Israel is buzzing with the news that one of the most valuable Palestinian informants to Israel’s security service is none other than the son of one of the founders of Hamas.
In an interview published in full in Friday’s Ha’aretz magazine, Mosab Hassan Yousef discussed the decade he spent passing information about Hamas to Israel, exposed of a number of terrorist cells, and prevented dozens of suicide bombings and assassination attempts on Israeli figures.
According to Ha’aretz, Yousef–the oldest son of Sheikh Hassan Yousef, one of Hamas’ founders and its top official in the West Bank– was considered the most reliable of the security services’ sources on Hamas,:
… earning himself the nickname “the Green Prince” – using the color of the Islamist group’s flag, and “prince” because of his pedigree …
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.
Perhaps even more dangerous for Yousef than spying for Israel, however, is the fact that Yousef converted to Christianity 10 years ago. Yousef, now 32, fled the West Bank in 2007 and now lives in California. In 2008, he went public with his conversion — also in an interview with Ha’aretz.
After the article about his faith ran, the al-Qaida-affiliated Global Islamic Media Front released a statement calling for his death. Quoting Mohamed, the statement said, “Whoever alters his religion, kill him.” [emphasis theirs]
It is only now–on the eve of publication of Son of Hamas, his new book, which is being released by Tyndale next month–that Yousef is going public about his work with Israel. The book a childhood spent being groomed for the Hamas leadership, about his conversion and faith (his publisher pithily ays he “embraced instead the teachings of another famous Middle East leader”), his agonizing separation from family and homeland, his the dangerous decision to make his newfound faith public, and his belief that the Christian mandate to “love your enemies” is the only way to peace in the Middle East.
While his own father’s comrades may call him an infidel or worse, Israelis marvel at his bravery:
“So many people owe him their life and don’t even know it. People who did a lot less were awarded the Israel Security Prize. He certainly deserves it,” Ha’aretz quotes his handler, who his book calls “Captain Loai”:
Loai makes no secret of his admiration for his former source. “The amazing thing is that none of his actions were done for money,” he says. “He did things he believed in. He wanted to save lives. His grasp of intelligence matters was just as good as ours – the ideas, the insights. One insight of his was worth 1,000 hours of thought by top experts.”
Speaking by phone from California, Yousef told Ha’aretz that he wishes he were in Gaza now so that he could help the IDF liberate kidnapped soldier Gilad Shalit. But Yousef argued against the sort of prisoner swaps that have been discussed: “We wasted so many years with investigations and arrests to capture the very terrorists that they now want to release in return for Shalit. That must not be done.”
Mosab told the newspaper that he acted in accordance with his beliefs, which compelled him to hate Hamas.
Buy the book here.
SFI explainer: Why does Israel make such a fuss over one soldier?
Not long ago, a friend of SFI’s–a committed Christian who is a great friend of Israel–asked a not-so-simple question. Why, he wanted to understand, would Israel consider swapping thousands of prisoners–many of whom have murdered Israelis and, if released, would certainly try again–for a single soldier?
The friend is a deeply compassionate and moral man, but logic, he said, dictated that such an exchange would simply not be in Israel’s interest. He said that he couldn’t even imagine the American army and American people allowing themselves to be held hostage as a nation the way Israelis do because of one soldier, let alone that the U.S. would free hundreds of terrorists who soldiers gave their lives to capture — all for one soldier. (And, especially, he said, since it’s a soldier being held and not a non-combatant.)
On many levels, of course, he’s right. It doesn’t make logical sense, but there are deep reasons–religious and cultural–why Israelis’ perspectives on this differ from Americans’. And while SFI is not about to tell the Israeli government and people what to do–or even come down on either side of the issue–it’s worth explaining a little why Israel has made such swaps in the past and why it looks pretty likely that they’ll close a deal with Hamas in the near future.
He’s not just a soldier
One of the first things to understand is that no soldier in the IDF can be seen a “just” a soldier: Israel’s army is not a voluntary force, and nearly all Israelis are drafted into compulsory service. Therefore, the idea that a soldier chose to put himself in harm’s way (albeit for the most of honorable of reasons) doesn’t really apply. Gilad Shalit could be each Israeli’s son or brother, husband or cousin.
Military service is seen as a responsibility that Israelis must bear for having a Jewish state, and Shalit (or Ehud Goldwasser, Ron Arad, or any other captured Israeli soldier) is carrying that responsibility for every Israeli (and every Jew, according to some). But, in the Jewish mind, it doesn’t end there — his fellow Israelis remain responsible for him.
The Jewish sages teach that kol yisrael arevim zeh l’zeh, every member of the nation of Israel acts as a guarantor for the rest. This ethic of mutual responsibility is deeply rooted in the Jewish psyche and worldview, and remains strong even in today’s primarily secular Israeli culture.
An extension of this is the perhaps bizarre risk IDF soldiers regularly undertake in order to recover the dead bodies of fallen comrades. All of this has a tremendous effect on morale and self-understanding among soldiers, who know the risks the army and their fellow soldiers will take for them — and who know the commitment they have to their colleagues in kind.
Jewish tradition and religious law: Redeeming the captives
Discussions of the plight of captured soldiers inevitably involve discussions of the specific mitzvah (commandment) of pidyon shevuyim, which compels Jewish communities to redeem captives — sadly, a need that goes far back in the Jewish historical experience. Centuries ago, pirates and brigands frequently kidnapped Jews, knowing that their communities would raise ransom to redeem them; before that, hundreds of thousands of Jews were forced into slavery across the Roman empire. Today, the mitzvah remains a part of tradition, and is taught even in communities that do not strictly adhere to Jewish religious law. (See this course on Shalit and Jewish law being offered by an online Orthodox yeshiva, as well as this curricula for courses taught by the Jewish Agency, which is not a religious organization.)
The great medieval scholar Maimonides wrote in his Mishneh Torah, one of the most important codes of Jewish law (note that these are traditional Jewish translations):
Pidyon Shevuyim takes precedence over supporting the poor or clothing them. There is no greater mitzvah than Pidyon Shevuyim, for the problems of the captive include the problems of the hungry, the thirsty, the naked, and [s/he] who is in mortal danger. [One] who ignores the need to redeem captives transgresses the following [commandments]:
“Do not harden your heart or shut your hand against your needy kinsman” (Deuteronomy 15:7)
“Do not stand idly by the blood of your neighbor” (Leviticus 19:16)
“You shall not rule ruthlessly over him in your sight” (Leviticus 25:53)
“You shall surely open your hand to him” (Deuteronomy 15:8)
“Love your neighbor as yourself” (Leviticus 19:18)
“Rescue those who are drawn to death” (Proverbs 24:11)
and many other injunctions like these.
But there is no mitzvah greater than Pidyon Shevuyim.
Redeeming the captives vs. saving lives
As with all Jewish law, however, the commandment to redeem captives has to be balanced against other commandments, including one of the most paramount of all the commandments, pikuach nefesh – saving lives.
For this reason, Prime Minister Netanyahu met at length with groups like Almagor, an organization for victims of terror. Almagor and other groups and individuals have argued that a swap like the one on the table for Shalit not only makes null the sacrifices of soldiers who died capturing terrorists (by releasing the terrorists they gave their lives to put behind bars) and cheapens the memory of those the terrorists killed, but—most crucially—risks the lives of more Israelis.
Paying a high price for one captured soldier, they argue, only increases the incentive for terrorist groups to kidnap more. Shalit may be released, but someone else’s son will be nabbed by Hamas sometime soon after – and all of Israel will be in the same boat again. Others argue that in a culture as preoccupied with honor as is that of the Middle East, allowing Hamas to claim victory only emboldens them to continue their campaigns of terror against Israel’s civilians. And, fundamentally, there is the obvious concern that released terrorists will simply go on to kill more Israelis.
These are obviously complex issues, both strategically and ethically. SFI joins with the people of Israel, and all who love her, in praying for the safety of Gilad Shalit and all of his fellow soldiers, and that God will give the leaders of the Jewish state wisdom and strength to make the right choice, for Shalit and for all of Israel.
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