55 pages • 1 hour read
Mosab Hassan YousefSon of Hamas: A Gripping Account of Terror, Betrayal, Political Intrigue, and Unthinkable Choices
Nonfiction | Autobiography / Memoir | Adult | Published in 2011A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Themes
The Moral Dilemmas of Espionage
Son of Hamas contributes to the vast literature—both nonfiction and fiction—on the psychological and moral complexities involved in a life of espionage. Yousef’s offer to work for Shin Bet carried a complex set of competing priorities. His immediate consideration was that Israel was a hated enemy and that to work for them would violate everything he had learned to believe, prompting his response, “Islam forbids me from working with you” (82). At the same time, Yousef could not provide for his family from behind bars, and he took his responsibilities as the eldest son very seriously, especially given his father’s repeated imprisonment. At first, he fell back on the idea that he could work as a double agent for Hamas, leading Israel to believe that he was spying for them. However, his initial forays into the world of espionage indicate how ill-equipped he was to navigate the treacherous waters between Israeli intelligence and the various Palestinian factions ruthlessly policing each other and themselves. Ultimately, he came to accept Shin Bet’s offer relatively quickly.
After a few encounters with his handlers, who provided him with financial support and protection, he thought, “These people were being so kind. They clearly cared about me. Why would I want to kill them? I was surprised to realize that I no longer did” (115). The kindness of his Israeli handlers undoubtedly made a sharp contrast with the viciousness of Hamas maj’d in prison. Even if such kindness was instrumental, someone who had endured the ordeals that Yousef had would find any kindness appealing if not irresistible. Despite his appreciation of their support and his dwindling belief in Hamas’s cause, he didn’t make peace with his decisions for some time. The protection that Shin Bet offered him was a solution to a problem partially created by Yousef’s endangerment of his family. Many in Hamas suspected him of spying, which could have brought great harm to his loved ones, and his feigned involvement in Hamas encouraged his younger brothers to join against his wishes.
Yousef also had to confront how his career dovetailed with his intensifying interest in the Christian faith. He shared meals with suspected terrorists and befriended their families, only to pass on their movements to Shin Bet. On more than one occasion, he brought the Israeli state to his own front door, threatening members of his family, to sustain the fiction that he was a wanted outlaw. The requirements of spy work consistently clashed with basic moral principles as Israel targeted noncombatants or decided to kill terrorists whom, however guilty, Yousef believed were deserving of relative mercy. Yousef found peace in the idea “that God had specifically placed [him] at the core of both Hamas and Palestinian leadership, in Yasser Arafat’s meetings, and with the Israeli security service for a reason. [He] was in a unique position to do the job. And [he] knew that God was with me” (135). When the book comes to an end, however, Yousef reckons with both the continuing violence and the shattered state of his family. He acknowledges that there are no easy answers to the moral challenges of espionage. Though he claims that he carried positive intentions throughout the events described in the book, espionage created a cycle of consequences that he was constantly trying to escape or rationalize.
The Role of Religious Belief in Conflict
In the most controversial aspect of this book, Yousef explicitly identifies Islam as the root cause of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. He decries the “cruel and vengeful God of the Qur’an” that he believes commands his servants to conquer and subordinate all nonbelievers (199). The religious impulse appears to have been more obviously manifested in Palestine than in other parts of the Islamic world because of the absence of a clear, centralized political authority over the territory, so “religious law becomes the highest authority” (xiii). Yousef’s life has overlapped with a time when the conflict took on an overtly religious dimension. In previous decades, the Palestinian struggle under the leadership of the PLO was overwhelmingly secular and nationalist, finding common cause with anticolonial movements consisting of many races and religions.
Yousef finds much to criticize among the PLO, finding Arafat to be someone for whom “there always seemed to be more to gain if Palestinians were bleeding” (127). The secular PLO settled into complacency and corruption before compromising with Israel and, in the eyes of Hamas and others, becoming partners in the occupation. They were, in Yousef’s view, driven mainly by the “ideology of power” rather than the cause itself (33). This gave way to resistance movements drawn together by different factors than just nationality. Yousef attempts to show how a religious impulse can contribute to political violence, even though it remains unaddressed whether or not Islam is unique in this circumstance. To Yousef, Hamas’s religious orientation, proclaiming the “need for independence under the banner of Allah and Islam” (20), made compromise utterly untenable, even after Hamas entered an electoral process that would require certain collaboration with the state of Israel upon their winning. The inevitable consequence of using religion as justification is that there is no reasonable or lawful place for that conflict to end as long as opponents of the religion remain.
However, while Yousef uses his closeness to the conflict to support his assertions about religion, Yousef’s father appears to be his primary reason for uncertainty. Yousef regards Hassan throughout as a kind, decent man motivated by sincere convictions and who, at one point, was willing to make the heretofore unthinkable suggestion that a two-state solution was the only viable end to the conflict. Ultimately, Yousef believes that his father went too far in his quest for Palestine independence, but he refuses to condemn Hassan and remains sympathetic. An exploration of Hassan’s viewpoints and faith allows for nuance in the broader conversation about Islam—or any religion within conflicts—even if Yousef ultimately asserts that Muslim beliefs are the issue.
Loyalty to Some as Betrayal of Others
Yousef stresses that in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, it is difficult to exhibit loyalty to one group without betraying another in some way. This problem, according to Yousef, is particularly salient with Palestinians, who have succumbed to social fracturing in the absence of a central political or religious authority. Divided by lines of family, tribe, political party, relationship to the Israeli occupation, and whether they are secular or religious, Palestinians are, in Yousef’s view, as likely to have conflict within their own ranks as with Israel. Yousef’s life serves as a powerful example of this phenomenon. As a child, passionate loyalty to his father exposed rifts within his own family, who were “afraid of getting into trouble themselves if the Israelis thought they were helping terrorists” (37). These same people then unctuously attached themselves to Hassan upon his release.
Yousef also documents the problem of loyalty on the political level. The PLO was the standard-bearer of the Palestinian cause for decades, the internationally renowned rebels who resisted Israelis with the support of Arab leaders like Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein. However, when the Palestinians risked everything amid the occupation, their own leadership “[sat] with the Israelis at the same table and shaking hands” (55). When bloodshed continued, that same leadership incited further violence, primarily to preserve their own status, as “Arafat had grown extraordinarily wealthy as the international symbol of victimhood” (125). Yousef portrays how loyalty to Palestinian people eventually shrank to become loyalty to oneself and others in positions of power. Hamas was supposed to be the reliable alternative to the corrupt and secular Palestinian Authority, given the strength of their religious credentials; at first, Hamas seemed fitting for a pious and honest person like Hassan. However, Yousef would see firsthand how Hamas’s convictions gave them a dangerous sense of moral superiority. Their loyalty to one another and more extremist goals then led them to betray the Palestinian people they claimed to be fighting for.
The most obvious example of betrayal in the text is Yousef’s decision to work for the Shin Bet. Yousef argues that he was doing his people a service by undermining the most militant factions of the Intifada and ending a conflict that was turning some of his own friends into suicide bombers, but he still felt consistent guilt and uncertainty. It is unclear whether he accomplished his goals, as Yousef himself wonders, “What did I have to show for being the Shin Bet’s superspook? Were my people better off?” (236). While he originally worried for the immediate safety of his family, he later considers the full scope of ramifications for his loved ones as a result of his betrayal. By undermining the Palestinian cause, lying to everyone around him, and revoking his culture’s religion, he has impacted his family’s life forever. Whether he was more loyal to them or Israel remains a mystery, but he is regardless disowned by his family, and he claims to understand their anger with him.
