Family Squabbles in Palestine
[guest post by JVW]
I don’t mean to be so flippant in the post’s title, but it is an encouraging sign to see that not all of Hamas’s indoctrination has taken hold among the youth of Palestine:
The son of a Hamas co-founder recorded himself on video granting Israel “permission” to assassinate all of the terrorist organization’s leaders, including his own father, if all hostages are not released within a specific period of time.
Mosab Hassan Yousef, the 45-year-old son of Sheikh Hassan Yousef, recommended Israel give Hamas a set timeframe to release all the remaining hostages, after which Israel should assassinate the terror group’s leadership.
“Israel cannot continue like this,” he said in a ten-minute video posted to X on Tuesday. “Hamas must have a timeframe – a month or two or six months – to return the hostages and if they don’t return the hostages within the time frame, Israel must execute top Hamas leaders in prison, especially the mass murderers.”
“When I say execute top leaders, I mean no exceptions, that includes my own father,” the son added, wishing he didn’t save his father’s life numerous times ten to 15 years ago. “He was supposed to die for his actions. I saved his life. Things did not change, things got worse.”
What Mosab Yuosef is alluding to is his early radicalization which saw him arrested numerous times as a young boy for throwing rocks at Israeli soldiers. Aspiring to the life of a Jihadist, the younger Yousef was seen as a natural heir to his father, who was a co-founder of the Hamas terrorist organization. As a teenager, Mosab Yousef served a jail sentence in Israel’s Megiddo Prison, where he witnessed Hamas-affiliated inmates plot a brutal reprisal against fellow Palestinians whom they believed were secretly aiding Israel. According to Mr. Yousef, he witnessed Hamas operatives carry out brutal summary executions against alleged collaborators, even those who he believed had no connection at all to the enemy but were dispatched based upon family grievances and other flimsy pretexts. It was at this point, he relates, that the scales began to fall from his eyes and he started understanding the cruelty and barbarity of his allies.
In 1996, while in the custody of Shen Bet, Israel’s internal security agency, Mr. Yousef accepted overtures from agents and became an Israeli mole within Hamas. He claims that his cooperation hinged upon Israel refraining from killing members of Hamas, including his own father, and that his role was to merely prevent Hamas attacks, and if they took place to then help Israel identify the participants in order to arrest them. Mosab Youself became interested in Christianity in 1999, and in 2005 was secretly baptized in Tel Aviv.
Just two years later, Mr. Yousef left Hamas and Shen Bet to emigrate to America. After an immigration battle which landed in front of a California judge, he was granted residency in 2010, the same year in which he essentially outed himself by publishing his autobiography. Mosab Yousef’s younger brother Suheib Yousef has also subsequently renounced his father and Hamas, though unlike his older brother he denies ever having served as an informant for Israel.
The interesting development is that after years of allegedly protecting his father and other Hamas radicals from assassination by Israel, Mosab Yousef now believes that Israel needs to get their hands dirty and eradicate Hamas from Palestine. In a ten-minute video posted on Twitter, he berates Hamas for demanding “the release of mass murders” in exchange for the release of hostages, and warns that to acquiesce to their demands would put lives in Israel and Palestine at danger. He now advises Israel to shift its focus from hostage rescue to hunting down and capturing or killing Hamas militants, for the greater good of both nations.
Hopefully there are thousands of young Palestinians who have also rejected the works and empty promises of Hamas and a life of terrorism, even if conditions are not favorable for them to take a public stand at this time. That two sons of a Hamas co-founder have rejected the ideology is encouraging, and hopefully in the coming year Hamas will go the way of al Qaeda, ISIL, and other repressively brutal paramilitary organizations who for ugly and tragic reasons are often mistaken for freedom fighters. And then you’re next in the crosshairs, Hezbollah.
– JVW
And yes, I know that there are also Jews worldwide, even in Israel, who renounce Zionism, Israel, the West, and even their own history. Oddly enough though, none of them seem all that keen to immigrate to Gaza or Qatar or Saudi Arabia. I wonder why that is.
JVW (d09c0a) — 11/29/2023 @ 3:29 pmOikophobia, JVW.
Simon Jester (c8876d) — 11/29/2023 @ 4:39 pmWell earned it would seem, Simon Jester.
[Edit: Oh, you’re responding to my first comment, and you’re absolutely correct. I was thinking you were referring to Mosab Yousef.]
JVW (4de0e4) — 11/29/2023 @ 5:20 pmAccording to Mr. Yousef, he witnessed Hamas operatives carry out brutal summary executions against alleged collaborators, even those who he believed had no connection at all to the enemy but were dispatched based upon family grievances and other flimsy pretexts.
This is why I have sympathy for the ordinary Palestinian. It’s easy to opine from the safety and comfort of our world, and blame Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank for not speaking out against Hamas. If they criticize Hamas, they risk their lives. I suspect it is akin to what the Chinese people faced during the Cultural Revolution. If one isn’t with the program, one is by definition against the program.
It might even be dangerous to vote against Hamas in an election. Does anybody think the privacy of voters is respected in such a place?
norcal (cbfad8) — 11/29/2023 @ 5:50 pmYou don’t think they have an established political climate of opinion, norcal? I saw them on TV, men, women, and children, ululating on 9/11.
I doesn’t matter, anyway. Animals who put babies in microwaves cannot be allowed to exist. Before DDT, we fought malaria by drying up swamps, destroying the ecosystem of the anopheles mosquito. The Palestinians population is the ecosystem of the terrorists.
I do concede, however, that the decision is not up to me, safe in America. It is up to the Israelis, on the front line, with their existence at stake. They may do whatever they choose to do.
nk (bb1548) — 11/29/2023 @ 7:06 pmThey are in a horrible situation it is true, norcal. But since when has throwing off a tyrannical government ever not been dangerous? And of course we’re looking at an area of the world and a rancid political culture which has always tended towards the autocratic and repressive. As so many have pointed out, the Arab World needs Israel as a foil, otherwise they might have to start answering to their own citizens for the lack of freedom and progress in their own countries.
JVW (037596) — 11/29/2023 @ 7:11 pmI heard that Yousef was going to appear (remotely) on a show, so I tuned in. He’d asked for payment upfront, received it in the agreed amount and then just before the show said some things had come up and he needed to get some more money or he could not come on. They declined. Not sure if they got their money yet back or not. The two hosts were laughing because they both have experience in dealing with people in the middle east and have fallen for that before but thought this was different. (when deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan, both had worked with local people for services, and also making sure Afghani and Iraqi soldiers got paid (after counting heads for phantom employees). I think their last line was “well, I guess you can take the boy out of the middle east, but you can’t take the middle east out of the boy”
steveg (4415f6) — 11/29/2023 @ 8:30 pmHopefully more palestinians will say get rid of Hamas. Israel can help out by prosecuting right wing settlers who have been murdering their palestinian neighbors and steal their land instead of encouraging them.
asset (12b51a) — 11/29/2023 @ 8:40 pmWhat a goood post, JVW.
While I also hope there are untold numbers of young Palestinians who reject Hamas, what about young people in Europe who are involved in the pro-Palestinian protests and are also holding signs for Hamas? It’s just unbelievable.
Dana (932d71) — 11/29/2023 @ 9:34 pmI think their last line was “well, I guess you can take the boy out of the middle east, but you can’t take the middle east out of the boy”
That’s funny, and I’m not at all surprised. From what I read about Yousef, he makes his living by being a professional television guest and then picking up various speaking engagements here and there, so I’m not at all surprised that he might be a bit unreliable and something of a hustler. I can kind of forgive him for it given the very difficult life he apparently led. But I would hope that he’s getting some bookings over the last eight weeks given the crazy circumstances, and perhaps that will allow him to put aside a little bit of a nest egg.
JVW (39d72a) — 11/29/2023 @ 9:46 pmWhile I also hope there are untold numbers of young Palestinians who reject Hamas, what about young people in Europe who are involved in the pro-Palestinian protests and are also holding signs for Hamas?
Not only in Europe, Dana, but, alas, here in North America too. The Spectator half-jokingly and half-seriously suggests that it was TikTok that turned this younger generation into Hamas supporters.
JVW (3552a5) — 11/29/2023 @ 9:48 pmIt might even be dangerous to vote against Hamas in an election. Does anybody think the privacy of voters is respected in such a place?
What election?
Kevin M (ed969f) — 11/29/2023 @ 10:03 pmWhy would young people in US and around the world like netanyahu. likud or their obnoxious supporters like mark levin and faux news? I don’t and neither does more then half of Israel. The nuance we have to explain and not call names is because they are bad does not make Hamas good. Both Stalin and Hitler were evil ;but hitler was the bigger threat and the russian people were stuck with stalin as Israel at least for the time being is stuck with bottle deposit crook. I explain to young progressives as we are stuck with Biden and Harris for the time being because of the corrupt clyburn pushing south carolina primary first to help Biden. The democrat party spends more time fighting progressives then they do republicans. In NY SPM who lost spent more time attacking AOC then is GOP opponent!
asset (12b51a) — 11/29/2023 @ 11:56 pmI’d say the princes of the Hamas leaders have the means and ability to break from the terrorist group and be able to dissent and stay alive.
Paul Montagu (d52d7d) — 11/30/2023 @ 5:21 amMost poor Palestinian sods don’t have that luxury. If you dissent, you may get labeled a collaborator and chained to a motorcycle and dragged around.
Why would young people in US and around the world like netanyahu. likud or their obnoxious supporters like mark levin and faux news?
Hard to say. Why would they like Elizabeth Warren, Bernie Sanders or any of the other statist thieves that want to use the power of the state to crush personal freedom?
Kevin M (ed969f) — 11/30/2023 @ 8:27 am@15 freedom to have an abortion?
asset (d0628e) — 11/30/2023 @ 1:28 pmYou don’t think they have an established political climate of opinion, norcal? I saw them on TV, men, women, and children, ululating on 9/11.
nk (bb1548) — 11/29/2023 @ 7:06 pm
They have an established political climate of opinion, but it’s not one in which dissent is tolerated. I wouldn’t take street mobs as representative of the ordinary Palestinian, just as I don’t take U.S. street mobs as representative of the ordinary American.
I agree with your overall point, nk. Israel had to act forcefully, and many Palestinians are just going to be collateral damage. I can sympathize with them while agreeing with Israel’s actions.
norcal (25cd83) — 11/30/2023 @ 1:41 pmHave you heard about that Oakland City Council meeting where many commenters (not commenters here, but at the council meeting) were incensed that a council member wanted to insert language condemning Hamas?
Nick Catoggio had a funny line about it:
https://thedispatch.com/newsletter/boilingfrogs/youth-gone-wild/
norcal (25cd83) — 11/30/2023 @ 2:13 pmI agree with your overall point, nk. Israel had to act forcefully, and many Palestinians are just going to be collateral damage. I can sympathize with them while agreeing with Israel’s actions.
And maybe in the future, they might not be so willing to go along with extremists as their rulers. For the same reason that it will be a long time before someone in Afghanistan things attacking America is a good idea.
Kevin M (ed969f) — 11/30/2023 @ 2:59 pm@15 freedom to have an abortion?
No, as that has a death involved, despite your callous line-drawing.
Kevin M (ed969f) — 11/30/2023 @ 3:00 pm“Abortion” is fairly meaningless wedge that both sides use to prevent people seeing the hands in their wallets.
Kevin M (ed969f) — 11/30/2023 @ 3:01 pm> “Abortion” is fairly meaningless wedge
The people being forced at gunpoint to bear children they don’t want *deeply* disagree with you on this.
aphrael (71d87c) — 11/30/2023 @ 3:37 pmKevin M (ed969f) — 11/30/2023 @ 2:59 pm
The Taliban are afraid to, even though the United States abandoned Afghanistan. The USA was there for almost twenty years!
Sammy Finkelman (1d215a) — 11/30/2023 @ 4:39 pmI don’t see why so many people have it in for Netanyahu. The extremists they complain about were overruled when they opposed the prisoner exchange and truce. Benny Gantz, who might succeed Netanyahu, is more for war than anybody else – he wanted to pre-emptively strike Hezbollah in Lebanon.
Sammy Finkelman (1d215a) — 11/30/2023 @ 4:43 pm1.7 million Afghans have been expelled from Pakistan to Taliban ruled Afghanistan
Sammy Finkelman (1d215a) — 11/30/2023 @ 4:44 pm@24 read todays nyt article on netanyahu knowing attack was coming and even warned of date of attack and still refused to send troops from west bank.
asset (e9353b) — 11/30/2023 @ 10:51 pmasset (e9353b) — 11/30/2023 @ 10:51 pm
That’ not what in the nyt front page story that I read.
Sammy Finkelman (1d215a) — 12/1/2023 @ 11:31 am