken this a little further and have become deaf to evil, blind to evil, and incapable of speaking out against evil because as long as it does not affect us, it is none of our business. The Declaration of Independence says that “all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.” We the people are entitled to equal rights under the law and should have the same opportunity to pursue our dreams, whatever those dreams may be; but it is not said anywhere that we as people are created equal in the material or societal and cultural sense by our creator. Societies and cultures are not created and do not develop equally. This harsh judgment may make you wince. It is not politically correct to say that our Western societies are better than the Muslim Arab societies, but we are, we have been, and we always will be, not because of our wealth but because of the way we think and live, and the values we hold dear and pass on to our future generations.

It infuriates me to hear self-loathing Americans, who have never experienced life in an oppressive culture or under an oppressive leadership such as is found in the Middle East, badmouth and put down our culture, government, and country in general. They find all sorts of things wrong with America and think it is insulting to non-Americans to acknowledge that our Western culture is in any way better than others. They are so concerned about hurting “feelings,” and nobody wants to be accused of being a holier-than-thou type. They should get out and see the world and how Arab Muslim leaders are really messing up other people’s lives and getting away with it. Just as it’s time to hold people accountable for their actions, it’s time to hold societies and cultures accountable for theirs also. It is by not judging others that you end up with evil people like bin Laden, Saddam Hussein, and suicide bombers driven by the ideology that you are worthless infidels who should be killed as Allah ordered. When you don’t stop evil in its tracks when you first recognize it, you will end up with a monster force that will spread its tentacles and affect the lives of millions. Because we did not want to judge evildoers such as the Palestinians bombing innocent Israelis, the Taliban taking over Afghanistan, and Saddam Hussein gassing his own people, we have helped create the monsters we are dealing with today.

Don’t be afraid to stand up and lift your head and be proud of what America and Western culture stand for. America did not pull itself out of the grip of tyranny and feudalism for nothing. America as a Western culture and as a nation is a tribute to men and women and God’s creation at its best. What other country offers a farmer’s son the opportunity to become president; lets an immigrant become a governor; allows a poor individual to attain the highest levels of education free of charge; and permits all to practice their religion openly, and respectfully, and to pursue the accumulation of wealth no matter their race, gender, or social status?

While many countries in the world are advancing, Arab countries are not only not moving forward, they are sliding backward. As the populations get poorer and poorer, their corrupt leaders become richer and richer. The UN recently published a report by “distinguished Arab intellectuals” about human development in Arab countries. Figures show that despite their oil wealth, the gross domestic product of all twenty-two Arab countries combined at the end of the twentieth century was little more than that of Spain and less than half that of Italy.
¹
Italy has 53 million people while Arabs number 300 million! And the Arab population is expected to increase to between 410 million and 459 million by 2020.
²
The way things are going those Muslim Arab societies don’t have to create anything, just destroy what others have done, terrorize them into submission, and walk in and take it over for Allah.

The illiteracy rate in the Arab world is not only higher than the world average; it is higher than the average in developing countries.
³
For instance, the illiteracy rate in the Arab world is more than three times higher than in Latin America and the Caribbean,
⁴
and illiteracy in the Arab world is increasing.
⁵
About one-third of Arab men and half of Arab women were illiterate in 2002. The scientific research and technological development produced by all of the Arab countries combined is less than 1 percent of the world’s total.
⁶
In the Arab world, approximately 330 books are translated into Arabic each year. By contrast, each year Greece translates over 1,500 books into Greek, and Spain translates approximately 100,000 books into Spanish.
⁷

Does that give you an idea about the lack of education and the lack of development in human resources, and in creating a productive, informed, viable population in these countries? In 1998, a grand total of three technology patents were granted to the entire Arab world. The Republic of Korea alone received 779 technology patents in the same time period.
⁸
Also, between 1980 and 2000, the combined patents created by the Arab world totaled 370. South Korea alone created more than 16,000 patents in the same time period.
⁹
What has created such an impediment to what was a flourishing area in ancient times?

If you take their oil away, oil that the West discovered and developed, what have the Arab countries exported to the world other than grief, suicide bombers, and terrorism? Their list of exports in the last century and this one has provided us with severed heads, mutilated bodies, the murder of innocent children, the spilling of infidel blood, and celebrations of the death of Americans and Jews. While the Western world focuses on space exploration, developing scientific cures for deadly diseases, rescuing tsunami and earthquake victims, and creating beautiful art for the world to enjoy, Arab Muslims are creating museums, such as the Palestinian Museum at al-Najah University in Nablus, that display pictures of savagely mutilated bodies and heads floating in a pool of blood, and show videos that glamorize booby traps, blood spilling, and martyrs enjoying the bliss of heaven. When they could be giving money to alleviate human suffering, filthy-rich Saudi sheikhs are spending millions on self-aggrandizing monuments such as mosques, Islamic schools, and higher-education centers to promote a radical ideology that has caused and threatens to cause untold death and destruction in the Western world. Relatively feeble attempts to appear humanitarian, such as when Saudi prince Al-Waleed bin Talal tried to donate $10 million to New York City after 9/11, are rejected. Ten million dollars spent to rid Islam of its radical, dangerous, and intolerant element within would be better spent. Ten million dollars spent on books and schools teaching tolerance and respect for other faiths would make the world a better place. Ten million dollars goes a long way in a country where people make on average twelve thousand dollars a year.

The Middle East is lagging behind not because Arab Muslims are not created equal as human beings in the eyes of the creator. It is lagging behind because of social and religious values. As a result of these values, they have an ingrained corruption than runs throughout their societies. They respect craftiness and deceit over honesty and virtue. They are consumed with hate for one another. They do not allow human beings to be free and to express themselves. They control their population by subjugating 51 percent of the population—that’s what most Arab and Muslim societies do to their women. I personally suffered. Women are not given a voice or rights and are treated as property owned by the male who is in charge of them, be it her father, husband, or brother. If the women in Libya were as educated and articulate (and as opinionated) as I am, do you think Gadhafi would stay in power? Do you think the royal family in Saudi Arabia would keep living the high life in power? If half of the Libyan population were freed and allowed access to education, free thinking, and self-determination, do you think the situation would remain as it is?

I believe the degraded state of Arab societies is caused by Islam. It kills self-expression, self-improvement, and empowerment because the religion demands that Islam be the center of one’s life and existence, and it dictates how you should be, how you should live. Unless you live under Sharia law, according to Islam you are considered less of a human being and should be killed. It has spawned generations of people who celebrate death over life, who glorify mass murderers, who exhibit a lack of forgiveness and instead have the drive for revenge as taught by the Koran. It is their lack of open culture, their lack of advancement, and their continuous disrespect for infidels and anything non-Muslim that is the poison killing them from within.

The reason Arabs in the Middle East will never be able to recognize or address the real issues that are holding them back is because of
taqiyya.
From the moment they are born they are programmed to blame Israel and the United States for their ills. Instead of practicing self-examination to discover why a third of their men and half of their women are illiterate, why they are not free under their governments, why creativity in science and technology is nonexistent, why they have economic sclerosis despite having the world’s oil wealth under their feet, they turn their eyes and look for a scapegoat. It is much easier and more bearable to put the blame somewhere else instead of facing the truth. This tactic is freely being employed by their fundamentalist mullahs and corrupt leaders to mask the detrimental effects of corrupt values and lack of freedom.

Above and beyond what you may have gathered from my personal experiences in the opening chapters of this book characterizing Islamic-dominated cultures, I give you Saudi king Abdullah at the December 2005 meeting of the Organization of the Islamic Conference in Mecca. He recognized that “a vast majority of Muslim countries today face political, economic and social underdevelopment that has evolved into a major crisis,"
¹⁰
and said this situation had led to a “diminishing position of Muslims in the international arena.” If you don’t want to take my word because I am Christian Arab, take his; he’s a Muslim. Luckily, we found a hint of an ally in him when he tried to galvanize the assembled Islamic leaders in fighting terrorism when he lashed out at al Qaeda terrorists for “unleashing evil and corruption on Earth."
¹¹
To some extent that is the pot calling the kettle black, but I applaud him for being unusually candid with his economic and human development assessment of the Arab world. Hopefully his objec-tiveness is an inspirational start down the road toward joining the twenty-first century for the Muslim world.