OPINION
Our next guest grew up on the West Bank where his father was a founding member of Hamas. He was groomed to take a senior role before he turned on the terrorist group in prison. Spying for Israel now, converting to Christianity and ultimately seeking asylum in the US, Mosab Hassam returns to us now as he came a few years ago. Mosab knows the inside of this group and how they were able to pull off what they did October 7th. Can you tell the audience your background, people that didn’t read your book?
I was born at the heart of Hamas leadership, you know, and I know them very well. They don’t care for the Palestinian people, they don’t regard aah… the human life. And, I saw their brutality first hand back in 1996 when I spent about a year-and-a-half in a prison.
You know they killed so many Palestinian people at that time and this is when I decided I cannot be together with this movement; in fact, I asked myself a question: what if they become a ruling party at some point? What will they do if they succeed in destroying Israel and building their state? What will they do? They will kill all our people. And this was the first question, you know, that actually I had to be honest with myself.
Even though Hamas gave me advantages, I was like a prince in that world and… but I did not like them, you know. And, I turned against even my own blood because this is how much I did not like Hamas.
And today, 25 years later, they are the rulers of Gaza and we see what they are capable of doing.
We saw what happened October 7th, we saw what they did to Holocaust victims, to now over 200 hostages, murdered babies in their cribs and we see the horror of what they’re capable of. Now they’ve retreated back to Gaza and a ground incursion is about to happen, would you recommend Israel do this and what will they find when they go in?
Okay, first of all, we need to evacuate civilians as much as we can, you know, this is an ugly war and Israel did not start it. Hamas did.
First of all, we need to encourage civilians to go into Egypt – possibly women and children, maybe men over 50 years old. These need to get out of the picture, you know.
Then the threat need[s] to be cut into two pieces: north and south, two parts.
The northern part, this is where most of the tunnels are. They… we need to have solid siege for long enough to deplete the enemy and to starve them. After that we may need to explore using gas. This is like… sounds horrible, but I don’t see any other option. The tunnels are interconnected and gas could be one of the solutions, but this has to be in the right time.
We cannot just rush into Gaza, you know. There is no modern army that is prepared for this type of war, and, most importantly, we need to get the civilians out of the picture. As long as there are civilians there, then the operation might be incomplete.
But Mosab, you also say it’s almost impossible for us to give aid to the Gaza strip – a hundred million dollars we are about to give them – and keep it away from Hamas. Do you agree that that can’t work?
Look, after we destroy the tunnels, we need to aah… finish Hamas rule in Gaza strip. This is priority number one.
Then we need to replace the regime, could be the Palestinian Authority, could be the Egyptian government, could be Arab League force… we need to replace their aah… their rule in Gaza. After that we can talk about aid, but as of now sending any aid is a mistake.
So, you also believe this is not about the Palestinians fighting for their rights and their sovereignty. What is the real mission of Hamas and what do they really think of the Palestinian people?
You know, Hamas is not a national movement: Hamas is a religious movement with a goal to establish an Islamic state. They don’t care for nationalism; actually they are against nationalist.
With that said, aah… my understanding is that they are using the Palestinian cause only to achieve their goal, so the long-term goal, you know, transforming the Middle East and the world [in]to an Islamic state. This is Hamas agendas, and they are not hitting, by the way.
So, Hamas is serving foreign agendas, we are talking about Iran and we are talking about Russia. They… Hamas serve[s] those parties and Iran pays them close to a billion dollars annually. Iran is the real master in this picture. Hamas does not serve the Palestinian people: Hamas serve[s] Iran. Those are the masters of Hamas.
So, they lie about nationalism – that they are a national movement and they care for the Palestinian people. Look at them! They are using Palestinian people as human shield[s].
We need to free Gaza from Hamas – this is what Israel is doing. It is doing the Palestinian people the greatest favour by bringing Hamas down.
Then, the Palestinian people… they just want to live a normal life. They don’t want missiles in the mosque populated area, of course, to be launched from under hospitals, from crowded areas and going suicidal and endangering the life of the entire population of Gaza. Who does that? You’ve got to be insane to do such an operation… and we have to stop that.
And… and you’re talking about your family – your family used to believe that that was, okay? But you don’t now? Mosab, a question: around the globe, and even in our capital, people are protesting for Hamas, they’re saying for Israel to back off and stop the air strikes. Well, what do you say to those protestors, where is… about their mindset?
Okay, listen – I cannot convince the entire world of truth, right? Now, people are emotional, they hate to see these children dying. And you know Hamas is killing the people at the hospital and we have evidence of that – but they still blame Israel.
People can blame whoever they want, you know, but now we have to concentrate, we have to focus. Public opinion is very important, but, unfortunately, it’s not the time to win the public opinion. It’s the time to win the war against the most brutal terrorist organisation living today, you know.
And later on, when people look back at the situation, they will understand what we were doing.
We should not be afraid of the public opinion, we have to explain as much as we can, but now we have to concentrate on our course.
Mosab, that’s why your perspective is so vital and you’re unique. Yes, you grew up in a Hamas family and you broke from it and now you’re speaking to stop it. Mosab Hussein Yusef, thanks so much for what you’re doing.