Mosab Hassan Yousef
Mosab Hassan Yousef (Arabic: مصعب حسن يوسف; born 5 May 1978) is an ex–Palestinian militant who defected to Israel in 1997, thereafter working as an Israeli spy for the Shin Bet until he moved to the United States in 2007.[2][3] The Shin Bet considered Yousef to be Israel's most valuable source within the Hamas leadership: the information he supplied allowed Israel to successfully thwart dozens of Palestinian suicide attacks against civilians and prevent the assassinations of many Israeli civilians and soldiers; exposed numerous Hamas cells; and assisted Israeli authorities in hunting down Palestinian militants.[6] In 1999, Yousef converted to Christianity from Islam, being formally baptised in 2004, but did not disclose this fact to the public until 2008 due to fears that his family members in Ramallah would become targets for religious persecution by Islamist groups.[7][1] In 2007, he left the West Bank and moved to the United States where he applied for political asylum and had his request granted by American authorities in 2010 following Shin Bet handler Gonen Ben Itzhak testifying on his behalf.[10][11] Palestinian students and community leaders at university campuses have accused him of Islamophobia, and his speeches have attracted protests both in support of and opposition to his controversial views."During that time, Hamas tortured and killed hundreds of prisoners," he said, recalling vivid memories of needles being inserted under fingernails and bodies charred with burning plastics.Mosab began to question who his real enemies were: the Hamas leaders who tortured their fellow Palestinian prisoners, or the Shin Bet, who arrested and imprisoned him.The intelligence he supplied to Israel led to the exposure of many Hamas cells, as well as the prevention of dozens of suicide bombings and assassination attempts on Jews.This led to the detention of several key Palestinian leaders, including Ibrahim Hamid, a Hamas commander in the West Bank, and Marwan Barghouti.[5] In May 2016, talking to a Jerusalem Post conference in New York, Yousef said that at one point, he was simultaneously working for and being paid by Israel, the United States, the Palestinian Authority, and Hamas.[27][28] Partially as a result of this, Immigration Court Judge Richard J. Bartolomei, Jr., ruled on 30 June 2010, that Yousef would be allowed to remain in the United States after being fingerprinted and passing a routine background check.When I touch the religious and ideological aspect of the conflict, which is fundamental — I cannot ignore it — when I say Islam is a problem, many Jewish organizations say: Wait a moment, he will be considered an Islamophobe, that's not how we want to represent ourselves.Yousef's co-authored autobiography, Son of Hamas: A Gripping Account of Terror, Betrayal, Political Intrigue, and Unthinkable Choices, written with the assistance of Ron Brackin, was published in March 2010.