Son of Hamas.
A gripping account of terror, betrayal, political intrigue, and unthinkable choices.
by Mosab Ha.s.san Yousef.
To my beloved father and my wounded family.To the victims of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict.To every human life my Lord has saved.
My family, I am very proud of you; only my G.o.d can understand what you have been through. I realize that what I have done has caused another deep wound that might not heal in this life and that you may have to live with its shame forever.
I could have been a hero and made my people proud of me. I knew what kind of hero they were looking for: a fighter who dedicated his life and family to the cause of a nation. Even if I was killed, they would have told my story for generations to come and been proud of me forever, but in reality, I would not have been much of a hero.
Instead, I became a traitor in the eyes of my people. Although I once brought pride to you, I now bring you only shame. Although I was once the royal prince, I am now a stranger in a foreign country fighting against the enemy of loneliness and darkness.
I know you see me as a traitor; please understand it was not you I chose to betray, but your understanding of what it means to be a hero. When Middle Eastern nations-Jews and Arabs alike-start to understand some of what I understand, only then will there be peace. And if my Lord was rejected for saving the world from the punishment of h.e.l.l, I don"t mind being a reject!
I don"t know what the future holds, but I do know that I am not afraid. And now I want to give you something that has helped me to survive so far: all the guilt and shame I have carried for all these years is a small price to pay if it saves even one innocent human life.
How many people appreciate what I have done? Not so many. But that"s okay. I believed in what I did and I still believe, which is my only fuel for this long journey. Every drop of innocent blood that has been saved gives me hope to carry on to the last day.
I paid, you paid, and yet the bills of war and peace continue to come. G.o.d be with us all and give us what we need to carry this heavy weight.
With love, Your son
A Word from the Author
Time is sequential-a thread spanning the distance between birth and death.
Events, however, are more like a Persian carpet-thousands of richly colored threads woven into intricate patterns and images. Any attempt to place events into purely chronological order would be like pulling the threads loose and laying them end to end. It might be simpler, but you would lose the design.
The events in this book are my best recollections, sorted out from the maelstrom of my life in the occupied territories of Israel and woven together as they occurred-consecutively and concurrently.
To provide you with reference points and to sort out the Arabic names and terms, I have included a brief time line in the appendices, along with a glossary and a list of players.
For security reasons, I have intentionally omitted much of the detail from the accounts of sensitive operations conducted by the Israel Security Agency, the Shin Bet. The information revealed in this book in no way jeopardizes the ongoing global war on terrorism in which Israel plays a leading role.
Finally, Son of Hamas, Son of Hamas, like the Middle East, is a continuing story. So I invite you to keep in touch by visiting my blog at where I share my insights on breaking regional developments. I also post updates on what the Lord is doing with the book and in my family and where he is leading me today. like the Middle East, is a continuing story. So I invite you to keep in touch by visiting my blog at where I share my insights on breaking regional developments. I also post updates on what the Lord is doing with the book and in my family and where he is leading me today.
-MHY
Preface.
Peace in the Middle East has been the holy grail of diplomats, prime ministers, and presidents for more than five decades. Every new face on the world stage thinks he or she is going to be the one to resolve the Arab-Israeli conflict. And each one fails just as miserably and completely as those who have come before.
The fact is, few Westerners can come close to understanding the complexities of the Middle East and its people. But I do-by virtue of a most unique perspective. You see, I am a son of that region and of that conflict. I am a child of Islam and the son of an accused terrorist. I am also a follower of Jesus.
Before the age of twenty-one, I saw things no one should ever see: abject poverty, abuse of power, torture, and death. I witnessed the behind-the-scenes dealings of top Middle Eastern leaders who make headlines around the world. I was trusted at the highest levels of Hamas, and I partic.i.p.ated in the so-called Intifada. I was held captive in the bowels of Israel"s most feared prison facility. And as you will see, I made choices that have made me a traitor in the eyes of people I love.
My unlikely journey has taken me through dark places and given me access to extraordinary secrets. On the pages of this book Ifinally reveal some of those long-hidden secrets, exposing events and processes that to this point have been known only by a handful of shadowy individuals.
The uncovering of these truths will likely send shock waves through parts of the Middle East, but I hope it will also bring comfort and closure to the families of many victims of this unending conflict.
As I move among Americans today, I find that many of them have a lot of questions about the Arab-Israeli conflict, but very few answers and even less good information. I hear questions like: - "Why can"t people just get along in the Middle East?"
- "Who is in the right-the Israelis or the Palestinians?"
- "To whom does the land really belong? Why don"t Palestinians just move to other Arab countries?"
- "Why doesn"t Israel give back the land and property it wonin the 1967 Six-Day War?"
- "Why are so many Palestinians still living in refugee camps? Why don"t they have their own state?"
- "Why do Palestinians hate Israel so much?"
- "How can Israel protect itself from suicide bombers and frequent rocket attacks?"
These are good questions, all of them. But none of them touch on the real issue, the root problem. The current conflict stretches all the way back to the animosity between Sarah and Hagar described in the first book of the Bible. To understand the political and cultural realities, however, you really don"t have to look much further than the aftermath of World War I.
When the war ended, the Palestinian territories, national home of the Palestinian people for centuries, fell under the mandate of Great Britain. And the British government had an unusual notion for the area, which it stated in the Balfour Declaration of 1917: "His Majesty"s Government view with favour the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people."
Encouraged by the British government, hundreds of thousands of Jewish immigrants, mostly from Eastern Europe, flooded into the Palestinian territories. Clashes between Arabs and Jews were inevitable.
Israel became a state in 1948. However, the Palestinian territories remained just that-nonsovereign territories. Without a const.i.tution to maintain some semblance of order, religious law becomes the highest authority. And when everyone is free to interpret and enforce the law as he sees fit, chaos ensues. To the outside world, the Middle Eastern conflict is simply a tug-of-war over a small stretch of land. But the real problem is that no one yet has understood the real problem. And as a result, negotiators from Camp David to Oslo confidently continue to splint the arms and legs of a cardiac patient.
Please understand, I did not write this book because I think I"m smarter or wiser than the great thinkers of the age. I am not. But I believe that G.o.d has given me a unique perspective by placing me on multiple sides of an apparently insoluble conflict. My life has been part.i.tioned like the crazy little piece of real estate on the Mediterranean known as Israel by some, Palestine by others, and the occupied territories by still others.
My purpose in the pages that follow is to set the record straight on some key events, lay bare some secrets, and if all goes well, leave you with hope that the impossible can be accomplished.
Chapter One
Captured1996.
I steered my little white Subaru around a blind corner on one of the narrow roads that led to the main highway outside the West Bank city of Ramallah. Stepping lightly on the brake, I slowly approached one of the innumerable checkpoints that dot the roads running to and from Jerusalem.
"Turn off the engine! Stop the car!" someone shouted in broken Arabic.
Without warning, six Israeli soldiers jumped out of the bushes and blocked my car, each man carrying a machine gun, and each gun pointed directly at my head.
Panic welled up in my throat. I stopped the car and threw the keys through the open window.
"Get out! Get out!"
Wasting no time, one of the men jerked open the door and threw me to the dusty ground. I barely had time to cover my head before the beating began. But even as I tried to protect my face, the heavy boots of the soldiers quickly found other targets: ribs, kidneys, back, neck, skull.
Two of the men dragged me to my feet and pulled me to the checkpoint, where I was forced onto my knees behind a cement barricade. My hands were bound behind my back with a sharp-edged plastic zip tie that was cinched much too tight. Somebody blindfolded me and shoved me into the back of a jeep onto the floor. Fear mingled with anger as I wondered where they were taking me and how long I would be gone. I was barely eighteen years old and only a few weeks away from my final high school exams. What was going to happen to me?
After a fairly short drive, the jeep slowed to a halt. A soldier pulled me from the back and removed my blindfold. Squinting in the bright sunlight, I realized that we were at Ofer Army Base. An Israeli defense base, Ofer was one of the largest and most secure military facilities in the West Bank.
As we moved toward the main building, we pa.s.sed by several armored tanks, which were shrouded by canvas tarps. The monstrous mounds had always intrigued me whenever I had seen them from outside the gates. They looked like huge, oversized boulders.
Once inside the building, we were met by a doctor who gave me a quick once-over, apparently to make sure I was fit to withstand interrogation. I must have pa.s.sed because, within minutes, the handcuffs and blindfold were replaced, and I was shoved back into the jeep.
As I tried to contort my body so that it would fit into the small area usually reserved for people"s feet, one beefy soldier put his boot squarely on my hip and pressed the muzzle of his M16 a.s.sault rifle into my chest. The hot reek of petrol fumes saturated the floor of the vehicle and forced my throat closed. Whenever I tried to adjust my cramped position, the soldier jabbed the gun barrel deeper into my chest.
Without warning, a searing pain shot through my body and made my toes clench. It was as if a rocket were exploding in my skull. The force of the blow had come from the front seat, and I realized that one of the soldiers must have used his rifle b.u.t.t to hit me in the head. Before I had time to protect myself, however, he hit me again, harder this time and in the eye. I tried to move out of reach but the soldier who had been using me for a footstool dragged me upright.
"Don"t move or I will will shoot you!" he shouted. shoot you!" he shouted.
But I couldn"t help it. Each time his comrade hit me, I involuntarily recoiled from the impact.
Under the rough blindfold, my eye was beginning to swell closed, and my face felt numb. There was no circulation in my legs. My breathing came in shallow gasps. I had never felt such pain. But worse than the physical pain was the horror of being at the mercy of something merciless, something raw and inhuman. My mind reeled as I struggled to understand the motives of my tormentors. I understood fighting and killing out of hatred, rage, revenge, or even necessity. But I had done nothing to these soldiers. I had not resisted. I had done everything I was told to do. I was no threat to them. I was bound, blindfolded, and unarmed. What was inside these people that made them take such delight in hurting me? Even the basest animal kills for a reason, not just for sport.
I thought about how my mother was going to feel when she learned that I had been arrested. With my father already in an Israeli prison, I was the man of the family. Would I be held in prison for months and years as he had been? If so, how would my mother manage with me gone too? I began to understand how my dad felt-worried about his family and grieved by the knowledge that we were worrying about him. Tears sprang to my eyes as I imagined my mother"s face.
I also wondered if all my years of high school were about to be wasted. If I indeed was headed for an Israeli prison, I would miss my final exams next month. A torrent of questions and cries raced through my mind even as the blows continued to fall: Why are you doing this to me? What have I done? I am not a terrorist! I"m just a kid. Why are you beating me like this? Why are you doing this to me? What have I done? I am not a terrorist! I"m just a kid. Why are you beating me like this?
I"m pretty sure I pa.s.sed out several times, but every time I came to, the soldiers were still there, hitting me. I couldn"t dodge the blows. The only thing I could do was scream. I felt bile rising in the back of my throat and I gagged, vomiting all over myself.
I felt a deep sadness before losing consciousness. Was this the end? Was I going to die before my life had really even started?
Chapter Two
The Ladder of Faith19551977.
My name is Mosab Ha.s.san Yousef.
I am the oldest son of Sheikh Ha.s.san Yousef, one of the seven founders of the Hamas organization. I was born in the West Bank village of Ramallah, and I am part of one of the most religious Islamic families in the Middle East.
My story begins with my grandfather, Sheikh Yousef Dawood, who was the religious leader-or imam-for the village of Al-Janiya, located in the part of Israel that the Bible calls Judea and Samaria. I adored my grandfather. His soft, white beard tickled my cheek when he hugged me, and I could sit for hours, listening to the sound of his sweet voice chanting the adhan adhan-the Muslim call to prayer. And I had plenty of opportunities to do so since Muslims are called to pray five times every day. Chanting adhan and the Qur"an is not an easy thing to do well, but when my grandfather did it, the sound was magical.
When I was a boy, some chanters bothered me so much that I wanted to stuff rags in my ears. But my grandfather was a pa.s.sionate man, and he carried his listeners deep into the meaning of the adhan as he sang. He believed every word of it.
About four hundred people lived in Al-Janiya in the days when it was under Jordanian rule and Israeli occupation. But the residents of this little rural village had little use for politics. Nestled into the gently rolling hills a few miles northwest of Ramallah, Al-Janiya was a very peaceful and beautiful place. Its sunsets tinted everything in hues of rose and violet. The air was clean and clear, and from many of the hills" peaks you could see all the way to the Mediterranean.
By four o"clock every morning, my grandfather was on his way to the mosque. When he finished morning prayers, he would take his little donkey to the field, work the soil, tend his olive trees, and drink fresh water from the spring that flowed down the mountain. There was no air pollution because only one person in Al-Janiya had a car.
When he was at home, my grandfather welcomed a steady stream of visitors. He was more than the imam-he was everything to the people in that village. He prayed over every newborn baby and whispered the adhan in the child"s ear. When someone died, my grandfather washed and anointed the body and wrapped it in winding clothes. He married them, and he buried them.
My father, Ha.s.san, was his favorite son. Even as a young boy, before it was required of him, my father went regularly with my grandfather to the mosque. None of his brothers cared anything about Islam like he did.
At his father"s side, Ha.s.san learned to chant the adhan. And like his father, he had a voice and a pa.s.sion that people responded to. My grandfather was very proud of him. When my father was twelve years old, my grandfather said, "Ha.s.san, you have shown that you are very interested in G.o.d and Islam. So I am going to send you to Jerusalem to learn sharia." Sharia is Islamic religious law that deals with daily life, from family and hygiene to politics and economics.
Ha.s.san knew and cared nothing about politics or economics. He simply wanted to be like his father. He wanted to read and chant the Qur"an and to serve people. But he was about to learn that his father was much more than a trusted religious leader and beloved public servant.
Because values and traditions have always meant more to the Arab people than government const.i.tutions and courts, men like my grandfather often became the highest level of authority. Especially in areas where secular leaders were weak or corrupt, the word of a religious leader was considered law.
My father was not sent to Jerusalem simply to study religion; his father was preparing him to rule. So for the next few years, my father lived and studied in the Old City of Jerusalem beside Al-Aqsa Mosque-the iconic golden-domed structure that visually defines the profile of Jerusalem in the eyes of most of the world"s people. At the age of eighteen, he completed his studies and moved to Ramallah, where he was immediately employed as imam of the mosque in Old Town. Filled with pa.s.sion to serve both Allah and his people, my father was eager to begin his work in that community, just as his father had done in Al-Janiya.
But Ramallah was not Al-Janiya. The former was a bustling city. The latter was a sleepy little village. The first time my father entered the mosque, he was shocked to find only five old men waiting for him. Everyone else, it seemed, was in the coffeehouses and p.o.r.nographic theaters, getting drunk and gambling. Even the man who chanted the adhan for the mosque next door had run a microphone and cord from the minaret, so he could continue the Islamic tradition without interrupting his card game.
My father"s heart was broken for these people, though he wasn"t sure how he would ever reach them. Even his five old men admitted they only came to the mosque because they knew they were going to die soon and wanted to go to heaven, but at least they were willing to listen. So he worked with what he had. He led these fellows in prayer, and he taught them the Qur"an. In a very short amount of time, they grew to love him as if he were an angel sent from heaven.
Outside the mosque, it was a different story. For many, my father"s love for the G.o.d of the Qur"an only highlighted their own casual approach to the faith, and they were offended.
"Who is this child doing the adhan?" people scoffed, pointing to my baby-faced father. "He doesn"t belong here. He is a troublemaker."
"Why is this little guy embarra.s.sing us? Only old people go to the mosque."
"I would rather be a dog than be like you," one of them shouted in his face.
My father quietly endured the persecution, never shouting back or defending himself. But his love and compa.s.sion for the people would not let him give up. And he continued to do the work he had been called to do: urging the people to return to Islam and Allah.
He shared his concerns with my grandfather, who quickly realized that my father had even greater zeal and potential than he had originally thought. My grandfather sent him to Jordan for advanced Islamic study. As you will see, the people he met there would ultimately change the course of my family"s history and even affect the history of conflict in the Middle East. But before I continue, I need to pause briefly to explain a few important points of Islamic history that will help you understand why the countless diplomatic solutions that have been put forward have uniformly failed and can offer no hope for peace.
Between 1517 and 1923, Islam-personified by the Ottoman Caliphate-spread from its base in Turkey across three continents. But after a few centuries of great economic and political power, the Ottoman Empire became centralized and corrupt and began its decline.
Under the Turks, Muslim villages throughout the Middle East were subject to persecution and crushing taxation. Istanbul was simply too far away for the caliph to protect the faithful from abuses by soldiers and local officials.