(Mosab Hassan Yousef poses for a photo before a news conference in Jerusalem June 19, 2012. REUTERS/Ronen Zvulun)
A Hamas leader’s son who spied on the Palestinian Islamist movement for Israel, and then wrote about his exploits while in exile, has turned his sights on the religion of his father.
On a rare visit to Jerusalem, just a short car ride from the family that disowned him in the occupied West Bank, Mosab Hassan Yousef told journalists he was making a film about the Prophet Mohammad that would reveal his “real nature” to Muslims.
“This is time to free people from the absolute control of religion, by reasoning, by a better understanding,” he told a news conference. It turned testy as he was challenged on his assertion that Islam was a “religion of war” compared to other major faiths, and his defense of contentious Israeli policies.
Yousef secretly converted to Christianity and helped the Shin Bet security service in the late 1990s and early 2000s, when Hamas waged suicide bomb campaigns against Israel. He was codenamed “Green Prince” after the Islamist color and the fact that his father, Hassan Yousef, led Hamas in the West Bank.
