Tuesday, February 23, 2010
Well, we've heard the amazing story of Hamas leader Sheikh Hassan Yousef's son, Mosab (Mus'ab) Hassan Yousef, before. (Hamas Leader's Son Turns State's Evidence -- Converts to Christianity, Return of the Son of the Hamas Terrorist: The Convert) Now the story becomes even more remarkable, and heroic: Haaretz exclusive: Hamas founder's son worked for Shin Bet for years
The son of a leading Hamas figure, who famously converted to Christianity, served for over a decade as the Shin Bet security service's most valuable source in the militant organization's leadership, Haaretz has learned.
Mosab Hassan Yousef is the son of Sheikh Hassan Yousef, a Hamas founder and one of its leaders in the West Bank. The intelligence he supplied Israel led to the exposure of a number of terrorist cells, and to the prevention of dozens of suicide bombings and assassination attempts on Israeli figures.
The exclusive story will appear in this Friday's Haaretz Magazine, and Yousef's memoir, "Son of Hamas" (written with Ron Brackin) will be released next week in the United States. Yousef, 32, became a devout Christian 10 years ago and now lives in California after fleeing the West Bank in 2007 and going public with his conversion.
Yousef was considered the Shin Bet's most reliable source in the Hamas leadership, earning himself the nickname "the Green Prince" - using the color of the Islamist group's flag, and "prince" because of his pedigree as the son of one of the movement's founders.
During the second intifada, intelligence Yousef supplied led to the arrests of a number of high-ranking Palestinian figures responsible for planning deadly suicide bombings. These included Ibrahim Hamid (a Hamas military commander in the West Bank, Marwan Barghouti (founder of the Fatah-linked Tanzim militia) and Abdullah Barghouti (a Hamas bomb-maker with no close relation to the Fatah figure). Yousef was also responsible for thwarting Israel's plan to assassinate his father.
"I wish I were in Gaza now," Yousef said by phone from California, "I would put on an army uniform and join Israel's special forces in order to liberate Gilad Shalit. If I were there, I could help. We wasted so many years with investigations and arrests to capture the very terrorists that they now want to release in return for Shalit. That must not be done."...
..."So many people owe him their life and don't even know it," said the handler, named in Yousef's book as Captain Loai. "People who did a lot less were awarded the Israel Security Prize. He certainly deserves it."...
Of course, not everyone at Haaretz (or the Kennedy School) probably thinks this guy is such a hero. One man's hero is another man's turncoat to the cause of death for Allah, after all.
BTW, he is not sanguine on the peace process:
...With his memoir, Yousef hopes to send a message of peace to Israelis. Still, he admits he is pessimistic over the prospect of Israel signing a peace agreement with the Fatah-led Palestinian Authority, let alone Hamas.
"Hamas cannot make peace with the Israelis. That is against what their God tells them. It is impossible to make peace with infidels, only a cease-fire, and no one knows that better than I. The Hamas leadership is responsible for the killing of Palestinians, not Israelis," he said. "Palestinians! They do not hesitate to massacre people in a mosque or to throw people from the 15th or 17th floor of a building, as they did during the coup in Gaza. The Israelis would never do such things. I tell you with certainty that the Israelis care about the Palestinians far more than the Hamas or Fatah leadership does."
His book, Son of Hamas: A Gripping Account of Terror, Betrayal, Political Intrigue, and Unthinkable Choices
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Haaretz has posted the extended must-read story of Mosab Hassan Yousef, the Hamas leader's son who converted to Christianity and also worked for Israeli Intelligence. (See previous: Hamas Leader's Son Was Shin Bet Mole): Part 1, Part 2... Read More
Who knew? My bet is that, for all the ruckus about what happened in Dubai, Dubai knew about and approved it ahead of time. The British may be the only ones who didn't know, and even there, MI6 might well have known.
The Gulf states have Shi'ites as 1/4 to 1/3 of their populations, and they're scared of Iran. They should be - if Iran goes nuclear, they'll be the first in line as targets, not Israel.
That is one brave guy.
About Dubai - I can't believe the hypocrisy.
The Brits in particular amaze me.
Not unlikely, Binah, or, at least as likely as anything else. One of the things the Israelis said they were surprised about was how quickly the Dubai authorities assembled all the video. Almost as if they were watching from the beginning perhaps?
Anyway, as I've mentioned before, once you get into this spy stuff you can pretty much write your own script.
Apparently there's a new wrinkle, two or three of the "suspects" decamped for Iran, or escaped through Iran, depending on the story.
Here's one:
http://www.jpost.com/MiddleEast/Article.aspx?id=169561
OK, the other thing is, the whole scenario is beginning to read like a lightbulb joke.
This was a convention maybe?