Nonie Darwish

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Nonie Darwish
Born	1948 (age 60–61) [1] Cairo, Egypt
Nationality	United States
Education	American University in Cairo
Occupation	Writer, public speaker
Website Arabs for Israel, noniedarwish.com

Nonie Darwish (Arabic: نوني درويش‎) is an American writer and public speaker. She is the author of the book Now they Call Me Infidel; Why I Renounced Jihad for America, Israel and the War on Terror. Her second book out in January 2009 is Cruel And Usual Punishment: The Terrifying Global Implications of Islamic Law. She is also a public speaker and founder of "Arabs for Israel".^[2] She states her mission is to "promote reconciliation, acceptance and understanding" between Israelis and Arabs.

Born in Egypt, Darwish is the daughter of an Egyptian Army lieutenant general, who, when assassinated by the Israeli army in 1956, was called a "shahid" by the Egyptian president Gamal Abdel Nasser,^[3] although Darwish blames "the Middle Eastern Islamic culture and the propaganda of hatred taught to children from birth" for the assassination. In 1978, she moved with her husband to the United States, and converted to evangelical Christianity there. After September 11, 2001 she has written on Islam-related topics.^[4]

Contents 1 Biography 2 Controversy over autobiography 2.1 Views on Islam 3 Works 4 Interviews 5 Honors and Awards 6 Notes 7 External links 7.1 Critical

[edit] Biography

Born in Cairo, Egypt, Darwish moved to Gaza in the 1950s when her father, Lt. General Mustafa Hafez, was sent by Gamal Abdel Nasser to serve as commander of the Egyptian Army Intelligence in Gaza, which was then occupied by Egypt. Hafez founded the fedayeen who launched raids across Israel's southern border, that between 1951 and 1956, killed some 400 Israelis. In July 1956 when Nonie was eight years old, her father became the first targeted assassination carried out by the Israeli Defense Forces in response to Fedayeen's attacks, making him a shahid.^[5][6] During his speech announcing the nationalization of the Suez Canal, Nasser vowed that all of Egypt would take revenge for Hafez's death. Darwish claims that Nasser asked her and her siblings, "Which one of you will avenge your father's death by killing Jews?"^[7]

Darwish explains:

"I always blamed Israel for my father's death, because that's what I was taught. I never looked at why Israel killed my father. They killed my father because the fedayeen were killing Israelis. They killed my father because when I was growing up, we had to recite poetry pledging jihad against Israel. We would have tears in our eyes, pledging that we wanted to die. I speak to people who think there was no terrorism against Israel before the '67 war. How can they deny it? My father died in it." ^[8]

After his death, her family moved back to Cairo, where she attended Catholic high school and then the American University in Cairo, earning a BA in Sociology/Anthropology. She then worked as an editor and translator for the Middle East News Agency, until emigrating to the United States in 1978 with her husband, ultimately receiving United States citizenship. After arriving in the US, she became a Christian and began attending a non-denominational evangelical church. About a year after the September 11, 2001 attacks, Darwish began writing columns critical of Islamic extremism and the silence of moderate Muslims.

"After 9/11 very few Americans of Arab and Muslim origin spoke out and from my experience it took us a long time to get noticed by Western media. Western media still regards Muslim organizations such as CAIR as representative of moderate Muslims in America. This is not the case. Muslim groups in the U.S. try to silence us and intimidate American campuses who invite us to speak. I often tell Muslim students that Arab Americans who are speaking out against terrorism are not the problem, it’s the terrorists who are giving Islam a bad name. And what the West must do is ask the politically incorrect questions and we Americans of Arab and Muslim origin owe them honest answers."^[4]

Darwish's Arabs for Israel website describes itself as an organization of Arabs and Muslims who "respect and support the State of Israel", welcome a "peaceful and diverse Middle East", reject "suicide/homicide terrorism as a form of Jihad", and promote "constructive self-criticism and reform" in the Arab/Muslim world.^{[citation needed]} She often says "Just because I am pro- Israel does not mean I am anti- Arab, its just that my culture is in desperate need for reformation which must come from within".

She has spoken on numerous college campuses including Harvard, Yale, Columbia, Princeton, Brown, Hebrew University in Jerusalem, Oxford, Cornell, UCLA, NYU, Virginia Tech, UC Berkeley and several others. She has also spoken on Capitol Hill, the House of Lords, and The European Parliament.

[edit] Controversy over autobiography

Darwish has been accused of distorting elements of her life story in order to better fit the pro-Israel politics she espouses. In her book Now They Call Me Infidel, for example, she recounts that "When, on January 16, 1956, Nasser vowed a renewed offensive to destroy Israel, the pressure on my father to step up operations increased. More fedayeen groups were organized, and their training expanded to other areas of the Gaza Strip. Often my father was gone for days at a time. In an attempt to end the terror, Israel sent its commandos one night to our heavily guarded home."

Jim Holstun a professor of literature at SUNY Buffalo has pointed that "The problem here is that this early, failed assassination attempt occurred in 1953, when Hafez [her father] was struggling to prevent destabilizing Palestinian infiltration from Gaza into Israel." Holstun has challenged other details of Darwish's account.Nonie Darwish and the al-Bureij Massacre

[edit] Views on Islam

Darwish believes Islam is an authoritarian ideology that is attempting to impose on the world the norms of seventh-century culture of the Arabian Peninsula. She writes that Islam is a "sinister force" that must be resisted and contained. She remarks that it is hard to "comprehend that an entire religion and its culture believes God orders the killing of unbelievers." She accuses Islam and Sharia of forming a retrograde ideology that adds greatly to the world's stock of misery.^[9]

She claims the Qur'an is a text that is "violent, incendiary, and disrespectful" and says that barbarities such as brutalization of women, the persecution of homosexuals, honor killings, the beheading of apostates and the stoning of adulterers come directly out of the Qur'an.^[9]

[edit] Works

• Now They Call Me Infidel: Why I Renounced Jihad for America, Israel, and the War on Terror. Sentinel HC, 2006. ISBN 1595230319
• Cruel But Usual Punishment: The Terrifying Global Implications of Islamic Law. Nashville, Tenn. : Thomas Nelson, 2009. ISBN 1595551611. ISBN 9781595551610.
• Escaping Submission (op-ed at FrontPage)

[edit] Interviews

• Al-Hayat TV(Cyprus) August 7, 2008 [1]
• CI Centre InterviewMP3
• Two interviews with Nonie Darwish
• Israel National Radio interview with Nonie Darwish
  • Part 1: The first few minutes are about recognition of Israel by UNO; the interview follows
  • Part 2
• Interview
• Now They Call Me Infidel - Interviewed by Jamie Glazov from FrontPageMag.com
• Don't Be Deceived - Interviewed by Reform Judaism Magazine
• Life as an infidel The Observer Woman Magazine, May 2007

[edit] Honors and Awards

Clare Boothe Luce Policy Institute "Woman of Exceptional Courage" Award ^[10]

[edit] Notes

[edit] External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Nonie Darwish

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: Nonie Darwish

• Arabs for Israel
• "Why Arabs Don't Say Sorry" in Front Page, 25 May 2004
• Other articles by Nonie Darwish

[edit] Critical

• "Nonie Darwish and the al-Bureij massacre", Jim Holstun, Electronic Intifada, 26 June 2008