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Jerusalem (CNN) -- The son of a Hamas official worked for Israeli intelligence and was the Jewish state's "most valuable source in the militant organization's leadership," a news report said Wednesday.

The Israeli newspaper Haaretz said Mosab Hassan Yousef, 32, son of the Palestinian Islamic movement Hamas founder Sheikh Hassan Yousef, was an informant for Israel's domestic security service known as the Shin Bet, beginning in 1997. He had been recruited while serving time in prison.

The information Yousef passed on was considered so important and saved so many lives that his Shin Bet handlers gave him the nickname "The Green Prince," a reference to his relation to the Hamas founder and the color of the movement's flag.

Yousef was instrumental in the arrest of a number of top Palestinian officials, including Fatah leader Marwan Barghouti and Hamas military wing members Abdullah Barghouti and Ibrahim Hamid, the report said.

The report is based on Haaretz's interview with Yousef and on excerpts from his soon-to-be-released memoir called "Son of Hamas."

In 2007, Yousef left the region for the United States and spoke publicly about his conversion to Christianity and his renunciation of Hamas.

In the Haaretz article, a former Israeli handler described Yousef as being so valuable that he deserved to win the Israel security prize.

"His grasp of intelligence matters was just as good as ours -- the ideas, the insights," said the handler identified as Capt. Loai in Yousef's book, Haaretz reported. "One insight of his was worth 1,000 hours of thought by top experts," he is quoted as saying.

Gideon Ezra, a former Shin Bet chief who stepped down before Yousef was reportedly recruited, said it was unusual for one informant to pass on information "on so many acts of terror" and characterized the case as an exception.

"I don't know anyone who was in the Hamas and who became a Christian. But only because he went to the United States and became a Christian did he write such a book. Because I don't think an agent here would do the same," Ezra said.

Ezra said the Shin Bet -- also known as the Shabak -- has hundreds of agents providing information. "I don't think that he is the only one who helped the Shabak," he said.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's office, which speaks publicly for the Shin Bet, refused to comment.

In a phone interview, Yousef told Haaretz that he was speaking out about his informant activities as a means of sending a message of peace to Israel.

"Hamas cannot make peace with the Israelis," Yousef is quoted as saying, "That is against what their God tells them. It is impossible to make peace with infidels. ... The Hamas leadership is responsible for the killing of Palestinians, not Israelis."

Yousef also expressed regret that much of his work with the Shin Bet could be undone by a deal to release Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit, whom Hamas captured in 2006.

"I wish I were in Gaza now," the paper quotes him. "I would put on an army uniform and join Israel's special forces in order to liberate Gilad Shalit. If I were there, I could help. 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."

A Hamas member of Parliament in Gaza, Mushir al-Masri, told CNN the report amounted to "psychological war being waged against the Palestinian people" and that it "did not deserve a response."

Ouwais Yousef, Mosab's brother, said the family had not spoken with Mosab for more than a year. Asked about the Haaretz report, the brother said, "It was full of lies -- it's all lies."

His father, Sheikh Yousef, is serving time in an Israeli prison. An attorney for the elder Yousef obtained a statement from the father saying Hamas knew of his son's contact with Israeli intelligence and adding that he "was not on any day an active member in the ranks of Hamas, in the wings of the movement. ..."

According to the statement, the elder Yousef said, "Since in 1996, when he was 17 years of age, he was subjected to a blackmail and pressure from Israeli intelligence. When it was revealed from that date, the members of the movement were informed about him, and [he] was under the control of his father and the movement, and what has been published of activities he has done against the movement and its mujahedeens and others from the Palestinian people is an outright lie and baseless lie, and there is not one single evidence against him because his relationship with his father was a family relationship only."

And this is true because Israel says so???

Bora Bora wrote:And this is true because Israel says so???

Perhaps, just as tru as the killers in Dubai are Israely because the UAE says so????

Anyway it is a "diversionary" story...

Sadly, a lot of Palestinians work as informants for Israel!

Two are now being held here in Dubai in connection with the latest Hamas leader murder!

There's nothing new under the sun.

From Judas to collaborators in France there will always be those who are attracted to the lure of money, fame and fortune.

I wonder how many double agents are out there!

Cheers,
Shafique

Here's an interview from him, some excerpts:

The younger Yousef is well aware of the implications of this interview, and how it will likely offend his family, as well as of the slim chance that he will be able to return to Ramallah one day. But apparently he is on a crusade of his own. "I know that I'm endangering my life and am even liable to lose my father, but I hope that he'll understand this and that God will give him and my family the patience and willingness to open their eyes to Jesus and to Christianity. Maybe one day I'll be able to return to Palestine and to Ramallah together with Jesus, in the Kingdom of God."

Masab-Joseph has five brothers and two sisters. He is in regular contact with them and keeps them informed of his situation. However, until recently he refrained from telling his family that he had converted to Christianity, and at the time of this interview his father the sheikh still did not know that his son had converted. And in spite of the secrecy surrounding his conversion, sometimes he seems like a veteran missionary who is trying to get entire communities to change.

"You'll see, this interview will open many people's eyes, it will shake Islam from the roots, and I'm not exaggerating. What other case do you know where a son of a Hamas leader, who was raised on the tenets of extremist Islam, comes out against it? Although I was never a terrorist, I was a part of them, surrounded by them all the time."

How were you exposed to Christianity?

"It began about eight years ago. I was in Jerusalem and I received an invitation to come and hear about Christianity. Out of curiosity I went. I was very enthusiastic about what I heard. I began to read the Bible every day and I continued with religion lessons. I did it in secret, of course. I used to travel to the Ramallah hills, to places like the Al Tira neighborhood, and to sit there quietly with the amazing landscape and read the Bible. A verse like "Love thine enemy" had a great influence on me. At this stage I was still a Muslim and I thought that I would remain one. But every day I saw the terrible things done in the name of religion by those who considered themselves 'great believers.' I studied Islam more thoroughly and found no answers there. I reexamined the Koran and the principals of the faith and found how it is mistaken and misleading. The Muslims borrowed rituals and traditions from all the surrounding religions."

"I respect Israel and admire it as a country. I'm opposed to a policy of killing civilians, or using them as a means to an end, and I understand that Israel has a right to defend itself. The Palestinians, if they don't have an enemy to fight, will fight each other. In about 20 years from now you'll remember what I'm telling you, the conflict will be among various groups within Hamas. They're already beginning to quarrel over control of the money."

He does not conceal his abhorrence of everything representing the human surroundings in which he grew up: the nation, the religion, the organization.

"You Jews should be aware: You will never, but never have peace with Hamas. Islam, as the ideology that guides them, will not allow them to achieve a peace agreement with the Jews. They believe that tradition says that the Prophet Mohammed fought against the Jews and that therefore they must continue to fight them to the death. They have to take revenge against anyone who did not agree to accept the Prophet Mohammed, like the Jews who are seen in the Koran as monkeys and the sons of pigs. They speak in terms of historical rights that were taken from them. In the view of Hamas, peace with Israel contradicts sharia and the Koran, and the Jews have no right to remain in Palestine."

Is that the justification for the suicide attacks?

"More than that. An entire society sanctifies death and the suicide terrorists. In Palestinian culture a suicide terrorist becomes a hero, a martyr. Sheikhs tell their students about the 'heroism of the shaheeds' and that causes the young people to imitate the suicide bombers, in order to achieve glory. I'll give you an example. I once met a young man named Dia Tawil. He was a quiet boy, an outstanding student. Not a Muslim extremist and not radical in his ideas against the Israelis. I never heard extreme statements from him. He didn't even come from a religious family: His father was a communist and his sister was a journalist who didn't wear a head covering. But Bilal Barghouti [one of the heads of the military arm of Hamas in the West Bank] didn't need more than a few months to convince him to become a suicide terrorist." (Tawil, 19, blew himself up in March 2001 next to a bus at the French Hill junction in Jerusalem; 31 people were wounded.)

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1007462.html

Eh wasn't it a state built on "Jewish" identity.. and Didn't you know what the word "israel" means and its consequences on the wishy-washy muslims.

Berrin wrote:Eh wasn't it a state built on "Jewish" identity.. and Didn't you know what the word "israel" means and its consequences on the wishy-washy muslims.

That the Koran prophecies the establishment of the Jewish state?