Mosab Hassan Yousef was born in Ramallah, in the Palestinian West Bank in 1978. His father, Sheikh Hassan Yousef, is a founding leader of Hamas, internationally recognized as a terrorist organization and responsible for countless suicide bombings and other deadly attacks against Israel. Yousef was an integral part of the movement, for which he was imprisoned several times by the Shin Bet, the Israeli intelligence service. He withstood torture in prison only to discover Hamas was torturing its own people in a relentless search for collaborators. He began to question who his enemies really were—Israel? Hamas? America? While in an Israeli prison, Yousef was approached about becoming a spy for the Shin Bet. Initially, Yousef accepted it with the idea that he would betray them and in hopes he could use the role to protect his father and family. Later, as Yousef saw the hypocrisy within Hamas and became a Christian, he used the position to save lives on both sides of the conflict. Yousef worked as a double agent within Hamas for nearly 10 years. He became a vital intelligence asset for the Israeli government while Yousef served side-by-side with his father within the upper ranks of Hamas. After a chance encounter with a British tourist, Yousef started a six-year quest that jeopardized Hamas, endangered his family and threatened his life. He was granted political asylum in the United States. EMET has developed very close personal relationship with Mosab, since we honored him in 2010.
