A review by misspalah
Son of Hamas: A Gripping Account of Terror, Betrayal, Political Intrigue, and Unthinkable Choices by Mosab Hassan Yousef

medium-paced

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MY FATHER WAS ISLAM TO ME. If I were to put him on the scale of Allah, he would weigh more than any other Muslim I had ever met. He never missed a prayer time. Even when he came home late and tired, I often heard him praying and crying out to the god of the Qur'an in the middle of the night. He was humble, loving, and forgiving—to my mother, to his children, even to people he didn't know. More than an apologist for Islam, my father lived his life as an example of what a Muslim should be. He reflected the beautiful side of Islam, not the cruel side that required its followers to conquer and enslave the earth. However, over the ten-year period that followed my imprison-ment, I would watch him struggle with an inner, irrational conflict. On the one hand, he didn't see those Muslims who killed settlers and soldiers and innocent women and children as wrong. He believed that Allah gave them the authority to do that. On the other hand, he personally could not do what they did. Something in his soul rejected it. What he could not justify as right for himself he rationalized as right for others.

• Son of Hamas by Mosab Hassan Yousef

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The author can be a convert from Islam to Christianity for all i care. Whatever religion he changed into,  even atheism itself, will not be able to excuse what he wrote in the book. All of the lies and deceit to accommodate his distorted views about Zionists and Palestinians. I cannot stand  how disillusioned he was with Israel and even accusing that Palestinians has been mingling with terrorism for as long as he can remember. The fact that he painted Israel as a good guy and how Israelis genuinely wanted peace made me want to gag.  Despite the series of occupations and countless nakbas, he decided to use one situation he encountered in the prison to put Hamas and every Palestinians in the same category. I personally would have tried to at least highlight some grace in the book but i got none from the book except in the beginning of the book when he narrated the history and his father’s background. The rest, i would say straight to the trash. You got caught because your own carelessness, and then you mingled with the devil - betraying your own family and your own nation and now, out of nowhere you are saying that you did it for Jesus and last but not least, you are now settling down in USA after you said you are done playing double agent for both IDF and Hamas. If its not money, citizenship or simply a way to leave Palestine, what was the true motive here? And i wonder whether the author can see that many of Palestinian Christians is being persecuted and churches is being bombed after the October 7th? Or does the author decided to adopt the selective outrage by western standards and decided to ignore the plight of Palestinian Christians and let Zionist obliterated the birthplace of Jesus to the rubbles that it is now.