Mosab Hassan Yousef

Mosab Hassan Yousef (مصعب حسن يوسف; now known as Joseph; born 1978 (age 46)) is a Palestinian and son of a Hamas founder and leader Sheikh Hassan Yousef. From 1997 to 2007, he worked undercover for Israel's internal security service Shin Bet, which considered him its most valuable source within the Hamas leadership.

According to Israeli sources, the information Yousef supplied prevented dozens of suicide attacks and assassinations of Israelis, exposed numerous Hamas cells, and assisted Israel in hunting down many militants, including his own father. In March 2010, he published his autobiography entitled Son of Hamas. .

Yousef has since converted to Christianity and moved to California. His request for political asylum in the United States was granted pending a routine background check on June 30, 2010.

Early life
Yousef was born in Ramallah, a city 10 km north of Jerusalem. His father, Sheikh Hassan Yousef, was a Hamas founder and leader who spent many years in Israeli prisons. He is the oldest of five brothers and three sisters.

According to Yousef, when he was growing up he wanted to be a fighter because that was expected of Arab children in the West Bank. Yousef was first arrested when he was ten, during the First Intifada, for throwing rocks at Israeli settlers. He was further arrested and jailed by the Israelis numerous times. As his father's eldest son, he was seen as his heir apparent and became an important part of the Hamas organization.

Working for the Shin Bet
Yousef claims that his doubts about Islam and Hamas began forming when he realized Hamas' brutality, and that he hated how Hamas used the lives of suffering civilians and children to achieve their goals.

Yousef was held by Shin Bet agents in 1996. He claims that while in prison, he became appalled as he compared Shin Bet's interrogation methods to how Hamas operatives tortured imprisoned suspected collaborators. He decided to accept a Shin Bet approach to become an informant. Since his release from prison in 1997, Yousef was considered the 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. The intelligence he supplied Israel led to the exposure of a number of Hamas cells as well as the prevention of dozens of suicide bombings and assassination attempts on Israeli figures. He has claimed that he did not inform for money but rather that his motivations were ideological and religious, and that he only wanted to save lives. In order to thwart any suspicions of collaboration, the Shin Bet staged an arrest attempt, telling the Israel Defense Forces to launch an operation to arrest him, and then provided him intelligence allowing him to escape at the last minute, after which he went into hiding for the rest of his career.

Yousef has stated that he supplied intelligence only on the condition that the "targets" would not be killed, but arrested. This led to the detention of several key Palestinian leaders, including Ibrahim Hamid, a Hamas commander in the West Bank, and Marwan Barghouti. Also, Yousef claims to have thwarted a 2001 plot to assassinate Shimon Peres, then foreign minister and now President of Israel. "Many people owe him their lives and don't even know it", says his former Shin Bet officer.

Conversion to Christianity
In 1999, Yousef met a British missionary who introduced him to Christianity. Between the years 1999 and 2000, Yousef gradually embraced Christianity. In 2005, he was secretly baptized in Tel Aviv by a Christian tourist. He left the West Bank for the United States in 2007 and lived some time in San Diego, California, where he joined the Barabbas Road Church.

In August 2008, Yousef publicly revealed his Christianity and renounced Hamas and the Arab leadership, thereby endangering himself and exposing his family in Ramallah to persecution. Yousef has also claimed that his aim was to bring peace to the Middle East. He still hopes to return to Israel when there is peace.

2010 revelation about spying for Israel
Yousef's autobiography, Son of Hamas: A Gripping Account of Terror, Betrayal, Political Intrigue, and Unthinkable Choices  (ISBN 1-4143-3307-2), written with the assistance of Ron Brackin, was published in March, 2010 by Tyndale House, making public his spying activity.

Family reactions
Ouwais Yousef, Mosab's brother, denounced the report of his brother's activities, saying "It was full of lies – it's all lies"; he also revealed that the last contact between his family and Mosab took place over a year before the news of his spying.

Sheikh Hassan Yousef, Mosab's father, while in an Israeli prison, disowned his son for spying for Israel.

Hamas reaction
The Haaretz report on Yousef was described by Hamas MP Mushir al-Masri as "psychological war being waged against the Palestinian people...[it] did not deserve a response."

Deportation and political asylum
For a time, Mosab Hassan Yousef was threatened with deportation from the US after his request for political asylum was denied, since statements in his book about working for Hamas were interpreted as providing material support to a U.S.-designated terrorist organization," despite Yousef's explanation that they were "intended to undermine the group." His case then proceeded to the deportation stage, despite Yousef’s advocates warning that he would likely be executed by the Palestinian Authority if deported to the West Bank.

On June 24, 2010 Shin Bet handler Gonen Ben-Itzhak, who for 10 years worked with Mosab Hassan Yousef under the cryptonym "Loai," revealed his own identity in order to testify on behalf of Yousef at an immigration hearing in San Diego. Itzhak described Yousef as a "true friend" and said "he risked his life every day in order to prevent violence."

Partially as a result of this, Immigration Court Judge Richard J. Bartolomei, Jr. ruled, on June 30, 2010, that Yousef will be allowed to remain in the United States after he is fingerprinted and passes a routine background check.

Films
Yousef is collaborating with Israeli producer Sam Feuer, in the production of two films: a feature film adaptation of Yousef's book Son of Hamas, and a historical depiction of the life of the Prophet Muhammad based on the accounts of eighth-century historian Ibn Ishaq.