Broader View

Khaled Abu Toameh is an Israeli Arab journalist and filmmaker, the son of an Israeli Arab father and a Palestinian Arab mother from the West Bank. A former correspondent for the Palestinian newspaper Al-Fajr and senior reporter for The Jerusalem Report, He is currently the West Bank and Gaza correspondent for the Jerusalem Post and U.S. News and World Report, and Palestinian affairs producer for NBC News.

Dr. Ahmed is a physician who has practiced in the National Health Service in the United Kingdom, in the National Guard Health Affairs in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, and in the Medical University of South Carolina. Dr. Ahmed is also the author of In the Land of Invisible Women: A Female Doctor’s Journey in the Saudi Kingdom.  Dr. Ahmed wrote in the Huffington Post (June 2010) that “Israel is judged by very different measures and with decreasing objectivity by every actor independent of Israel.”

Algerian-born Abdel Bioud is a graduate student at McGill University in Montreal, Canada, and the vice president of communication for McGill Students for Israel. His essay, “Arab, Muslim and pro-Israel,” was published by the Times of Israel in February 2014.

Dabul, an editor with ACT! for America Education (formerly American Congress for Truth), is author of “Deadline,” a novel about terrorism. Dabul wrote in the New York Daily News (September 2007) of his support for Israel, which, “with all its imperfections, remains the beacon of light for the Middle East.”

Nonie Darwish was born and raised as a Muslim in Cairo, Egypt, and the Gaza strip. Her father, a senior Egyptian military intelligence official, was killed in 1956, when Nonie was eight years old, and became a national hero. She is a writer, translator, public speaker, and author of Now They Call Me Infidel: Why I Renounced Jihad for America, Israel, and the War on Terror.

Mamoun Fandy is the a senior fellow at the Baker Institute and at The United States Institute of Peace. He is a former professor at Georgetown University and at the National Defense University and the author of Saudi Arabia and the Politics of Dissent. Dr. Fandy writes for the Christian Science Monitor and for pan-Arab dailies Al-Ahram (Cairo) and Asharq Al-Awsat (London). In January 2008 he urged Arab leaders to advance peace, saying that “99% of the playing cards, and a solution in the Middle East, are in the Arabs’ hands.”

Gabriel, a Lebanese Christian, is a journalist, news anchor, and TV producer.  In 2001, she founded ACT! for America Education (formerly American Congress for Truth), a nonprofit organization dedicated to educating millions of uninformed Americans about the threat of radical Islam to world peace and national security.  Gabriel is the author of Because They Hate: A Survivor of Islamic Terror Warns America.

Kara is an Israeli Druze from the Galilee, a member of Knesset (the Israeli Parliament) from the Likud party, an IDF veteran, and a staunch supporter of the State of Israel. He has even spoken in support of Jewish settlements on the West Bank.

Israeli Bedouin Aatef Karinaoui founded pro-Israel Arab party, El Amal Lat’gir — “Hope for Change” in Arabic — to run in the Knesset elections on January 22, 2013.   Karinaoui’s goal is to prove that Arab Israelis “are loyal and faithful citizens” of Israel. He says, “What I want is to solve our problems here, as part of Israeli society, hand in hand with the Jewish public.”

Lebanese-Canadian Fred Maroun wrote in a Times of Israel blog post (May 2015) that “we [Arabs] must start by recognizing that Jews have as much right to be in the Middle East as we do” and “Israel is strong because it is driven by love.”

Sanad, an Egyptian pacifist and human-rights activist, has been persecuted and jailed for his solidarity with Israel. He has expressed admiration for Israel’s democratic freedoms, respect for women’s rights, and religious tolerance while voicing rejection of Arab terrorism and outrage over the blatant anti-Semitism propagated by the Egyptian military and political establishment during the Mubarak years.

A Palestinian born in Bethlehem who was a member of the Palestinian Liberation Organization, Shoebat participated in acts of terror and violence against Israel, and was imprisoned for incitement and violence.  After moving to the U.S., Walid studied Tanach (Jewish Bible) and the history of Israel and the Jewish people. He became an outspoken advocate for Israel and for peace.

A secular Syrian-American, Sultan rose to fame after her February, 2006 appearance on Al Jazeera in which she referred to the current conflict between the West and militant Muslims as “a clash between civilization and backwardness, between the civilized and the primitive, between barbarity and rationality.”

Wali was born in Basra in 1956 and fled Saddam Hussein’s regime in 1980. Today he lives in Hamburg, Germany. He is the author of the novel “Joseph’s Picture.” In 2007, he traveled to Israel, and uncovered some uncomfortable truths about the Arab leaders.  He reported on his experience an essay, “A journey into the heart of the enemy,” later published (in German) as a book.