Last night I watched the 2014
Sundance award-winning documentary film, The
Green Prince. The title refers to Palestinian-born Mosab Hassan Yousef, he
was given this title by the Israeli secret service-Bet Shin because the
Hamas-Palestinian flag is green, and Mosab is the son of one of Hamas’ founding
leaders, Sheikh Hassan Yousef.
The film consists essentially of three
people Mosab and his dad, as well as Israeli Bet Shin member Gonen Ben-Yitzhak,
who recruited Mosab to become an informer for the Israelis.
The film is documentary style, so takes the
form of mainly monologues with interspersed footage of photos and videos of the
events being described by Mosab and Gonen.
Since Mosab became a kind of “gatekeeper”
for his dad, he was trusted by the Hamas inner circle and was therefore able to
share very important intelligence information with the Israelis. As a result of
his espionage activities, he was instrumental in preventing many Hamas suicide
bombings and assassinations, thus saving many Jewish lives.
Eventually, Mosab’s life was in danger, and
he was given asylum in the USA, after the testimony of Gonen before US
authorities.
In the monologues of Mosab, one comes to
appreciate and empathize with the moral-ethical and spiritual issues and
dilemmas he had to live with on a daily basis, as well as the consequences of
becoming a Bet Shin informer against his own father, which ironically, saved
his father’s life without his father even being aware of it.
Mosab came to realize that Hamas’ methods
and ideology were corrupt and evil and eventually left the Muslim faith to
become a Christian. He has written a book of his experiences called Son of Hamas: A Gripping Account of Terror,
Betrayal, Political Intrigue and Unthinkable Choices. For more information
on the book, The Green Prince, etc.,
visit Mosab’s website here.
