There's a fascinating story in Haaretz about the son of one of the founders of Hamas who converted to Christianity ten years ago, served for over a decade as an informant for Shin Bet, the Israeli security service, and then fled the region in 2007. Mosab Hassan Yousef is credited with having saved dozens, perhaps hundreds, of lives by passing along information on imminent terror attacks on Israel.
Yousef must have a great deal of courage. He has to know that even though he's now living in the United States he's still a target for Islamist assassins. Nevertheless, his story is about to be published in an article to be released this Friday, and there's a book on his life that's just been released.
Here's an excerpt from the Haaretz piece:
Yousef was considered 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.
The story of Yousef's spiritual transformation appeared in Haaretz Magazine in August 2008. Only now, however, is Yousef exposing the secret he kept since 1996, when he was first held by Shin Bet agents seeking to enlist him in infiltrating the upper echelon of Hamas.
"So many people owe him their life and don't even know it," said his Shin Bet 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."
I saw Yousef in a television interview last night and heard him warn us not to fall for the moderate/extremist distinction as applied to Muslims. Muslims are devoted to the Koran and the Koran teaches the use of violence to spread Islam.
This is a point others have made before but perhaps it will have more purchase coming from Yousef. Individual Muslims may not engage in violence themselves, but they don't really oppose the use of violence by other Muslims as long as it's directed at infidels.
RLC