Son of Hamas
Page 24
Ottoman Empire — Turkish empire that lasted from about 1299 to 1923
Palestinian Authority (PA) — Formed in 1994, according to the terms of the Oslo Accords, as the governing body of the West Bank and Gaza
Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) — Political/resistance organization, led by Yasser Arafat from 1969 to 2004
Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) — Marxist-Leninist resistance organization in the West Bank and Gaza
Qur’an (kor-ahn') — The holy book of Islam
rak’ah — Islamic sets of prayers and postures
Ramadan — Month of fasting to commemorate the receipt of the Qur’an by Mohammad
sawa’ed — Agents for the Hamas security wing in the Israeli prison camps; threw balls containing messages from one section to another
Scud — Ballistic missile developed by the Soviet Union during the Cold War
sharia — Islamic religious law
shaweesh — A prisoner chosen to represent other inmates with the Israeli prison administrators; a “trusty”
sheikh (shake) — Muslim elder or leader
Shi’a — Islam’s second largest denomination after Sunni
Shin Bet — Israeli intelligence service, comparable to America’s Federal Bureau of Investigation
shurah council — In Islam, a panel of seven decision makers
shoter (sho-tair') — Hebrew for Israeli prison guard or police officer
Six-Day War — Brief war in 1967 between Israel and Egypt, Jordan, and Syria
Sunni — Islam’s largest denomination
sura — Chapter in the Qur’an
Temple Mount — In Old Jerusalem, the location of Al-Aqsa Mosque and the Dome of the Rock, the oldest Islamic building in the world; also believed to be location of First and Second Jewish Temples
wudu — Islamic ritual purification
Time Line
1923 — End of the Ottoman Empire
1928 — Hassan al-Banna founds the Society of the Muslim Brothers
1935 — The Muslim Brotherhood is established in Palestine
1948 — The Muslim Brotherhood takes violent action against the Egyptian government; Israel declares its independence; Egypt, Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, and Iraq invade Israel
1949 — Hassan al-Banna is assassinated; Al-Amari refugee camp established in the West Bank
1964 — Palestine Liberation Organization founded
1967 — Six-Day War
1968 — Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine hijacks an El Al 707 and diverts it to Algiers; no fatalities
1970 — Black September, in which thousands of PLO fighters are killed by Jordanian troops, as Jordan expels the PLO
1972 — Eleven Israeli athletes killed by Black September at the Munich Olympics
1973 — Yom Kippur War
1977 — Hassan Yousef marries Sabha Abu Salem
1978 — Mosab Hassan Yousef is born; thirty-eight people are killed in a Fatah attack on Israel’s Coastal Highway north of Tel Aviv
1979 — Palestinian Islamic Jihad founded
1982 — Israel invades Lebanon and drives out the PLO
1985 — Hassan Yousef and his family move to Al-Bireh
1986 — Hamas founded in Hebron
1987 — Hassan Yousef takes a second job, teaching religion to Muslims at the Christian school in Ramallah; beginning of the First Intifada
1989 — Hassan Yousef’s first arrest and imprisonment; Amer Abu Sarhan of Hamas murders three Israelis
1990 — Saddam Hussein invades Kuwait
1992 — Mosab’s family moves to Betunia; Hassan Yousef is arrested; Hamas terrorists kidnap and murder Israeli police officer Nissim Toledano; Palestinian leaders are deported to Lebanon
1993 — Oslo Accords
1994 — Baruch Goldstein kills twenty-nine Palestinians in Hebron; first official suicide bombing; Yasser Arafat returns triumphantly to Gaza to set up Palestinian Authority headquarters
1995 — Israeli prime minister Yitzhak Rabin assassinated; Hassan Yousef is arrested by the Palestinian Authority; Mosab buys illegal, inoperative guns
1996 — Hamas bomb maker Yahya Ayyash is assassinated; Mosab is arrested and imprisoned for the first time
1997 — Mosab released from prison; Mossad unsuccessfully attempts to assassinate Khalid Meshaal
1999 — Mosab attends a Christian Bible study
2000 — Camp David Summit; Second Intifada (also known as the Al-Aqsa Intifada) begins
2001 — French Hill suicide bombing; Dolphinarium and Sbarro pizza parlor suicide bombings; PFLP secretary-general Abu Ali Mustafa assassinated by Israel; Israeli minister of tourism Rehavam Ze’evi assassinated by PFLP gunmen
2002 — Israel launches Operation Defensive Shield; nine killed in Hebrew University attack; Mosab and his father are arrested and imprisoned
2003 — Western Coalition forces liberate Iraq; Hamas terrorists Saleh Talahme, Hasaneen Rummanah, and Sayyed al-Sheikh Qassem are killed by Israel
2004 — Death of Yasser Arafat; Hassan Yousef released from prison
2005 — Mosab is baptized; truce ends between Hamas and Israel; Mosab’s third arrest and imprisonment; Mosab released from prison
2006 — Ismail Haniyeh elected Palestinian prime minister
2007 — Mosab leaves the occupied territories for America
Copyright
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Son of Hamas: A Gripping Account of Terror, Betrayal, Political Intrigue, and Unthinkable Choices
Copyright © 2010 by Mosab Hassan Yousef. All rights reserved.
Author and cover photo copyright © 2009 by Tyndale House Publishers, Inc. All rights reserved.
Interior map copyright © 1993 by Digital Wisdom. All rights reserved.
Scripture taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version®, NIV®. Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984 by Biblica, Inc.™ Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved worldwide.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Yousef, Mosab Hassan.
Son of Hamas : a gripping account of terror, betrayal, political intrigue, and unthinkable choices / Mosab Hassan Yousef, with Ron Brackin.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references.
ISBN 978-1-4143-3307-6 (hc)
1. Yousef, Mosab Hassan. 2. Christian converts from Islam—Israel—Biography. I. Brackin, Ron.
II. Title.
BV2626.4.Y68A3 2010
248.2'46092—dc22
[B] 2009046326
ISBN 978-1-4143-3668-8 (International Trade Paper Edition)
Notes
1
No one has ever had this information before. In fact, the record of history is already filled with numerous inaccuracies about the day that Hamas was born as an organization. For example, Wikipedia inaccurately claims that “Hamas was created in 1987 by Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, Abdel Aziz al-Rantissi and Mohammad Taha of the Palestinian wing of Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood at the beginning of the First Intifada….” This entry is accurate regarding only two of the seven founders, and it is off by a year. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hamas (accessed November 20, 2009).
MidEastWeb says, “Hamas was formed about February 1988 to allow participation of the brotherhood in the first Intifada. The founding leaders of Hamas were: Ahmad Yassin, ‘Abd al-Fattah Dukhan, Muhammed Shama’, Ibrahim al-Yazuri, Issa al-Najjar, Salah Shehadeh (from Bayt Hanun) and ‘Abd al-Aziz Rantisi. Dr. Mahmud Zahar is also usually listed as one of the original leaders. Other leaders include: Sheikh Khalil Qawqa, Isa al-Ashar, Musa Abu Marzuq, Ibrahim Ghusha, Khalid Mish’al.” This is even less accurate than the Wikipedia entry. See http://www.mideastweb.org/hamashistory.htm (accessed November 20, 2009).
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2
The PLO’s first high-profile plane hijacking had occurred on July 23, 1968, when PFLP activists diverted an El Al Boeing 707 to Algiers. About a dozen Israeli passengers and ten crew members were held as hostages. There were no fatalities. But eleven Israeli athletes were killed four years later in a PLO-led terrorist attack at the Munich Olympics. And on March 11, 1978, Fatah fighters landed a boat north of Tel Aviv, hijacked a bus, and began an attack along the Coastal Highway that killed about thirty-five people—and wounded over seventy others.
The organization had had an easy time recruiting from among the Palestinian refugees who made up two-thirds of Jordan’s population. With money flooding in from other Arab countries in support of the cause, the PLO became stronger and better-armed than even the police and the Jordanian army. And it wasn’t long before its leader, Yasser Arafat, was in striking distance of taking over the country and establishing a Palestinian state. King Hussein of Jordan had to act quickly and decisively or lose his country. Years later, I would be amazed to learn through an unforeseeable relationship with the Israeli security service that Jordan’s monarch had entered into a secret alliance with Israel at this time—even as every other Arab country was committed to its destruction. It was the logical thing to do, of course, because King Hussein was unable to protect his throne and Israel was unable to effectively patrol the long border between their two countries. But it would have been political and cultural suicide for the king had this information ever leaked out.
So in 1970, before the PLO could grasp any more control, King Hussein ordered its leaders and fighters out of the country. When they refused, he drove them out—with the aid of weapons provided by Israel—in a military campaign that came to be known among Palestinians as Black September. Time magazine quoted Arafat as telling sympathetic Arab leaders, “A massacre has been committed. Thousands of people are under debris. Bodies have rotted. Hundreds of thousands of people are homeless. Our dead are scattered in the streets. Hunger and thirst are killing our remaining children, women and old men” (“The Battle Ends; The War Begins,” Time, October 5, 1970).
King Hussein owed a great debt to Israel, which he would try to repay in 1973 by warning Jerusalem that an Arab coalition led by Egypt and Syria was about to invade. Unfortunately, Israel did not take the warning seriously. The invasion came on Yom Kippur, and an unprepared Israel suffered heavy and unnecessary losses. This secret, too, I would learn one day from the Israelis.
Following Black September, PLO survivors fled to southern Lebanon, which was still reeling from a deadly civil war. Here the organization initiated a new power grab, growing and gaining strength until it virtually became a state within a state. From its new base of operations, the PLO waged a war of attrition against Israel. Beirut was too weak to stop the endless shelling and missile attacks against Israel’s northern communities. And in 1982, Israel invaded Lebanon, driving out the PLO in a four-month campaign. Arafat and a thousand surviving fighters went into exile in Tunisia. But even from that distance, the PLO continued to launch attacks on Israel and amass an army of fighters in the West Bank and Gaza.
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3
“Arafat’s Return: Unity Is ‘the Shield of Our People,’” New York Times, July 2, 1994, http://www.nytimes.com/1994/07/02/world/arafat-in-gaza-arafat-s-return-unity-is-the-shield-of-our-people.html (accessed November 23, 2009).
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4
Leonard Cohen, “First We Take Manhattan” copyright © 1988 Leonard Cohen Stranger Music, Inc.
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5
Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs, “Suicide and Other Bombing Attacks in Israel Since the Declaration of Principles (September 1993)”; The Palestinian Academic Society for the Study of International Affairs, Jerusalem, “Palestine Facts—Palestine Chronology 2000, http://www.passia.org/palestine_facts/chronology/2000.html. See also http://www.mfa.gov.il/MFA/MFAArchive/2000_2009/2000/11/Palestinian%20Terrorism-%20Photos%20-%20November%202000.
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6
Further confirmation of this connection would come the following year when Israel invaded Ramallah and raided Arafat’s headquarters. Among other documents, they would discover an invoice, dated September 16, 2001, from the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades to Brigadier General Fouad Shoubaki, the PA’s CFO for military operations. It requested reimbursement for explosives used in bombings in Israeli cities and asked for money to build more bombs and to cover the cost of propaganda posters promoting suicide bombers. Yael Shahar, “Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades—A Political Tool with an Edge,” April 3, 2002, International Institute for Counter-Terrorism, IDC Herzliya.
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7
Leonard Cole, Terror: How Israel Has Coped and What America Can Learn (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2007), 8.
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8
“Obituary: Rehavam Zeevi,” BBC News, October 17, 2001, http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/1603857.stm (accessed November 24, 2009).
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9
“Annan Criticizes Israel, Palestinians for Targeting Civilians,” U.N. Wire, March 12, 2002, http://www.unwire.org/unwire/20020312/24582_story.asp (accessed October 23, 2009).
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10
European Union, “Declaration of Barcelona on the Middle East,” March 16, 2002, http://europa.eu/bulletin/en/200203/i1055.htm.
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11
An interesting sidenote about Colonel Jibril Rajoub: “This man had taken advantage of his position as protective security chief in the West Bank to build his own little kingdom, making his officers bow and scrape as though he was heir to a throne. I have seen his breakfast table groan under the weight of fifty different dishes, prepared just to show everyone how important he was. I have also seen that Rajoub was rude and careless and that he behaved more like a gangster than a leader. When Arafat rounded up as many Hamas leaders and members as he could back in 1995, Rajoub tortured them without mercy. Several times, Hamas had threatened to assassinate him, prompting him to buy a bulletproof, explosion-proof car. Even Arafat didn’t have anything like it.”
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12
Associated Press, “Palestinian Bombmaker Gets 67 Life Terms,” MSNBC, November 30, 2004, http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/6625081/.
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13
Danny Rubinstein, “Hamas Leader: You Can’t Get Rid of Us,” Haaretz, http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/pages/ShArt.jhtml?itemNo=565084&contrassID=2&subContrassID=4&sbSubContrassID=0.
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14
“Israel Vows to ‘Crush’ Hamas after Attack,” Fox News, September 25, 2005, http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,170304,00.html (accessed October 5, 2009).
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