Nonie Darwish

Darwish was born in Egypt in 1949 and grew up in a Muslim household in Cairo and Gaza.[1][3] Her family moved from Cairo to Gaza in the early 1950s, where her father, Mustafa Hafez, commanded Egyptian intelligence and organized Palestinian fedayeen units that launched raids across Israel’s southern border.[4] Egyptian president Gamal Abdel Nasser had selected Hafez for this work, and after his death Nasser portrayed him as a martyr for the Palestinian cause.[3]

Hafez was killed in Gaza in 1956 by an explosive package sent by the Israel Defense Forces, after which the family returned to Cairo.[5] Darwish recalled her mother raising five children after his death and being insulted for purchasing a car to take them to school.[4] In her account of elementary school in Gaza, Darwish described lessons emphasizing hatred, vengeance, and retaliation, with peace presented as weakness.[4]

Darwish connected her later questioning of her religious upbringing to experiences involving both religious prejudice and the treatment of women.[4] She recalled visiting a Christian friend’s home in Cairo during Friday prayers and hearing loudspeaker denunciations of Christians and Jews; she said her friend’s fear and her own shame led her to question how religion was being taught and practiced.[4] In her book, she also recounted the experience of a family maid who had become pregnant after being raped by a previous employer.[3] Darwish wrote that her mother sent the woman to a government facility out of fear that her relatives would kill her, and that the family learned a year later that the maid had been killed by her father and brother in the name of family honor.[3]

She graduated from the American University, studied sociology and anthropology, and began a career in journalism, including work for the Middle East News Agency.[4][5] In 1978 she moved to the United States with her husband, later became an American citizen, and converted to Christianity.[4][3] Her husband was a Christian Arab whom she had met in Cairo, and their three children were born and raised in the United States.[6]

Darwish later recalled that meeting Jewish people in America and visiting a synagogue challenged the negative image of Jews she had acquired growing up.[7] She contrasted prayers for peace that she heard in the synagogue with her memories of mosque sermons and described these encounters as another reason to reconsider her religious upbringing.[7]

The September 11 attacks marked the beginning of Darwish’s sustained public advocacy against Islamist radicalism and in support of Israel.[5][7] She recalled visiting Cairo in August 2001 and becoming alarmed by what she perceived as increasing radicalism, anger, and hate speech.[4] After the attacks, she said she felt compelled to speak out of respect for the Americans killed, empathy for Israel, and concern for the culture in which she had grown up.[4] She also expressed anger that relatives in Egypt blamed Jews for the attacks; her Cairo family subsequently ceased contact with her.[6]

Darwish began writing columns criticizing Islamist radicalism and what she regarded as the silence of moderate Muslims.[3] Her early writing included an essay titled “I Grew Up in Jihad and I Support America and the West,” which filmmaker Paz Schwartz later described as having gone viral.[5] She became a sought-after speaker among Jewish organizations, addressing private gatherings, universities, and other organizations.[7]

In February 2004, Darwish founded Arabs for Israel.[4] The organization brought together Arabs and Muslims who supported Israel and sought a peaceful, diverse Middle East; its stated aims included reform and self-criticism within the Arab world and rejection of suicide or homicide terrorism as jihad.[3] Darwish argued that supporting Israel did not mean being anti-Arab and presented forgiveness, compassion, and a change in attitudes as routes toward peace.[4] She said that Arab children needed hope and employment rather than hatred and jihad.[4]

Her support for Israel also drew on personal relationships with Jews.[2][7] In explaining her Zionist convictions, she emphasized Jewish “decency, humanity and integrity” under adversity and said she knew approximately a dozen Muslim Zionists.[2] She also stated that she would not maintain Muslim friendships with people who did not support Israel.[2] A Jerusalem Post columnist who knew Darwish linked her changing outlook to the care her family received from Israeli physicians and nurses during a relative’s treatment at a Jerusalem hospital in the 1990s.[8]

Darwish’s first book was Now They Call Me Infidel: Why I Renounced Jihad for America, Israel, and the War on Terror.[7] A 2007 paperback edition published by Sentinel in New York runs to 258 pages and includes a new preface.[9] Its chapter headings include “Growing up in Cairo,” “The journey from hatred to love,” “Arabs for Israel,” and “The challenge for America.”[9] In the book, Darwish described becoming disillusioned with radical Islam after thirty years in the Middle East and witnessing what she characterized as Sharia’s cruel and inhumane treatment of women.[3] By 2014, she had written three books drawing on her life and views.[1][7]

Hate speech and its effects were recurring subjects in her public writing.[10] Darwish argued that Western media should more actively challenge hate speech in Arab media and that repeated religiously framed denunciations could come to appear normal and justified.[10] She wrote, “We must never underestimate the power of hate propaganda, because, quite simply, it works.”[10] She also said that she had canceled her satellite Arab television subscription because she could no longer tolerate its content, instead using MEMRI to follow Arab media.[10]

The Jerusalem Center for Security and Foreign Affairs identifies Darwish as one of the ex-Muslim or secular-Muslim intellectuals who spearheaded the 2007 Secular Islam Summit in Florida.[11] Its account says that the gathering was held in conjunction with the humanist Center for Inquiry and produced the St. Petersburg Declaration.[11] A 2011 letters item in the Jewish Review of Books relayed her observation that demonstrations in Cairo’s Tahrir Square had not included calls for separation of church and state or equal rights for women.[12]

Darwish continued to express strongly critical views about religion and regional politics in a 2014 interview.[7] She argued that Palestinians did not want the conflict with Israel to be forgotten and that dependence on oil from Arab states helped finance activity directed against Israel and the West.[7] Her advocacy also included calls for equality and respect for women within Islamic culture and support for a strong, sovereign Israeli state.[1]

On May 6, 2014, Representative Michael G. Fitzpatrick recognized Darwish in the Congressional Record for her advocacy of human rights, women’s equality, and Israel.[1] He characterized her message as “a world free of hate” and noted her work as an author of three books.[1]

Darwish’s family history and her encounter with former Israeli agent Geizi Tsafrir became the subject of Paz Schwartz’s 50-minute documentary Telling Nonie, produced by Paramount’s Ananey Studios.[5][6] The film combines archival footage, photographs, and interviews with Darwish and three former agents.[6] It follows her meeting with Tsafrir, whose involvement in her father’s death had continued to trouble him.[6]

Schwartz and her crew visited Darwish in Los Angeles in 2022 and subsequently brought her to Israel to meet Tsafrir near the Gaza border.[5] When he disclosed his role in the operation that killed Hafez, Darwish responded that she did not blame him and that she, too, could apologize for her father’s actions; the two then embraced.[5] Their meeting took place near Kibbutz Nahal Oz, in the area where Darwish had lived as a child and where her father was killed.[6]

Darwish remained in close contact with Tsafrir and continued writing in support of Israel.[5] Schwartz recalled that five days after the Hamas attack of October 7, Darwish telephoned her in tears to ask whether she and others were safe and to express sympathy.[5]

Darwish’s university appearances have prompted objections and disputes over sponsorship.[3][13] The Jerusalem Center for Security and Foreign Affairs describes a planned Brown University appearance in November 2006 as canceled after Muslim students objected that she was too controversial, with the Brown Women’s Center and then Hillel withdrawing sponsorship.[13] A Jerusalem Post columnist who knew Darwish likewise described a rescinded Brown Hillel invitation, followed by an invitation for a later date.[8]

At a separate engagement organized by the Whittier Republican Leadership Council and sponsored by the Clare Boothe Luce Policy Institute, Darwish was invited to discuss the persecution of women under Sharia.[3] Following complaints from some Muslim students, school officials initially suggested postponing the talk until after Ramadan, but the law school dean subsequently agreed that she could speak in September.[3] The Jerusalem Center for Security and Foreign Affairs also reports that eight to ten students interrupted her University of New Mexico appearance on February 23, 2012, shouting accusations of Israeli apartheid and genocide, with verbal and mild physical altercations before the protesters left.[13]

Darwish has reported receiving death threats and being called an apostate and traitor by some Muslims.[7] Her broad claims about Islam, Arab society, and Palestinian politics remain contested interpretations, while accounts of religious prejudice and family experiences reflect her own recollections rather than independently established general findings.[4][7]