The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast - 443. The Brutal Reality of the Middle East | Mosab Hassan Yousef

Episode Date: April 25, 2024

Dr. Jordan B. Peterson sits down in person with Mosab Hassan Yousef. They discuss the ongoing conflict in the Middle East, the chaos created by Yasser Arafat, how Palestine has globalized their radical cause, Mosabs time as a prisoner, what set him free, and the far-from-paved road going forward. Mosab Hassan Yousef (born in 1978) is a Palestinian ex-militant who defected to Israel in 1997 where he worked as an undercover agent for the Shin Bet until he moved to the United States in 2007. Yousef was considered the Shin Bet's most reliable source in the Hamas leadership, earning himself the nickname "The Green Prince.” 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. Yousef's father is Sheikh Hassan Yousef, a co-founder of Hamas.  - Links - 2024 tour details can be found here https://jordanbpeterson.com/events   Peterson Academy https://petersonacademy.com/    For Mosab Hassan Yousef: On X https://twitter.com/MosabHasanYOSEF?ref_src=twsrc%5Egoogle%7Ctwcamp%5Eserp%7Ctwgr%5Eauthor “Son of Hamas: A Gripping Account of Terror, Betrayal, Political Intrigue, and Unthinkable Choices” (book) https://www.amazon.com/Son-of-Hamas-Mosab-Hassan-Yousef-audiobook/dp/B006PJC4H2/?_encoding=UTF8&pd_rd_w=PheAV&content-id=amzn1.sym.cf86ec3a-68a6-43e9-8115-04171136930a&pf_rd_p=cf86ec3a-68a6-43e9-8115-04171136930a&pf_rd_r=138-3764402-1287437&pd_rd_wg=fLHUm&pd_rd_r=8445617a-f7bd-45ef-bcff-98e77e6b26f5&ref_=aufs_ap_sc_dsk 

Hello everybody. I had the opportunity today to talk to Mr. Mossab Hassan Youssef, who's a very complicated person. He spent a lot of his life north of Jerusalem. His father is Sheikh Hassan Youssef, who's a co-founder of Hamas. He told me that he loved his father but came to believe that his orientation in the world was deeply misguided. He said the same thing about his culture in general. He had a very brutal childhood. He grew up during a sequence of antifatuses, became conversant with bloodshed and the death of children at a very early age in his life.

And that isn't the worst of it by a large margin. He started to work for the Israeli intelligence in 1997. He was born in 1978 and was a very reliable source for them in relationship to the doings of Hamas. He involved himself in the prevention of suicide bombings, most particularly. We talk quite broadly about the situation in the Middle East, about the culture that he was raised in, about the transformation of his attitude towards Israel as a state,

the Israelis as people, his understanding of what constituted Palestine, and the general situation in the Middle East. It's a very intense interview to say the least. I suppose part of what I walked away from it concluding was that, you know, fools rush in where angels fear to tread, and everybody has an opinion about Israel and Gaza, and most of us don't have the wisdom or the experience to do anything but remain silent in

the face of what's happening there. You can watch and listen to Mosav Yosef and draw your own conclusions about the catastrophe unfolding in the Middle East. His conclusion was that alliance with the Israelis is the best pathway forward, not only for the West, but for the Arab world. There's many people in the Arab world who believe that as well. You know, it's why the Abraham Accords are holding in face, even in the face of Iran's attempts to tear that accord to shreds. So buckle up, it's a wild ride. So obviously there's a terrible mess in the Middle East and everybody has an opinion about it, but everyone's also woefully under, what would you call it,

under informed with regards to the situation there, because it's unbelievably complicated. And so I think people take sides and make opinions without knowing the first thing about what's actually happening. And so I want to ask you a bunch of, like, really basic questions, and we can flesh out the landscape for everybody who's watching and listening.

So the first question I'd like to ask you is what is Hamas exactly? How would you characterize it? You know, before actually we say what is Hamas, we need to ask ourselves what is Palestine? Okay. what is Palestine? Okay, because Palestine is non-existential and it was never a country, it's not ethnic group, it's not a religion, it's not a faith, it's a colonial entity created by that lived for about 25 years. And Jews, Arabs, Druze, Christians, Zionists were called Palestinians before the termination of the British mandate. It was called the British Mandate of Palestine.

So the mandate itself had the name Palestine. Now, this is all taking place after World War One, when the after the collapse of the Ottoman Empire. Right, right, right. So the empire collapses. There's there's questions about how the political boundary should be drawn, the British established this state known as Palestine. And so what should people think about that exactly? Like, what do you think people should think about the fact that the British were involved? I mean, they won World War I

and the Ottoman Empire collapsed. So there was some mopping up to do and often those things are done in a hurry and with less than optimal information, let's say. Yes. Well, the Ottoman Empire continued for about 400 years. During that time, they ethnically cleansed the Jewish people from their land,

which explains why the Jewish people were all over the place. After World War I and all the atrocities and the persecution of the Jewish people, they felt the need to seek refuge, and the homeland was the best option for the Jewish people. Now, this led to clashes between the colonizer, which was the British Empire, and the Jewish people. The Jewish people fought for their independence and they shed blood in the process. Also the Arabs did the same.

In 1948, when the United Nations divided the land, given the opportunity to the Jews and the Arabs to build and establish their own states. The Jews declared their independence, but the Arabs declared war against the Jews. And I think this is a very important point to understand. There was no such a thing as Palestine. And when we talk about the British mandate of Palestine, it was never a state. It was just a transitional period from the collapse of the Ottoman Empire

to the termination of the British mandate. And that was less than 28 years. So that termination was in 1948? In 1947. Okay. Okay. So why in your estimation weren't two states established at that time? A state for the Palestinian Arabs and a state for the Jews?

From Muslim point of view, and this is where it gets tricky, this is where nobody wants to talk about, the ideological religious dimension of this war. From Islamic point of view, the Al-Aqsa Mosque and the surrounding areas does not define boundary. The surrounding areas could be a hundred miles, could be 500 miles. It is an Islamic trust that no Muslim leader has the authority to give it away to the non-Muslims. So when the Jewish people returned to their homeland, the Muslims outraged. And that's the most fundamental reason and motive

for the Arabs and Muslims to fight against Israel, because they consider that territory as an Islamic land. Right, and that's the mosque that's built on what was the Temple Mount. Exactly it's actually the history of the mosque is it's about approximately 1300 years but the Jewish temple beneath is a lot older than that and the Jewish ruins in Judea and Samaria still erected actually. And the Jewish people have overwhelming evidence of artifacts and archaeology that support their existence over centuries, millennia.

But the Muslims don't. There is no currency, there is no book, there is no Bible, there is only a building that is 1300 years old. And this is why for the Jewish people, don't have a problem in principle to coexist with other ethnic groups. Like the, even the Zionist movement did not have a problem to have a two-state solution back in the day, while the Muslims refuse completely having a Jewish existence on that land. The same way in Mecca, non-Muslims are not allowed

to enter Mecca, even to drive through Mecca. The same thing they want the situation to be in Jerusalem. How did you come to these conclusions? I mean, I don't imagine this is how you looked at the world when you were young. So how did you come to these conclusions? I understand that your father, Sheikh Hassan Youssef, is a co-founder of Hamas. So obviously that's complicated, to say the least. So when did, tell me how you looked at things when you were a young man and then what events in your life started to change your mind?

Since I was very young, I had- How old are you now? I'm 45 years. 45, okay, okay. So you were born in about 1980? Since I was very young, I had critical thinking. How old are you now? I'm 45 years old. 45, okay. So you were born in about 1980? 1978. 78, yeah.

So I had critical thinking from the early beginning of my life. When the mullah told the funeral crowd that the angels of heaven are going to come back and interrogate this deceased in the grave and they're going to bring his soul back, they're going to torture him and if he does not answer the right question it's going to be an open hell. I went back to the graveyard and I investigated. I was only 10 years old. And since that point of my life, I did not find death intimidating as much as actually became my drive to seek a higher truth. It led me eventually. So tell me about that again. I don't understand that story exactly. What event was that? So basically in the Islamic belief, there is something called the grave torture. This

is a device the religious authorities use to control the Muslim population. When the person dies in the grave, supposedly, there is torture and there is interrogation. If the person doesn't know who is his God, who is his prophet, if he failed to answer the questions regarding the religion, they're going to be tortured painfully. They're like a... So it's like a last judgment sort of... Yes, but it happens in the transitional period. Yeah.

So, because people die, you know, and they've been dying for thousands of years, so when the afterlife hell is going to happen, which is a fundamental thing in Islam, the afterlife heaven and hell. So many people die. is there a torture? So they come up with the story that there is a grave torture. Whether Muhammad said this or not, but it's widely believed in the Islamic faith. And many people were afraid.

When I was very young, I asked all my friends to go back with me to the cemetery and none of them agreed. And when I went back, I was terrified. Eventually, I did not hear any screaming, any torture. And I put my ear to the ground, trying to listen. You did this alone? I did this alone because nobody, none of my friends

would come back with me to the graveyard. It's terrifying. Was this during the day? It was during the day. During the day. But eventually, I found my peace even at nighttime. And this might sound a bit psychic, but I reached the point that was my challenge to myself,

where was I able to lay down in an open grave and look at the stars at midnight. How old were you when you did that? I was maybe 12, 13 years old. What do you think drove you to do that? It's my fear of death. Yeah. Because the entire culture.

Usually people avoid it though, rather than confronting it. Well, it sounds strange, but this is when I made peace with death. Yeah, yeah, because the entire culture... Usually people avoid it though, rather than confronting it. Well, it sounds strange, but this is when I made peace with death. And this is actually what empowers me, what empowered me throughout my journey. Right, so that's very young when you did that. Yes. How many times did you go visit a grave? So basically we were just We were just next to the graveyard. And this is not actually the most important thing of observing death and having an early age encounter with death. That the first Palestinian Intifada started when I was living in that neighborhood. And you were living where exactly? Right next to the cemetery.

So here is the cemetery wall and here is my bed. And where are you geographically located at that point? That's Ramallah and the Al Bira. To the north of Jerusalem. Okay. It's the capital of what's the Palestinian North. So you're north of Jerusalem. Okay. Okay. So you're the capital of what's the Palestinian of.

Okay. Okay. So you're north of Jerusalem. Yes. Right. But this was we were at the heart of the conflict. And now all the bloodshed or the youngsters who got shot during the first person and father were buried next door. So I guarantee you that there is no one in that conflict that witnessed firsthand bloodshed as much as it did as a child. Hundreds of people were buried next door, whether they died naturally or they died because of the conflict or internal conflict between Hamas and Fatah where, you know, they shot

each other or stabbed each other. So the entire conflict was displayed in front of my eyes as a child. And I couldn't find a stronger motive. Why are we suffering? Why are we dying? And who's doing this to us? Of course, the narrative on the Palestinian

street that this is Israel, this is the Jewish people killing us and as a child I did not have the power to discern, to see a higher truth, how could I? Same thing with the children now because they suffer the consequences of war but they don't realize or understand how the war originated. So in that situation, I had the trauma of the first Palestinian Intifada and all the memories stay with me.

This is what empowers me to carry on. And that was when about, that would be? 1987. 87, okay. 1987 to 1992, 1990. What's the definition of Antifada? Chaos. People call it uprising, but the very definition, not only of Antifada, of Palestine, very similar

definitions, it's chaos, it's disorder, it's anti-establishment. How does it arise? Well simply Yasser Arafat sitting in Tunisia, this is supposed to be the father of the Palestinian revolution. Yeah the same Yasser Arafat who died with like four billion dollars that Yasser Arafat? A lot more. Yasser Arafat was an Egyptian con artist. He was born in Egypt with an Egyptian accent. It was so obvious to know that he's Egyptian,

but everybody was in denial that he's Palestinian and he's the father of the Palestinian revolution. After they were kicked out of Jordan, of Lebanon, and they end up in Tunisia, some 2,000 miles away, they came up with the idea to engineer the Intifada. They wanted trouble, but from within. They knew that this could be a lot more effective than trying to destroy Israel from outside. And they sent children to die. This has been their mechanism, their strategy.

And who's they? When I say they, all those who are complicit in this continuous crime, all those who sacrifice children for power and for money. It's a fundamental part of that culture. We have to understand this. First was the ideological dimension that I told you about.

Then sacrificing children is not something that makes them feel guilty. It's acceptable in that culture. So now, as a student, masked men used to come, and we were just fifth and sixth grade, we were very young, and we'd force all students to evacuate the school. They paralyzed the educational system, they paralyzed the economy, transportation, and they wanted complete chaos. And until today, I ask myself, if you were fighting against Israel, why would you stop the education and the economy

and all other aspects of the Arab life in the West Bank? This is what intifada means. So instead of going to school, we stayed at home for the first two or three years of the first Palestinian intifada. We did not go to school. Now, instead, many of the children got engaged in stone throwing, and this became our game. I was part of that game. Many of my friends got shot in the process, throwing stones at the IDF, or what we used to call them,

settlers, just clashing. Of course, many civilians got hurt in the process. So they did not want us to go to schools and I did not understand why. What about the economy? What about the people who were forced to shut down their stores? And if they did not obey, they became traitors. And in the morning they came back to their stores and they were burnt down to ashes. So by the means of intimidation, Yasser Arafat sitting in luxury, like Haniya today sitting in luxury in Qatar. And what's in common between all these con artists that they were outsiders, living outside

while they wanted the children to die on their behalf because what really globalized the intifada or the Palestinian cause is the children during the first Palestinian intifada when the world saw a child in the face of a Modern army And that was outrageous and everybody in the face of a modern army. And that was outrageous. And everybody sympathized with the cause.

So how did the leaders of the Intifada benefit personally from putting children on the front line? What's the money pipeline, precisely? I mean, Arafat ended up with an absolute bloody fortune, like an insane fortune, and I know the same thing is happening. How exactly is that monetized? Is the suffering of children produces an influx of foreign aid that's then pocketed essentially? Yes, because on one hand, they delegitimize Israel.

Israel become a child killer. Right. Because on one hand, they delegitimize Israel. Israel become a child killer. Right, right. Then there is no one in the world that does not sympathize with children dying. Right. So there is no more destructive or powerful weapon in the hands of a corrupt revolution that don't want to fight.

They didn't have the courage to actually fight in combat, but they preferred that their children would die on their behalf, in the meantime delegitimize Israel and globalize their cause. The international community don't know the reality 100% on the ground. They don't understand this game. Even up to now, they see Hamas using children as human shields, which is very obvious. This is what Hamas wanted from this war. The international community is still in denial. So when children die, this will lead to more chaos. It would lead to war.

It would lead to today, a global chaos. But how do you deflate the tension? You deflate the tension by going to the middle man, pay him off, and he's going to stop the madness. And this is how they paid off Yasser Arafat, paid off Hamas. This is the Gaza war today, this is not the first one. This is the fifth one.

And every time Hamas started the war, they used human shields. Children died. Hamas exaggerated the numbers, the statistics. They weren't accurate. The international community bent over and submitted to a ceasefire, which basically guaranteed Hamas staying in power. But now how do you silence Hamas for a while? By giving them lots of money.

But this time Hamas thought they could double down on human shields by putting boogie traps all over the place. Schools, hospitals, mosques. They did not leave any secret location in Gaza without using it as a shooting pad, digging hundreds of miles of tunnels beneath one of the most populated areas on earth. And how come that wasn't widely known? How come that wasn't widely known in the West? Well, this is obvious. This is obvious, but the world is in denial because it's much easier to condemn Israel. You know, when we have close to two billion Muslims repeating a certain narrative, a false narrative that is baseless, that say Palestine, and we say the very

foundation of this narrative, there is no such a thing as Palestine. It never existed. But everybody suddenly became a pro-Palestine. All the anti- Well it fits into the oppressor-opressed narrative right there. It's the victim narrative, it's the victim mentality. So now even in the United States, the anti-bankers, those who are in debt or anti-establishment, communists, feminists, socialists, Islamists are coming in the same room protesting or opposing as pro-Palestine. Yeah.

Well, what is Palestine? Well, you are extreme opposites that you should not be in the same avenue at all. Yeah. Without Israel, you would be conspiring to destroy each other, Islamists and communists. But suddenly now you are pairing. So this phenomenon of Palestine, it just, it's basically, it shows you falsehood versus truth. And the-

Yeah, well, there's something really fundamental to that victim victimizer narrative, right? That's underlying all of this. And if you can tap into that, then you get all the, well, you certainly get all the left-wing radicals on your side instantly because they're, of course, 100% bought into the victim-victimizer narrative and it enables them to explain the world and also to be moral because all you have to do is identify with the hypothetical victim.

The thing I see happening in Palestine, and you can clear up any misconceptions on my part, is like I've thought for decades that the Palestinians are sacrificial victims for any outside powers that want to delegitimize Israel. And it doesn't matter how many Palestinians die because they're essentially expendable. And that seems to me particularly true in relationship to Iran.

So it's completely in Iran's fundamental interest to foment this chaos that you described. It's not in the best interest of the Palestinians in anything like the medium to long run, but it doesn't matter as long as the trouble keeps occurring. It's hard on Israel. It's hard on the United States. It helps Iran maintain its, like, its iron grip.

It obviously seems to be obvious that many people in the Arab world are waking up to that, have woken up to that. I think that's why the Abraham Accords have more or less held through this because there are powerful forces allied against Iran, most fundamentally, but it's in their best interest to keep the misery in Palestine going as long as it possibly can. And my suspicions are that what happened on October 7th was command directly, please, you know, feel free to disagree with me, but this is how it looks to me, is that the Iranians decided that it was time to stir the pot, and they produced this massacre,

and they hoped they'd provoke Israel into exactly the sort of reaction that Israel is having, and that Israel would take the threat extraordinarily seriously and move in. As their military victory mounted, public opinion would turn against them and it would fragment the Abraham Accords. I suspect that was their plan.

What do you think about that? Is that in accordance with your understanding of the situation? Absolutely. This is Iran's attempt to actually rearrange the region. Right. But I don't want to go too far that also China and Russia have ambition of reshaping the world.

Yes. Changing the world order. Yes. We don't want to go too far. No, because God only knows how that's going to turn out. But it's basically Iran, Russia, China. They made it very clear that they don't want the United States monopoly over power. They want to change the world order.

Putin understands, he understands completely what it really meant for Hamas to go and ethnically cleanse 20 Jewish communities. And it was not coincidental right after the Ukraine-Russian war, where all the attention was at Europe. And we saw after what happened in Gaza, nobody talked about Ukraine. Right, right, right, right. When you bring the three major religions and make them clash somehow. The Hamas was the trigger. Probably I doubt that Hamas understand the KGB and Putin's play, but they are part of it. And Putin is complicit in this situation. So Iran does

not act on its own. You know, when they launched, for example, hundreds of ballistic missiles in the 21st century, this is a major attack. I haven't witnessed this in our lifetime. Maybe the Iraqi war, but it was not on this scale. So anyway, yes, these people don't care for the global security. They are irresponsible. And worse than this, that we have experience with the communists or let's say communist Islamic ideologies that they reached and did end.

They failed. The communist Islamic model did not bear fruit. It did not emancipate humanity, did not solve the human problem. And they still insist on replacing capitalism. I don't think capitalism is the perfect solution, but it's the better option for sure. So anyway, they insisting and they want this to keep going. Anyway, they insisting and they want this to keep going. And when we have a weak leadership, with due respect, the Biden administration is not showing leadership. And in the Muslim culture, the Arab culture, they don't understand tolerance. There is no such a thing, They don't understand tolerance. There is no such a thing.

Not in the Muslim consciousness. Maybe forgiveness, but not tolerance. And tolerance is mostly perceived as weakness. And I speak as someone who grew up in that culture. So every time, you know, when Trump was there, for example, everybody was terrified of him, unpredictable, and you don't know what he's going to do next. So he moved the American embassy to Jerusalem. Nobody dared even to challenge him.

Yeah, right. Yes. Not even riots or any of that. Right, yeah. But now the Obama administration, then now the Biden administration, then now the Biden administration, the Americans and the American power is not respected. They've enabled Iran?

Yes. Yeah, one of the things that appalled me when Biden took office is that I've been following the Abraham Accords quite closely because I thought they were, well, really quite the miracle. And I knew from talking to people who were involved firsthand that the Saudis were very interested in having that process continue and very inclined to sign on. And my sense with the Biden administration was that that got scuttled because the Democrats were completely unwilling to give Trump any credit for anything he did during his administration. And I thought that was absolutely unforgivable because it would have been, and the Democrats could have pulled this off. They could have brought Saudi Arabia into the Abraham courts and they squandered the opportunity. And that's a complete catastrophe as far as I'm concerned, an unforgivable catastrophe. And here we are now as a consequence of it, at least in part. Let's go back to when you were 13. I want

to pick up the thread of that story. Okay, so you're, you're seeing all this catastrophe, this chaos that you described that redounds to the benefit of the con men who are running the show, for example, and that is there to delegitimize Israel and the United States and to redound to the credit, let's say, of the Iranians operating the background. You're seeing all the consequences of this firsthand. You decide that for a variety of complicated reasons, you decide that you're going to face your fear of death. You have this graveyard next, you're going there to investigate and to experiment. What was the consequence of doing that for you? And then how does that tie in with your transformation of worldview over time?

When I was very young, and this is stuff I don't like to talk about because I choose not to be a victim. Yeah. And so I don't like to become vulnerable because people think that you are weak. Mm-hmm. Stuff that I don't have to talk about, but I think there is no way around it.

Because many people ask, you know, what motivates you and where are you coming from? When I was very, very young, I was raped in a culture, in a culture that would kill the rapist, but also they would kill the rape victim. So I never told anybody about that story. I never got any support. How old were you? I was five or six years old when that happened.

Now I had to heal on my own and it was a hell of a journey in a society that did not have mercy. That they preferred that I would disappear so I don't bring shame on them. Right. And I witnessed so many women being killed after being raped that the father would prefer to kill his daughter to bury the shame with her not to have to face the society that his daughter was raped. What type of mentality is this? What type of religion is this? And this is not just a culture. Does it reflect on his inability to protect her?

Is that the source of the shame? No, it's his status. It's his status. He's the father of... he could not protect his daughter. Yeah. And now maybe the daughter is pregnant. This was before abortion, et cetera. Okay, the daughter is pregnant.

What is he going to do with the child? No, he prefers to kill the daughter. He does not want to go even to the degree that his grandchild is a result of a rape incident. So, and from the seventh century in Islam, or in Arabia, they killed infants. So when I say sacrificing children, this is not coincidental. It's rooted in that culture.

It's not coincidental, it's rooted in that culture. So for me, it was unjust that I had to actually carry the burden instead of getting the support from the family, from the society, like at least to come and say, who did it? Today I'm 45 years old, I'm a very strong man. I can confront the whole universe if necessary. And up to now, none of them asked the question, who did it? And by the way, I had the power to kill the predator down the road.

He's probably living in a nightmare. Why I didn't actually harm him? Because later on, I got lots of power, even when I was back in the territory But I choose not to instead of going after the rapist. I Went after the belief system And this is where I need to create the change Mm-hmm. I see so you the what's so called the Islam and

I know this is very sensitive what's so called Islam. And I know this is very sensitive topic. If the belief system, if Allah thinks that the rapist and the raped are equal and they deserve the same punishment, then this God does not have authority over my life. And this is where I start questioning the entire belief system and I rebelled.

How come you're still alive? Well, they tried to kill me and they're still trying to. I bet. They have been trying to assassinate me politically at least all these progressives and Muslim brotherhood wearing all type of masks in the United States. They have been trying to discredit me so I cannot even speak for myself, to defend myself, because I'm speaking on behalf of all the wounded children in the region, and I know their game, and I know they don't care for the children. Instead, my father sacrificed me, he said, this is not my son, and I don't know him if you want to kill him, his blood is allowed.

So when you have to choose between a hypothetical God that does not even exist and the future of children or your own child, well we have a fundamental problem here, then you come posing to tell the rest of the universe that Islam is a religion of peace. Well no, we have a big problem here, we have to talk about it. And when I start talking about this, I got cancelled. Yeah, you got cancelled. So, and now I'm labeled Islamophobe. What Islamophobe? I'm confronting this thing and I'm willing to die in its pursuit

because there is no other way. Only the truth can set people free. Only the truth. The same thing with Palestine. It totally depends on the destruction of Israel in order for us to see what Palestine is. And the manifestation of Palestine requires the destruction of Israel. Same thing with the Islamic State. It requires the destruction of civilization. All civilizations combine in order to achieve this global state called Khilafah. But we don't know how it

is going to look like then. So we have first to die. For them to live, then they can prove themselves. It's, if there is anything that defines madness, this is madness. So you were hurt very badly when you were very young and then you lived through the Antifada and you were right beside the graveyard and you decided that you're going to confront death relatively directly and overcome your fear of it. You were doing some religious experimentation really at the same time then. You said that you were testing out this hypothesis that there was torture in the grave. You did that alone because your friends wouldn't come along with you, which is like hardly surprising. So you said that you also decided with regards to being raped that the proper response to

that wasn't to go after the person specifically who was responsible, but to go after something deeper than that, which was the belief system that gave rise to this problem. All right. So now you're 13. Are these ideas already in your imagination? Like when do you start sorting? When was it that you started sorting this out? Some of them were in the form of feelings,

just a gut feeling. I did not have the mean to express them, but I knew them. It was not coincidental that I could not tell my own father about this situation, but later on I knew that my punishment is death. So today I have the power to express myself. I didn't know everything at that time, but believe it or not, I felt it. That this is, this society cannot be trusted. And this is why today when I stand and I tell the world, anyone who identifies as a Muslim, I consider them as a threat.

I don't trust them. And people say, oh, you cannot generalize. This is like insane what you say. No, it's not insane because if their belief system has sentenced me to death many times for crimes that I haven't committed then you pause as a Muslim you carry that identity. How am I supposed to fear towards you? It's like coming to a Jewish refugee during the Nazi era and say, I am a Nazi, come with me, I'm not gonna hurt you. No, you're taking the identity of a Nazi regime. And whether you are the bad cup or the good cup, it doesn't matter. You are serving the same establishment and I'm tired of this moderate versus extremist. Every

individual has the responsibility to know what they are identifying with. My individuality is above all religions and above all gods. I don't accept to just take a label for myself not knowing what I'm getting myself involved into because only my parents pushed that religious identity on me. And if I am at that level of consciousness, then how can I trust you with anything? I cannot trust you with my woman, I cannot trust you with my property, I cannot trust you with my money, I cannot trust you being even close to me because you don't qualify. You don't know your individuality.

You are unpredictable. You can be friendly now, but five minutes later, you can be a part of a crowd and you are going to show me your tasks. You might bite me. So then I have a problem. Okay, what do you make of moves on the part of countries like the UAE and the other countries

that are involved in the Abraham Accords, let's say, because it looks to me like that's a pathway forward, much different than the pathway laid out in Iran that holds out the possibility of something like a rapprochement between, let's say, Christianity, Judaism and Islam. Do you see any hope on that side of things? Yes. With the statement that I made, this is my fundamental stand.

I don't compromise this truth. And I don't respect anyone who identifies themselves as a Muslim, in principle. Because why? Okay. But this is my fundamental stand because I aim to reform identify themselves as a Muslim in principle. Because why? Okay, but this is my fundamental stand because I aim to reform a generation. I need people to get out of their cave of delusion and think for themselves.

Like for example, I don't have a problem with the Sufis and I don't have a problem actually with Muslims who don't pose as Muslims. They don't have to bring their religious identity as they are entitled to something. They want to intimidate me or maybe tempt me with something. Sincere devotional people

don't need a religious identity at all. And those exist in the Arab and the Muslim world. But also hypocrisy is the other side of the coin. I just did a seminar on the Gospels with some scholars, the same group that I walked through the story of Exodus with. You know, we spent 20 hours

going through the Gospel accounts, and the biggest enemies of Christ are the religious hypocrites. That's the Pharisees in that story. And there are people who proclaim allegiance to God while acting in their own service, right? The deepest of all possible sins, right? To invert the moral order so that you serve yourself

while claiming to serve what's properly put in the highest place. Right. There's no shortage of religious hypocrisy. And I think it is the worst of all possible since because it inverts the cosmic order, right? It makes everything good subservient to what it is that you want. And that's a very, I mean a very, I mean, that, that, that can be, obviously, that's a problem faced by any religious system because any religious system can become overrun with hypocrites. But that's really what you're pointing to is the distinction between hypocrisy and it says in the gospels that you shouldn't let your left hand know what your right hand is doing. And what that really means is that it's something like practice your devotion in solitude and secrecy and don't trump it.

Don't make a show of it. The activists in the West are exactly the same sort of people, right? They're wearing their morality on a stick. Look how good I am because I'm on the right side. Has nothing to do with them organizing their lives in any sense of the word. All they have to do is proclaim allegiance to the victim and they're on the top of the moral order. Regardless of who they have to crawl in bed with to manage that particular stunt,

which is what we're seeing everywhere in the West at the moment, after October 7th, obviously. And all this moral decay, of course, there is in common. It's a human condition. You know, it's this why we're saying if we want to see the new man, if we want to integrate to a higher state of consciousness, then we need to drop this political correctness. What's the difference? It's the same thing.

It's the same game. It's the same game. You know, I was born in that belief. That's why they end up on the same side. And I was born in that belief, like at least when it comes to me. I don't have the right to criticize my own belief system and if I do, it becomes a I do, it becomes hateful speech. Who says this? This is my birthright to rebel and to criticize. This is what makes us superior to animals, especially that there is no such a thing as Islam. We have so many denominations. So basically, at least what we can do now, we can push them back. They have to back off. And we probably can apply political pressure, where they will have to hold extremists accountable.

But after October 7, what I saw, and this is is why I went outrageous and I really told the Arab world, listen, if it comes down to choose between the entire Muslim population and a cow, I choose a cow. Like at least the cow is very peaceful. It gives us milk, it gives us leather, it gives us meat, it is very peaceful, it's harmless. But you, what's your contribution? And now we have this global crisis where a minority, a religious minority, being persecuted, suffering ethnic cleansing on October 7, and instead of siding with truth to say that this does not represent us as a Muslim world. Instead, they have been weaponizing their religious identity against this religious

minority that is most creative with the greatest contribution to life. And I don't see, like this is the blueprint of our society. I mean, I cannot imagine the Western civilization or our civilization without the Jews. How do you account for the fact that the Abraham Accords haven't collapsed? I mean, they haven't, right? They've held. And that's, again, that seems to me

to be a very positive thing. I mean, I think you could make a case that perhaps the people who are on the Abraham Accords side of the world could have been more forthright in their defense of Israel after October 7th, but at least the whole bloody process hasn't collapsed. I mean, that's what Iran was hoping for. It's not collapsed. It's not collapsed. And I think it is going to be rejuvenated after this war because it's in the interest of everybody. Yes. And now the thing is, Israel is showing everyone that violence did end. So what I'm

hoping for that, I don't know if we have to go to the point where we have to deal with Iran and Hezbollah and this war could be a lot longer than people expecting. But eventually the Middle East is going to reach the point, especially Muslims and Arabs, that violence is a dead end. We are not going to tolerate violence. You want to worship the stone, worship it as much as you want, but don't throw it at me. Don't dare to throw it at me,

because I will retaliate. And this was the final result, the use of force. After exhausting every possibility with Islamists, with the Muslim Brotherhood especially, which is Hamas, there is no difference. Now that they learn the lesson, they can stay in their delusion. It's not my responsibility to go and try to pull them out of their cave. But if they choose to act on it and manifest their delusion in the form of violence, in the form of terrorism, then we have very tough warriors and we are going to fight. I personally am fighting for my very existence. I'm not an expert on the topic. They want me to cease to exist. Hence my relationship and my understanding of Israel.

Because Israel didn't do anything wrong to the Arabs and to the Jews, except, you know, just being who they are. And they want them to cease to exist. This is how I feel, why I feel with Israel. There's no difference. We are in the same situation, where I didn't commit a crime against my people.

I didn't commit a crime against anyone. Even later on when I collaborated with Israel in the intelligence service, my main goal was to just stop the madness, stop suicide bombers from targeting civilians indiscriminately. This was my goal. This was my moral compass. I didn't do it because of national motivation. But I still became a traitor. I say, why, why, why you label me as a traitor? Why you condemn me to death? Already I did not only save Jewish life, I saved also Palestinian lives.

I saved my father's life and other Hamas leaders' lives. Believe it or not, for 10 years, I don't have blood on my hands. I did not take part of killing any human being throughout 10 years of war and chaos and bloodshed. Working around the clock to save people from their madness, trying to just juggle with the whole situation. I was very young and I almost got killed so many times in the process, sitting in a room full of explosives with potential suicide bombers, 19 years old, discussing who's going

to die first. That kind of situation. And I am trying, how can I stop this kid from killing so many other people? This is not about treason. It's about pro-life. This is what we were doing. Yet a society that prays suicide bomb and attacks, prays death because blinded with hatred towards the Jewish people.

That, by the way, they don't know nothing about the Jewish history. They don't know nothing about the Jewish suffering. They are not willing to study about the Holocaust. Instead they're teaching people the wrong and the false narrative. And this is how they guarantee to stay in this victim for eternity. So basically it's so complicated, you know,

in my matrix that I learned a lot about myself and I fought the good fight. But right now I reached the point that I don't need to explain to anybody anything. There is a volcano inside me is about to erupt and I don't care what people are going to say, whether they're going to say mad, crazy, out of control, they can say whatever they want. We have to eradicate Hamas. We have to finish Islamists. There is no room for savages in our civilization. And anyone

who poses a threat against innocent civilians don't have equal rights. It's as simple as that. And all the voices coming from the United States say, hey, Palestinians, give the Palestinians equal rights. I say, no. First, I want to see equal responsibility. Show me equal responsibility and we can discuss equal rights. But you don't compare savages to decent civilians

or to decent civilized people who know their response spirit towards themselves and towards their neighbor and compare say hey Israel is democracy why you treat the Palestinians in such manner well there is no such a thing as Palestine to begin with and the entire social structure need to be studied before we decide what Palestine is, because it's not a nation. Just political gangs fighting against each other, fighting Israel as a common enemy, and when Israel is not there, they will kill each other, I promise you that. So what happens to you at 13? Walk me through your life from 13 onward to the point where you start working with the Israelis.

So just walk me through that whole biography. So that was the first person in Intifada. But it looks like I developed so many disorders because of the traumas of childhood. And instead, a society that can understand a child and what's going on, what they did, they beat me up. Everybody. From the Hamas leaders to my parents to the teachers at school to the principal to the other kids in the streets Everywhere I went at some point. I got beaten up by a mob. In fact in my life I got beaten up by a mob multiple times to the point where I went unconscious And why were you a target of that sort of I was just troublemaker and I'm still a troublemaker

This one my best quality So basically they did they wanted me to behave accordingly. According to the religious laws and the cultural laws. But I didn't know I was behaving that way. I just wanted to rebel. There was lots of anger inside me. And there is still lots of anger inside me. So what were you doing that was causing trouble?

I broke the rules. At the mosque. I played I just was very playful kid and they wanted me to just not do anything if I ran in the mosque once the Imam of the mosque Lifted me up above his head and throw me flat on my back, where I lost my breath. And in other occasion, I was whipped by Hamas leader with the electric cable to the point I lost consciousness. How old were you? Between the 10 and the 18 years old, this is like where the brutality of the society took place.

So if I was only a rape victim when I was very young, I would say, okay, you know, that was one event, but come on. You know, everybody was conspiring against me and I still wonder why so many forces wanted me dead and they still don't have compassion to just look and say it's like wow this guy went through a lot like maybe you know what whatever he's saying he has the right at least to express it but they want to strip me even the right to talk about it so it's a brutal culture you know when some say what happened on October 7 was barbaric, it's not only Hamas. There is a majority in the Gaza society that is complicit in this crime. In fact, for those

who watched the footage of the October 7 crimes, it was not only Hamas that committed the crime. Most of the crimes, especially raping and kidnapping, were committed by guys and civilians. And I know now this is considered or somebody can discredit me because I'm generalizing, but I say the vast majority of that society don't have mercy when it comes to children and no woman can walk freely and feel safe at midnight anywhere in the Palestinian territories. This is why a father is willing to kill his daughter if she would leave the house without a companion.

Because if she leaves the house without a companion, there is a big chance that she's going to be raped on the streets. And why are you taking such a risk? They would beat them up if they leave the house alone. So it's a troubled society, it's a death culture. And I don't mean to label them as savages. And I don't want to say this because it's so hard. It's my biological family.

This is where I came from and I love the people. I want the people to integrate, but they want me dead still. And as long as they are not able to make peace with their own child, I don't know how they can make peace with other nations, with other people, with others. What was your relationship with your father like? I loved my father. I loved him.

He was my God. Even though he beat me up and so many times, I loved him. And I loved my mother as well. I loved my people. I did not hate them. I was just a troublemaker, but it's not out of hatred. Even the ones who hurt me the most, I was able to let go. Even my rapists or that guy I told you, he beat me beat me up or the teacher. I did not go after them. And it was not coincidental that existence gave me so much power during the second Palestinian Intifada, which I was, I had the capacity to pretty much give the permission to, to an army to kill somebody and I refused, especially when they were my opponents.

Like, so how did you, how did you come to be in that position? So, so you're a young, you're a young man, 13 to 18. What, what, what's happening in your life and where do you end up? So basically at the age of 18, the gap between me and that society was really wide and I questioned many things about about the culture who we are and why people just so cruel and I wanted to take revenge but I thought I take revenge from Israel and somehow I wanted to take revenge, but I thought I'd take revenge from Israel. And somehow I wanted to go just suicidal.

Because it was very hard, you know, to take a gun and go shoot my people. So I thought, okay, how about I go against the occupiers, our enemies. And I decided that I'm going to buy a purchased gun and shoot some Israelis and just go as a shaheed. That was my only escape. and that was only at the age of 18. So I got the guns and before I did anything thankfully I was arrested by the Israeli intelligence. During interrogation they offered me to work for them. And I thought it was an opportunity to actually say yes and destroy them from within. On one hand, I would be released from prison and I would have a lot more information, a

lot more power, and I can do something against them. Because there was no way for any intelligence service to buy me, let's say by money or by intimidation or any of that. So that was actually my real motive and it's described in detail in my books. But instead of releasing me, they said, you must go to prison. If we release you, people will get suspicious and you will get killed. So I ended up going to prison for 16 months. This was my first in prison.

In prison, I told Hamas about this encounter with the Israeli intelligence. In prison? Yeah, in prison. Okay. I told them the truth and this is my plan. But they said, is this everything? I said, this is everything.

He said, no, you write more. So there is nothing else. So who's your handler? What's your mission? So they did not give me any mission. Hamas became suspicious of me. Instead of helping me, I became a suspect, but my father is one of the founders of the

movement. So they could not torture me, but in the meantime, they were torturing hundreds of other prisoners for suspicion of collaborating with Israel. Dozens were killed during that time and hundreds were tortured. They destroyed their lives completely and they were brutal. Some of this was taking place in the prison you were in? In prison, all of it. All of it, I see. So I'm talking about the 16 months of a nightmare beyond anyone's imagination,

where I am suspect but they are not touching me, while everyone else, everyone around me is being tortured and killed for 16 months. And I was wondering, is my turn going to come? Because of my father's status and their hypocrisy, and of course their shame, they did not do anything to me. But the thing is, up to that point, I did not betray, I just told them the truth, not under pressure, I thought, you know,

they could help me, that this is my plan. And this is how things went wrong between me and Hamas to the core. When I was released from prison after 16 months, Hamas followed up outside prison. My father was still in prison, but different Israeli prison at that time. So he wasn't there to protect me. And I was outraged.

Was he in prison with you? No, no, no. My father was in a high security prison. I was in a, like more of a jail. So he wasn't inside prison to protect me. And when I was released, he was still in a jail. So he was in inside prison to protect me. And when I was released, he was still in Israeli prison. My father spent some 30 years of his life in Israeli prisons. So now outside the prison, Hamas is coming after me.

It's just like, just keep us posted what's going on. And now, I don't want to say blackmailing me, just keep us posted what's going on and now There I don't want to say blackmailing me but in the human nature the handler of Hamas found opportunity actually to To take a total advantage. He wanted me to become somehow like his bitch. Mm-hmm And I was in a situation. I prefer to die, you know, I did not betray my people. I don't have any intention to betray anybody. I was thought that okay, you know, we're fighting against occupation and this is the way to just become a Shaheed and exit all this tragedy for good.

So I was going suicidal. I did not mean, you know, to sell my people for money. So the only refuge was left on the table is to actually go to the Israeli intelligence and ask them for help. From Hamas this time. Because Hamas... What were they requiring of you, the Hamas handler? What was being required of you? The moment they put you at defense, and you are in a society like this, where everything is ruled based on shame and anu, it's the most shameful thing.

They can ask you to do whatever they want you to do. And it's up to the individual. It's not even to the Hamas movement. So, and they're going to hold it against you for eternity. What kind of life is this? It's like someone is holding something against you, but, and nothing will clean that shame no matter what you do, except if you die.

Even if I became a suicide bomber, the shame will hunt me to my grave. This was the reality of it. So this is where I think everything just went out of control. I was like, since childhood, I had no mercy from these people. And right now, trying to actually just

Escape my misery By dying for Allah by dying for the nation against the Zionist occupation They're coming after me. So this is my psychic and I was no matter what I do Even if I die, I will never be able to please them and why would I die so in the first encounter with the Israeli intelligence I told them the whole truth how did you make contact with them they made a contact after I was released from this was the original plan wasn't it yeah okay yeah so after I was released from prison, they contacted me and

in the first meeting, I asked them why didn't you come to help the people who were tortured in prison? If you now want me to work for you, you abandoned money, you abandoned me. They said none of these people who were tortured and killed had any relationship with the Israeli intelligence. It's all in Hamas head. The handler said I have been working with the agency for 18 years. One asset in our district was cut in the action and this man still alive in the United States and he gave me the name of that person. He said this is the only one, this is the only true story. The hundreds of others who have been killed had no relation.

They are all innocent people. Well, if he was telling me the truth, this is even more disastrous. And I decided to go back to the second meeting and the third meeting and every meeting, they were just building me up. I was so broken.

Building you up in what way? Building me up in education, conversation, open conversation about who they are, what they do. So this is when your political attitude started to switch, your attitude towards history? Not yet. This was just the early beginning. It was the early beginning. Because simply, they said, here is money money you go back to school and they gave me enough money exact amount that pays for my school and when I needed the to to do anything financial they said not possible we cannot give you any amount of money because if we give you money and you do, you cannot

prove where you got this money from, they will kill you. So I said, you only go to school. Oh, what's my mission? There is no mission. There was no gun. There is no ghost. What school did you go? So did you go back to high school?

I went back to the high school. I graduated from high school, but also they wanted me to go to college and I graduated four years college and during that entire time They funded my education my education only and there was no other deal than that. There is was no other deal Why did they do that? Because this is how they work Now this is how the Israeli intelligence work They say from the beginning they said listen, we don't work with losers It doesn't matter like the fact that you are son of a Hamas leader does not qualify you

You must be like us You need to think like us and you need to be part of your society and you need to be productive You cannot be a loser if you are a loser You will not gain the respect of your own society. And they did a long process of fooling Hamas that we don't have a relationship. That included some attack on our house, some arrests in the future,

all type of allusion orchestrated by the Israeli intelligence to just convince the society that I was a wanted person at some point, that there was no way in the world that I had a relationship with the Israeli intelligence. Especially when Hamas started building their trust with me again and I had top secrets of the movement, but the Israelis did not act upon my intelligence or my information to just keep Hamas feeling safe for as long as possible. So part of the building me up, you know,

it was, we had hundreds of meetings and they showed me many of the values. And they showed me many of the values. For example, when we got into operation later on, civilians were involved. We avoid civilians every time. The civilian involvement was a big concern for the agency. And I was really surprised because I thought that the wisdom on the Palestinian Street that the Israelis will give you poison to put in the town's water They will give you a gun to shoot your own people. They will make you rape women and take

footage of them so you can blackmail them They will all type of crazy stories that they had, it had nothing in reality. And I was on my own, they never connect me with anyone else. And after my college, this is, I think, was the period where I was ready to do something good for my- What did you take in college?

I studied history. In what aspect of history? It was history and social studies. But I studied world history, Middle East history, the history of religion. Of course you cannot cover everything in four years, but I did as much as I could and I was very interested in the topic. So what did your education change for you? I did as much as I could and I was very interested in the topic. So what did your education change for you? Education was just the first step. I had to educate myself. Like for example, while I was in prison, I studied English.

I memorized Oxford dictionary. I was reading 16 hours a day and I spent lots of time in Israeli prison. This is how I spent my time. When I was released, I opened up to Christianity, especially the Bible and The Bible had a huge impact on my life especially, you know the the New Testament and the teachings of Christ which to me, you know, it's not Christianity as much as Christ consciousness. It's a state advanced state of consciousness

and the challenge of love thy enemy and that came in a place where I was conflicted. Where you actually had enemies. Exactly and who is my enemy? Like is it my people? Is it my rapist? Is it my torturer? Is it Israel? Who is it? So the challenge of love thy enemy really made peace with the world somehow. And I decided that I don't have enemies anymore. And this what helped me actually heal and progress. So I made a principle that I did not want

to kill any of my opponents. But I have to say that today I regret it. Today I regret it. The influence of Christ consciousness of just love everybody unconditionally did not get me to where I needed to be. Because today I'm under the influence of cause and effect, not right and wrong. And I think there is no escape for anybody from karma or from their own actions. Nobody is above this universal law.

It has nothing to do with cultures. And I tried so hard to save my father's life. If I wasn't in the picture, they would have killed him a thousand times. Saying that he's, I thought to myself, he's moderate, he's in a political way, he's not a military way. But this is the problem of this is a moderate and this is extremist, then you go into this rabbit hole and you never find your way out. I thought to myself, no. You are complicit in Hamas crimes, then you qualify for the same punishment as any of their attackers on October 7. And this is why I had to take a moral stand and say all

Hamas leaders must be executed. What happened on October 7 was a capital crime. A genocide cannot be taken lightly. This is not just an act of resistance. To wipe out 20 plus communities based on their ethnic background, based on their religion, is not an act of resistance, is not justified. Killing babies, killing children, raping women, kidnapping hostages, killing animal, burning trees. Nothing gets worse than this. And it requires capital crime. And I had the thought, what about my father, who I loved very much, who disowned me 14

years ago? I never give up on him. I was like always, you know, in my heart, this is my father, I love you. Whatever, you know, you did necessary to just shun me and throw me to the mouth of death, it's no problem. As long as you are okay. But after October 7, I had to make a very difficult choice because this is where or when we have to draw the line. All of us are connected to a certain interest that this is a family relationship, this is a love relationship, my relationship to this property, my personal interest to a certain degree. Hence we compromise the truth even though the obvious truth that what happened on October 7 is wrong. It

doesn't matter if they if Muslims did it they are wrong. I don't care if they are Buddhist, if they are Americans, it doesn't matter who they are, it was wrong. And I take the moral stand. My father is complicit in this, and especially when I saw him on the top of a demonstration supporting Hamas in our town in Ramallah, this was the moment This was the moment that I thought, he's not my father anymore, cannot be. And the hostage situation was very hard that I didn't know how Israel is going to bring those hostages back.

And Hamas want mass murderers to be released. Happened to be same people who were torturing prisoners on my watch and happened to be same people who were torturing prisoners on my watch and happened to be the same mass murderers who carried suicide bomb and attacks during the second Palestinian Intifada like Ibrahim Hamid and Abdullah Al-Baghouti. People I knew personally, this people Hamas is asking to release.

And we cannot release them. We cannot put them back to the streets for innocent hostages, such impossible situation. So my suggestion, and this is again, you know, the Israel, I knew the Israeli government will not do that, but I give them the permission to execute all these mass murderers because if they were executed from the beginning, Hamas would have not kidnapped a one-year-old hostage asking for their release. But then what about my father, my own father? Is he an exception?

He could not be an exception. No one can be an exception if they are complicit in a genocide. So this is where, you know, since October 7, it's just as chaotic as it is in the Middle East, and my life also is chaotic and I don't have way around it. to see the Muslim population weaponizing their religious identity against the Jewish as a religious minority and I have known the Jewish people for about 27 years now. Actually my relationship with the Jewish nation is a lot deeper than my relation with the Muslim nation. It's a lot longer, a lot deeper. Many of the Jewish mothers throughout this journey, they took me in, you know, a country, a nation that really gave me so much support.

I'm not talking about financial support as much as like sincere concern for my well-being. I've been to hundreds of Jewish families, Shabbat dinners. I have adopted nephews, Jewish nephews that are fighting in Gaza today. So in the face of such a situation, how can I abandon the Jewish people? Those are my people right now. And the Arabs also, the Arab children, I see myself, this is me. And I see how the predators, the pro-Palestine and the Hamas billionaires and the other

criminals take advantage of the situation on a global scale. the situation on a global scale. I find myself just fighting at so many fronts that it just, it makes out of me an absolute mad person. So you, your education was paid for by the, by the Israeli intelligence agency. the Israeli Intelligence Agency, and you started to question your concept of their work, and then you broadened your education formally. How is it that you worked for the Israeli Intelligence Organization? How did that come about and what sort of work did you do? So because you said to begin with, they were just paying for your education and you were talking

to them right and you were learning that they were different than you thought. Yes and I was also very young at that point. Things became serious at the beginning of the second Palestinian Intifada. And that was, so the beginning of this journey with the Israeli intelligence started in 1996. The second Palestinian Intifada started in 2000, right before 9-11. So I was already towards the end of my school and I knew enough about Hamas, about the Palestinian authority. And it happened that I was part of Yasser Arafat meetings. And I was part of other Palestinian factions meetings, Islamic Jihad, FATAH.

And my relation, based on my father's public status, I was able to go pretty much anywhere I wanted to go. And people knew me from my childhood, even though I was troublemaker, you know, at that time I was a lot more stable. What position exactly did your father play or hold? So basically, my father's position, of course, is changing because of internal elections and his status would never be revealed to the public, not even to Hamas members, because the voting for his status would be only limited to the public, not even to Hamas members, because the voting

for his status would be only limited to the Hamas leadership. At that time, I think he was from the—or he maintained throughout his career with Hamas top, top leadership in the Hamas Shura Council, plus a huge chance that he's one of the founders of Hamas, but he never revealed that. I knew this from other Hamas leaders, but he would never reveal that information to me. They usually reveal this information after his death. So we're talking about he's not only a leader of the movement, he's also the spiritual leader of the movement. Today he could be the spiritual father of the movement. This is his significance.

So not just logistical. And of course, after my story came out, his status in the movement was shaken. Right. But somehow they wanted to give him as much support as they could. Okay, so now we're at the second Intifada. This is about, you said this is just before 9-11. This is around the year 2000. Right.

Okay, so what's happening? And you have access to all these meetings. Right. But you've already established relationship with the Israeli intelligence. Yes, so basically trust between me and the Israeli intelligence was already established and I was highly motivated to capture a suicide bomber

before they reached their target. Israel was really struggling with this issue. We had... So that became your mission? It was suicide bomber prevention oriented? Yes. The thing is everything was happening in front of my eyes. The only thing I just needed to set my intention that do I want to do this job?

Do I want to do this very difficult job or not? Because even though they established the relationship with the Israeli intelligence, but did not mean that I was forced to do anything. So I was in the mosque, I was in the meetings, I was in the safe houses, I was pretty much everywhere. And any strange encounter between two Hamas members I was able to just detect that this is unusual, we have to look into it.

Now what was more important that the Israeli intelligence had lots of information, but it would take an expert hours and hours to go through thousands of pages to come to a conclusion. For me, if I hear the story, I would come to the conclusion immediately. So I was able to piece the puzzle. And many people think that I was informant, like going and bringing information, but what they didn't realize actually that the Israeli intelligence had the information already and all I was just in a meeting piece in the puzzle um And then when I go back to the society I act based on what I know now from uh from the meetings

so The information the intelligence that I received from the shin Bet helped me navigate a thousand times stronger than if I was only a son of Hamas leader. So I end up knowing about Hamas a lot more than what my father knew about Hamas operation. So being part of that culture and having whatever information it made my position very very strong that I was able to reach a suicide bomber before that I was able to reach a suicide bomber before they reached their target. How many times did you do that? Okay, and I hate to talk about this.

Okay. I hate to talk about it because this is where I start playing the hero and even in the book I avoid talking about it, but I think right now it's inevitable because many people are trying to discredit my journey. And it's a vow. It's also that I'm supposed not to talk about operation and reveal the secrets of our work to the enemy. But you can say the least dozens of suicide bombing attacks, dozens on a regular basis, from capturing five suicide bomber at the time

to seven suicide bombers at the time, to capturing the masterminds that includes the bomb maker, and that was our biggest concern. In fact, somebody like Abdallah al-Bargothi, which was a very, very dangerous Hamas asset, the most dangerous Hamas bomb maker, he's in Israeli prison today. I was the first to reach his location, his lab, and recognize him, responsible for the death of at least 100 people at that time before he was arrested. Ibrahim Hamid and the entire Hamas military wing of the West Bank, which they were using

a research center as their cover. They never come to the mosque. They never participate in Hamas activities. They're all shaved, they don't have beards. They're in the intellectuals, et cetera, historians. And I had my suspicion, but the agency did not have any information about this guy, guys, there were five of them. And I kept arguing for about three years,

arguing with the agency that these people are doing something wrong, doing something, and nobody would listen to me. Until finally, we realized that these people have been the core group behind 95% of the suicide bombing attacks during the second Palestinian Antifada. Just they were there and we could not make the connection. Then finally the agencies like how did you come to this conclusion? So many times they were just like a gut feeling or like literally I would just be taking my little sister to the school in the morning and all of a sudden I see this most wanted

Enter in the building and this was his apartment his safe house Then I called the agency and I say I found it. But how did you find him? I was I was just driving and he just entered in the building they could not believe it Ibrahim Hamid the agency did not see him in eight years they did not see his face in eight years and I finally locate him so it was at some point I remember Avid Ikhtar was the head of the agency at that time he said get him out he Get him out, he's going to get killed. Because the amount of operation, whether in Fatah, Hamas, Islamic Jihad, public front for liberation of Palestine, in fact, Yasser Arafat,

after winning the Nobel Prize prize, I was the source that brought the information of his relation to suicide bombing attacks, because I was in that meeting. And the information that was given to Ariel Sharon, the Israeli prime minister at that time, my identity was never revealed. The same information that was used in the UN Security Council. So why am I telling you this?

Not to brag about it. The amount of intelligence out my life was on the line every day, every single day during the second Palestinian Intifada all the way up to Hamas coup in Gaza. And I told the Israeli intelligence that Hamas is up to something.

They said, but this is too much, it's too hard to believe. The Palestinian Authority has 35,000 police officers. Hamas has only 5,000. It's not possible for them to overthrow the Palestinian Authority. I told them this is Hamas' plan and this is what's going to happen. And that was three months before Hamas took over Gaza Strip. Okay, now where it's gonna get tricky,

this is stuff that I don't like to talk about. Nobody give a damn. And three months later, Hamas was in power. And instead of destroying Hamas and not allowing them to grow, the world pressure against Israel that this is an election and Hamas won the elections and we have to accept them as a legitimate political party. And they just kept playing this game and Israel agreed to go into their rabbit hole until Hamas became the power it became. And even from the first war with Hamas, Israel was determined to destroy Hamas completely. But the world came, cease fire now. And we cease fire. The first war, the second war, the third war, the fourth war.

And every time they use children as human shits. And this time it was there is no way around it. You'll have to eradicate them otherwise they will do a lot worse in the in the next war. How do you understand the relationship between Hamas and Iran? It's a very weird and awkward relationship because Shia and Sunni, they hate each other. So there's a bloody history between both sects. But it's in Iran's interest to destabilize the region. They find in Hamas a device. They give Hamas billions of dollars. But they... Why do you think the Americans, especially the Democrats,

why do you think they can't see this? Because everybody's after their interest. Like for example, right now, we have Iran's full attack on Israel. Ballistic missiles, such as, okay, we downed many of those and the United States helped the UK, other NATO countries. This is amazing. Other Arab states.

Arab states, okay, this is great. But are we supposed to be a defense? Is this the best we could do? That we just stand in defense, the superpower? I would destroy the Iranian nuclear program immediately. This is what I called from day one. I said the most adequate response to October 7 is the destruction of Iran's nuclear program. You cannot give a Muslim country a nuclear power.

It was a big mistake to let Pakistan to become a nuclear power. This could lead to a global situation, a very ugly situation. They are not responsible, they are a dictatorship, they are not accountable to anybody but Allah. How can you give them our intellectual... Their interpretation of Allah? Of course, yeah. Allah itself, I don't want to say even interpretation because Allah as is in the Quran is a very dangerous Entity so it's not matter of misinterpretation that you know The guy is a very good guy in the Quran and the Islamists or extremists see him as as as a bad guy No, he's a bad guy sooner or later. The world is going to wake up on a disaster and realize what we are saying is the truth

Sooner or later, the world is going to wake up on a disaster and realize what we are saying is the truth. So the United States is not doing their job. We have advanced weaponry, like, for example, the electromagnetic bomb. We'll drop one of these, paralyze their entire system. No civilians will die in this process. Just send them back to the Stone Age, and in the meantime, destroy their nuclear system. No civilians will die in this process. Just send them back to the stone age and in the meantime destroy their nuclear program. Show them you know who is the boss. But instead

we are compromising so they can get access to our intellectual property and use our weapons against us. This is insanity. But why the Biden administration doing this? Because he's trying to please the voters. He's trying to please Rashid Atlaib. He's trying to please the LGBT. That's all part of that victim-victimizer narrative. Yes, he's trying to please everybody. And I say, you know, if strong leaders take risk, take risk,

weak leaders try to please everybody. Strong leaders take risk, take risk. Weak leaders try to please everybody. And I think this is a situation of this administration. You cannot please everybody. You cannot please Israel and please Rashida Eitlaib simultaneously. You cannot, you need to choose. Who's my ally in this situation? Israel is a reliable ally and they are under attack

and they are protecting attack and they are protecting the American interests in the region. They are maintaining the stability of the region. I don't want to say the world. It's not just an ally. But then they come and accuse America of giving support to Israel. Well, how much support Israel give the United States? How much support the Jewish population in the United States, American Jews, give the American treasury from their tax money and in every aspect of economy?

So- What conclusions did you draw about the Jewish society in Israel as you became more and more familiar with its nature? Well, first of all, it's democracy, that it's a diverse society. There are the Muslims, there are the Jews, the Christians, there are human rights. One are the Jews, the Christians, their human rights. You know, one of the things that was just unbelievable during the second Palestinian Intifada, when a building collapsed

and there were clashes on the checkpoints everywhere, shooting at soldiers, and it was very dangerous for the Israelis to come to enter the city of Ramallah. But when the building collapsed, we did not have rescue team, we did not have a fire department because it's such a corrupt system that invested all the money in luxury and they never invest the money in infrastructure. So the dozens of workers stuck under the rubble and we cannot get them out. So we had to call the the Israelis during the second intifada while we shooting at them say please come into Ramallah to the city center and help us. So the Israel sent the fire department of course with the IDF to protect them. The entire day, evacuating the victims, taking them to Israeli hospitals.

And after a long day, the IDF exited the city of Ramallah and people rewarded them, shooting at them, throwing Muratov cocktails, throwing stones, et cetera. My job, I was there because my job was just be there to make sure that the troops are okay. So the troops protecting the rescue team, I am there to make sure that the troops are okay and the civilians of Ramallah are waiting for the troops to evacuate after helping the Palestinians

by throwing stones, a lot of cocktails and shooting at them. This type of events, you know, are just insane and it just keeps going like this. Everything about the Palestinian mentality, the Arab culture and Palestinian mentality, the Arab culture, and you see the law and order that there is protocol. The Israeli intelligence follow a protocol. No one was arrested if Israel did not have evidence of their involvement in terrorism. And no one was assassinated, especially the most dangerous terrorists that Israel could not arrest, that they were hiding in the city centers. That none of them were killed if they did not have direct relationship to suicide bombing

attacks and they had blood on their hands. None. So you saw an organization that ran by rule of law? Absolutely, and there is no doubt about it. And this is why I'm heartbroken, because I know what's happening in Gaza right now really pushed Israel to the corner, that they had no other choice. And there was no prosperity to avoid civilian casualties after after October 7 because I know at their heart they would never hurt an innocent civilian and They gave the why did you become convinced of that? Because in our operation, this is how we dealt with the situation

So you saw this firsthand? Yes like later on one of the exceptions of my entire career that it was A day where the agency had no choice But to kill one of Yasser Arafat's bodyguards His name was Muhannad Abu Halawa

His name was Muhannad Abu Halawa This guy was killed about 13 Israelis and he was hiding in Yasser Arafat compound I was the one who discovered him. So I was the only one who could recognize it and The Israeli intelligence said listen we have no one else Except you and this guy is going every night shooting and killing people. Yasser Arafat gave him immunity. The Israeli intelligence could not go

into Yasser Arafat compound and arrest him. And they could not predict where he's going. And they didn't know how he looked like. So they wanted him dead. That was the only way to deal with him. So the agency said, listen, you have your moral thing, you don't want to kill anybody, but if this guy is not dead, he's going to kill people tonight, tomorrow night, and he's gonna go like this. So this is when I had to compromise. The first attempt, a top Fatah leader was in the car.

His name is Marwan Barghouti. He's today in Israeli prison and everybody said that this could be the next Palestinian president. And the operation was canceled because there was other terrorists in the car. I'm not talking about like a civilian in the car. And this guy was so hard to find. Like the agency would say, it's like, you know what? Eliminate both of them.

We are not going to take a risk that he's going to kill more Israeli civilians. And the operation was canceled. I was really shocked. Okay, I was shocked. So our job was many times when we knew about the safe house of a terrorist. Okay, is his family there? Okay, when is his family leaving? It always civilian situation was taken into consideration and this is a 10-year experience So when when people come to me today, it's like that Israel is ethnically cleansing

The Palestinians it's a lie Israel that Israel is accountable to international laws Israel cannot do this even if there was corruption Let's say some racist within there the IDF and they did something illegal. They would be held accountable But this is not a state policy. It cannot be. But people want to see it in black and white. If you come try to bring them other truth, like for example what's happening today is a collateral damage. And it's not only that.

Who's killing the civilians? Did people take into consideration that Hamas put booby traps everywhere? And how would we know the difference between Israeli airstrike and Hamas booby trap that targeted civilians? And how do we know actually that it's not in Hamas interest to kill civilians? So civilians. So then how many Hamas... It's clearly in their interest. Of course. This is the most powerful weapon in their hands to delegitimize Israel and get legitimacy on a global level. I think it's impossible to understand the situation in Israel without understanding that the Palestinians are

expendable. Yeah. So Hamas is committing not only a capital crime by committing a genocide on October 7, which actually defines a genocide. Then the Muslims around the world outnumber Israel and change the narrative so fast that we go from a Jewish genocide on October 7 to a Palestinian genocide in less than 70 days. This is how fast that's effective work on Iran's part, my estimation. So let me, we're running near

the end of the time we have in this session for everybody watching and listening. I'm going to continue this conversation on the Daily Wire Plus side for another half an hour. So, you know, be welcome to join us there. I guess I'd like to ask you, there's many things, obviously, that we've left undiscussed, but that's going to be how it is. I would like you to tell me what you think about what's happening on the streets in Western cities, but most specifically on university campuses,

with regards to the pro-Hamas movements that seem to be everywhere. And if you were speaking with a group of students who are acolytes of the victim victimizer narrative and portraying their moral superiority by adopting the identity of allies of Hamas. It's like what do you have to say about that? Again, it's not one one phenomenon. It's many with different motives are coming to claim to be a pro-Palestine. It's not only a pro-Hamas. Hamas is actually igniting the blood lust in many of the demonstrators. So when Hamas scores and shed blood, this gives them the pleasure of inflicting pain on their opponent. They say, oh, they deserved it because they are the Zionists, they are the colonizers, they're the occupiers, they're the bankers, they are the ones who control the economy. Those are the ones we are in debt to.

So many people come with a different motive and this is just the hatred against the successful minority. This is the curse when you are a successful minority that many people are going to come after you, especially if you are down or if you are wounded, that they will come and try to quick you while you're down. So many forces that they are, as we discussed at the beginning,

that they are opposing forces, but somehow they got united in a very disgusting way. That shows you the moral decay of such groups. And I'm not talking only about students. There are historians, there are intellectuals, there are lawyers who bought into the BDS or the pro-Palestine propaganda, which is basically that Israel is an apartheid state, that Israel has been, or the Zionists, been ethnically cleansing the Palestinian people. If the Palestinians had a Palestinian state, we would have not been in this situation. Hamas is a resistant group so and everybody project their hatred based on their

intelligence and based on their ability to express that. So some intellectuals, they can represent their hatred, but in a deceptive way that does not show hatred, just like show... It's always allyship for the victim, you know. Yes. Yeah. That's the best possible mask for like a sadistic hatred. That's for sure. So... Are you speaking anywhere? Like, do you have the opportunity to speak publicly?

Well, I have been cancelled from many universities because you probably now understand why. Yeah, I'd say so. But I'm okay with that. And I'm not afraid of being cancelled. I have been cancelled by my own family, by my own people. So when I have American campuses or American universities canceling me, I'm not affected.

I don't feel ashamed that, oh my god, this is a threat to my career. I never intend to make a career. And I don't care about my public image as much as I care about where do I stand morally and am I at peace with myself or not. But anyway, I find my way to speak to the students and I challenge them. Yesterday, we had a debate.

I thought, I've been trying to get the pro-Palestine advocates, anyone, to an open debate. Let's go, let's talk about the thing. This is the way of the West, dialogue. We cannot be clashing like this, inciting for violence, harassing Jewish people, harassing successful people, bringing the Hamas nightmare into the American soil, globalizing the intifada globalizing the chaos Well, these are very dangerous terms that we don't know what we're talking about from the river to the sea They don't understand that back in 1987 when people start chanting from the river to the sea violence followed just shortly after that and this is my childhood trauma And when I saw the people

chanting from the river to the sea, I knew we were in trouble. So this is why I tried to counter this force. But nobody wants to listen. So I thought to myself. Yeah, well that narrative, that underlying narrative of victim, victimizer, that's very intractable. It's a very difficult thing to move. It's so morally attractive. Well, and try to get them out of their comfort, out of their convenient truth, and they will crucify.

This is the price you pay. So practically, just two days ago, we had a debate. I had to pay somebody $20,000 from my pocket to debate me on the topic because no one else agreed to. Where was that? The Berkeley University. And that's one of the most respectful educational institutions, that they cannot even host a debate on their own. Yeah, yeah. A debater had to pay from his own pocket to bring his opponent to have a discussion, and the funny thing that this guy acts like a giant

outside of the debate, like when you see him at Jazeera, he's a Jazeera host, outside of the debate, like when you see him at Al Jazeera, he's Al Jazeera host, and was a CNN anchor, delivered a speech to the United Nations and called from a United Nations podium from the river to the sea. But when he came to the debate, he agreed with 90% of the things that I was like, then who are you? That you're outside, you know, just this outrageous anti-Zionist, anti-Israel, pro-Palestine, and all of a sudden here, you're just chickened out. And I cannot find a debate, like a decent debate.

I've been calling them out, you know, come debate me, let's talk about this. This is not a joke. Children are dying. This is not a political stand. This is not a career. I'm not your typical expert coming on the topic. You get in the way where I'm trying to stop the death of innocent children, protect them from predators that have been killing them for 70 years by the name of Palestine. You get in my way, I destroy you if necessary. So I'm not politically correct, I cannot be,

and I don't care if you cancel me or not, and I'm not in a position even to reason with you. We are at war right now, it's finished, we can talk about it later, but it breaks my heart. America is my country now and I have responsibility towards the people that we don't want to bring the intifada here, we don't want to globalize the intifada, in fact we want to de-globalize it. We want to localize it. We want to cut all the foreign entities that have been trying to take advantage of this conflict. And we have to give the power to the people, to the Arabs. They are

Arabs. They're not Palestinians. So please help me with this. This is what I've been trying to spread, that there is no such a thing as Palestine. Palestinian is a political identity, it's a corrupt one, a colonial one. It's actually very disrespectful for the Arabs who were born in that region to call themselves

after a colonial entity and adapt it as a national identity. It's just absurd. This is why I don't use the term for myself. You say, no, keep them Arabs. They were born there. They have the birthright to be there. But what they need, they don't need a state. They need a police force.

They need education. They need economy. They need decent leadership that works towards building a nation. They need a civil constitution. They need to be friends with Israel and drop their stupid idea of destroying Israel because Israel is going nowhere. If they cannot see Israel as just the same way they see themselves when they look at an Israeli child like they see them as their own child Then we have a problem

We cannot justify the killing of Jewish children because they are Jewish This is where I need this to To be and to be. And I don't want this whole nationalism, this whole Palestine. So of course when I see now globalizing the issue, bringing to the states and making free, free Palestine, what is? Why your Palestine is not a hostage in my basement? Stop saying free, free Palestine. You know, decent human beings, decent Americans would say free the hostages, not tear down the posters of hostages, you know, not even allowing their families to represent their case in the land of the free. And what they want to free? They want to free a concept, a dangerous political concept that actually depends on the destruction

of order. At the expense of children, at the expense of generations, at the expense of individuality. Who are we? You know, we are Americans. This is, I mean, not only Americans, anybody in the West. This is our value system. So this is where it gets really, as you see, like I speak about it with lots of strong emotions because there is no other medium for me.

What's happening is absurd, not only on the American campuses. Before you say free Palestine, at what expense? At the expense of Israel, you want ethnic cleansing from the river to the sea, so this hypothetical political entity would take place in reality? And who's going to pay the price? The Palestinian children? And for how long? We have been paying this price for 70 years and all all we received in return suffering pain confusion and a minority of con artists became billionaires Yasser Arafat had nine billion dollars in his bank account before he died and it vanished

because his wife stole it after she killed him and this is the first time I see it in public yes after his wife and walk the life support and he died even the Palestinian people don't know this and let them go figure his wife is his killer so we're talking about such corruption and fight for money where the first lady is killing the father of the nation. And in the meantime screwing a Mossad agent. So I'm done with this. I don't want to see more children dying and I don't care for the Palestinian entity. All right, sir. Thank you. We'll pick this up on the DailyWire Plus side

for everybody watching and listening. Yeah, thank you very much for talking to me today. Thank you all for your attention. And as I said, if you wanna join us on the DailyW Wear Plus side to conclude this conversation, please feel more than welcome to do so.