Hamas hasn’t left the news cycle—both in a negative light and, from pro-Palestinian quarters, in a positive one. Yet back in 2010 a book came out about the organization that shows it from the inside—and hardly in a laudatory vein.
It’s called Son of Hamas, and with good reason: it was written by Mosab Hassan Yousef, the son of Sheikh Hassan Yousef, one of the seven founders of this Palestinian group. The eldest child in his family, Mosab was raised fully in line with Hamas policy. At 18 he was arrested by Israeli law enforcement for attacks on Israeli soldiers. About a year later he was released and for a long time became his father’s trusted aide.
Only no one knew that from that moment he spent nearly ten years working for Shabak (Shin Bet), Israel’s security service. During that time he managed to prevent numerous terrorist attacks and save many lives on both sides. He helped in the arrest of high-ranking Hamas operatives, and in 2007 he left the Middle East; three years later he was granted political asylum in the United States—something that required Israeli services to officially reveal his identity.
Mosab renounced Islam and in 2005 was secretly baptized in Tel Aviv. Since then he has been an outspoken opponent not only of Hamas but of Islam as a whole.
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