Nonie Darwish

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Nonie Darwish
Born 1949 (age 59–60)[1][2]
Cairo, Egypt
Nationality United States
Education American University in Cairo
Occupation Writer, public speaker, Founder & President of Arabs For Israel
Website
Arabs for Israel, noniedarwish.com

Nonie Darwish (Arabic: نوني درويش‎) (born 1949[1][2]) is an Egyptian-American human rights activist, scholar of Islam, and founder of Arabs For Israel. She is the author of two books: Now They Call Me Infidel; Why I Renounced Jihad for America, Israel and the War on Terror and Cruel and Usual Punishment: The Terrifying Global Implications of Islamic Law. Darwish's speech topics cover human rights, with emphasis on women's rights and minority rights in the Middle East. She is the director of Former Muslims United.[3]

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

Contents

[edit] Biography

Nonie Darwish was born in 1949 in Cairo, Egypt.[1][2] Her family moved to Gaza in the 1950s when her father, Colonel Mustafa Hafez, was sent by Gamal Abdel Nasser to serve as commander of the Egyptian Army Intelligence in Gaza, which was under supervision of Egypt. Hafez founded the fedayeen who launched raids across Israel's southern border, that between 1951 and 1956, killed some 400 Israelis, the majority civilians.[2][5] In July 1956 when Nonie was eight years old, her father was killed by a mail bomb in an operation by the Israeli Defense Forces.[2][5] This became the first targeted assassination carried out by the IDF.[citation needed] The assassination was a response to Fedayeen's attacks, making Darwish's father a shahid.[6][dead link][7] 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?"[8]

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." [9][dead link]

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.

Jim Holstun, a professor at SUNY Buffalo, has criticized the book in an article for Electronic Intifada. Holstun claims that Darwish distorted elements of her life story in order to better fit the pro-Israel politics she espouses.[citation needed] 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."[citation needed]

Holstun also claims 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.[10]

[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.[11]

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.[11]

[edit] Arabs for Israel

Darwish is a strong supporter of Israel, and has founded the group "Arabs for Israel",[12] composed of ethnic Arabs in support of Israel.

[edit] Bibliography

[edit] Honors and Awards

[edit] References

  1. ^ a b c Friedman, Lisa (2005-06-05). "Ex-Muslim calls on her people to reject hatred". Los Angeles Daily News (reproduced). http://www.truthandgrace.com/escapeislam.htm. Retrieved 2009-10-05. 
  2. ^ a b c d e Langton, James (2007-05-13). "Life as an Infidel". Guardian. http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2007/may/13/islam.religion. Retrieved 2009-10-06. 
  3. ^ Duin, Julia (2009-09-25). "Muslim 'apostates' in U.S. ask for protection; Group says Shariah law poses threat". Washington Times. http://washingtontimes.com/news/2009/sep/25/muslim-apostates-in-us-ask-for-protection/. Retrieved 2009-10-05. 
  4. ^ a b c "We Don’t Like to Hear That Here; Nonie Darwish is censored here and abroad". National Review Online. 2006-11-20. http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=MjUyOWJkNTMyOGJjZjdiNzQzOGQ1MDk3MWMwOWU3MGU=. Retrieved 2009-10-05. 
  5. ^ a b Mehlman, Yossi. "Targeted killings - a retro fashion very much in vogue". Haaretz. http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/pages/ShArt.jhtml?itemNo=407999&contrassID=2. Retrieved 2009-10-06. 
  6. ^ Gannett News Service. "Peace moms push tough love in Arab-Israeli conflict", Tucson Citizen, 10 February 2006.
  7. ^ Gray, Alan "Mothers for Peace Challenge The Brainwashing of Middle East Children", News Blaze, 16 February 2006.
  8. ^ Interview with Daily Telegraph; "We were brought up to hate and we do." 12 February 2006
  9. ^ CBN News. "Call Me Infidel: An Ex-Muslim Speaks Out", CBN News, 27 March, 2007. (reproduced)
  10. ^ Jim Holstun (2008). "Nonie Darwish and the al-Bureij massacre". Electronic Intifada. http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article9646.shtml. Retrieved 2009-11-26. 
  11. ^ a b c Keeney, Patrick (2009-02-17). "Book Review: Cruel and Usual Punishment: The Terrifying Global Implications of Islamic Law by Nonie Darwish". National Post. http://network.nationalpost.com/np/blogs/afterword/archive/2009/02/17/book-review-cruel-and-usual-punishment-the-terrifying-global-implications-of-islamic-law-by-nonie-darwish.aspx. Retrieved 2009-10-05. 
  12. ^ Diamond, Ilana (2008-08-15). "It's lonely being pro-Israel on campus". Jerusalem Post. http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1208246577144&pagename=JPArticle%2FShowFull. Retrieved 2009-10-06. 
  13. ^ Gilbert, Lela (2007-10-23). "An 'infidel' in Israel". Jerusalem Post. http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?apage=1&cid=1192380626879&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull. Retrieved 2009-10-05. 
  14. ^ Press Release (2008-04-22). "Nonie Darwish to Receive the “Woman of Exceptional Courage” Award at the First Annual Western Women’s Summit". CBLPI. http://www.cblpi.org/media/press_release.cfm?ID=19. Retrieved 2009-10-05. 

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