I love Israel, says son of Hamas

By Mosab Hassan Yousef

A convert from Islam to Christianity, Mosab Hassan Yousef is best known by the title of the book he authored:  Son of Hamas! Is he a deceiver as some claim? Is his allegiance divided and does he continue to serve the Palestinian cause while speaking positively of Israel and of his experience in Israel’s secret service? Or does he draw his values from a higher reality that supercedes earthly political divisions?

At the German Israel Congress, held in Frankfurt, in 2011, Yousef speaks briefly of his commitment to Israel while at the same time expressing his love for his Palestinian people. What is his motivation?

Below is a transcript of his address. View VIDEO.

Thank you so much for your support for our country – my country, Israel. We all came here to say, I like Israel.  I would like to say, I love Israel.

I’m not here to offend anybody. I’m here to tell the truth the way I saw it, and hopefully this will be the way for peace in our world at some point because the truth is born only of freedom. I think people have to have the freedom to think, to question, to criticize, to say things. If it wasn’t like this, I wouldn’t be standing here today.

I was asked by German Channel 2 [the] question [whether] Hamas was a terrorist organization or not. How can you answer a question like this? We still have thousands of innocent peoples’ blood witnessing Hamas’ terrorist attacks. Hamas is a terrorist organization. I was asked a more important question. I was once asked in America, what’s the difference between Hamas and hummus?

Hamas was born to destroy the state of Israel and Hamas doesn’t know how to build. I can say this because I have the authority to say [it]. I grew up in the heart of Hamas leadership. My father, Sheik Hassan Yousef, is one of the founding members of the Hamas organization. My family had to pay a very high price because of Hamas. And we had to suffer more than any [other] Palestinian family. So Hamas at [one] point [in] my life was my project. It was my business and  my family’s business, and I know more about Hamas than its members know about it.

I had many reasons to hate Israel [at one] point in my life. I had political reasons, personal reasons, ideological reasons. People are running from the reality … that there is religious war. And there is a war between gods in the Middle East. Between ideologies, between values,between western civilization and the barbarians. This is the reality on the ground. This is what’s happening.

This is not radical Islam. [I come] from a moderate Muslim family and my dad considers himself a moderate leader. But we know every time when we read the Koran and we look at the behaviour of Mohammad, that unfortunately he did not like the Jewish people. And Hamas follow his steps. [That is from whom] Muslims and Palestinians [take] their religious motivation for their fight. Maybe they pretend. Maybe they try to be politically correct in the eyes of the world, but I personally, as a thinker and author, can’t fool people, and I don’t care [how] people want to consider me. We have to face the reality with courage before it’s too late.

Do Arabs hate Israel because of political reasons or because of ideological reasons? Is it a political conflict or a racial conflict?

When I see and listen to the media here in the West, I start to forget where [I come] from. I know the language, I know the people, I know the mentality, I know everything about that culture of death, and I start to believe that this is just a minor problem. I’m here today to say that the ideological dimension of the Middle East conflict is the most important dimension, and we as free people have to take this into consideration. This is my message and this is my responsibility.

I explained how the transformation happened in my life, and there are many motivations that led me to have the honour to work as an agent for Israeli intelligence for ten years to serve Israel and to serve the Israeli people. Nobody knew about my existence. I was a top secret agent. Few people within the Israeli intelligence knew about my existence. How did I come from Hamas to serve Israel? This is a long story. It’s very hard to fit the whole story in a few minutes. I wrote the details in [my book], Son of Hamas, but all I can say is, the most important motivation among all other motivations to work for the state of Israel was the deep understanding of God’s love [for] all his children through the person of Jesus Christ.

I’m not here to preach. I’m not a saint, I’m a sinner. I’m not a preacher, but this is the truth, and I know deep in my heart that was the most important motivation I had – love your enemy. I took the challenge, and because of that I stand here today very confident. Yes, disowned. Yes, my nation wants to kill me and execute me and they consider me a traitor. I stand here with lots of confidence to say, that yes, I love Israel.

Politicians and the international community, governments, everybody is talking about the right of a Palestinian statehood – that Palestinians have their own state. I think it’s a bad idea. I think that Palestinians will pay a very high price for this. Palestinians for more than 60 years tried to destroy the state of Israel, not to build a Palestinian state. Now they come in very late trying to fit a Palestinian state [into Israel’s small territory] like somebody trying to fit an elephant into the eye of a needle. It’s a small property. It’s a very small country – 27,000 square kilometers. That is nothing, and it does not have room for two states.

I’m not saying Palestinians can not have their own authority [or] state, but we have to take into consideration Israeli security necessities. [We saw] what happened in Gaza strip and we don’t want to repeat the same mistakes because not only Israelis will suffer. Palestinians will suffer too. I’m not talking about Palestinian politicians and leaders. I’m talking about Palestinian children who are sick and tired of the ways of their leaders and their selfish desires, and I hope that none of my Palestinian children will have to go through what I had to go through.

Copyright © 2012 Acts News Network