Nonie Darwish

Nonie Darwish is an American human rights activist, writer, public speaker and founder of Arabs For Israel. 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 is "Cruel And Usual Punishment: The Terrifying Global Implications of Islamic Law." Her speech topics cover human rights, with an emphasis on women’s’ rights and minority rights in the Middle East.

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, 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 Christianity there. After September 11, 2001 she has written on Islam-related topics.

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. She is also the a recipient of the Clare Boothe Luce Policy Institute "Woman of Exceptional Courage" Award.