Primary Topic
This episode dives deep into the complex and often brutal realities of the Middle East, exploring the historical and current conflicts in the region through the lens of Mosab Hassan Yousef, a former member of Hamas turned informant for Israeli intelligence.
Episode Summary
Main Takeaways
- Mosab Hassan Yousef’s transformation from a Hamas insider to a peace advocate highlights the potential for change and understanding in seemingly intractable conflicts.
- The discussion on the historical and political misconceptions about Palestine and Israel sheds light on the complexity of the issues at hand.
- Yousef’s insights into the destructive role of extremist ideologies within Palestinian society and their impact on the youth are particularly poignant.
- The episode underscores the importance of dialogue and the need for a nuanced understanding of the Middle East beyond the prevalent narratives.
- It challenges listeners to consider the human aspect of geopolitical conflicts, emphasizing personal stories and transformations.
Episode Chapters
1: Introduction
Dr. Peterson introduces Mosab Hassan Yousef, discussing his background and the episode's focus. Jordan Peterson: "Today's conversation explores the brutal realities of the Middle East with a former Hamas insider."
2: Understanding Hamas
Yousef explains the origins and motivations behind Hamas, providing context to the current conflicts. Mosab Hassan Yousef: "Hamas is not just a militant organization; it is deeply embedded in the Palestinian social fabric."
3: Personal Transformation
Yousef recounts his journey from supporting Hamas to working against it. Mosab Hassan Yousef: "My transformation was driven by a search for truth and peace."
4: Ideologies and Conflicts
Discussion on how ideologies shape conflicts in the Middle East. Jordan Peterson: "Ideologies have the power to fuel conflicts but also to resolve them."
5: Paths to Peace
Yousef discusses potential solutions and the role of international communities in fostering peace. Mosab Hassan Yousef: "Real peace requires understanding and overcoming historical grievances."
Actionable Advice
- Educate Yourself on the Issues: Understand the historical context and current realities of the Middle East.
- Support Peace Initiatives: Engage with and support organizations that promote dialogue and reconciliation.
- Challenge Extremism: Speak out against extremism and support moderate voices within all communities.
- Promote Educational Programs: Support educational initiatives that foster understanding and tolerance among the youth in conflict zones.
- Encourage Dialogue: Participate in discussions and forums that promote a balanced understanding of the issues.
About This Episode
Dr. Jordan B. Peterson sits down in person with Mosab Hassan Yousef. They discuss the ongoing conflict in the Middle East, the chaos created by Yasser Arafat, how Palestine has globalized their radical cause, Mosabs time as a prisoner, what set him free, and the far-from-paved road going forward.
Mosab Hassan Yousef (born in 1978) is a Palestinian ex-militant who defected to Israel in 1997 where he worked as an undercover agent for the Shin Bet until he moved to the United States in 2007. Yousef was considered the Shin Bet's most reliable source in the Hamas leadership, earning himself the nickname "The Green Prince.” The intelligence he supplied to Israel led to the exposure of many Hamas cells, as well as the prevention of dozens of suicide bombings and assassination attempts on Jews. Yousef's father is Sheikh Hassan Yousef, a co-founder of Hamas.
People
Mosab Hassan Yousef, Jordan B. Peterson
Companies
None
Books
None
Guest Name(s):
Mosab Hassan Yousef
Content Warnings:
Discussions of violence and extremism
Transcript
Jordan Peterson
Hello, everybody. I had the opportunity today to talk to Mister Mossab Hassan Youssef, who's a very complicated person. He spent a lot of his life north of Jerusalem. His father, his sheik, Hassan Yusuf, who's a co founder of Hamas.
He told me that he loved his father, but came to believe that his orientation in the world was deeply misguided. He said the same thing about his culture in general. I had a very brutal childhood. He grew up during the sequence of Antifa's, became conversant with bloodshed and the death of children at a very early age in his life. And that isn't the worst of it by a large margin.
He started to work for the israeli intelligence in 1997. He was born in 1978 and was a very reliable source for them in relationship to the doings of Hamas. He involved himself in the prevention of suicide bombings. Most particularly, we talked quite broadly about the situation in the Middle east, about the culture that he was raised in, about the transformation of his attitude towards Israel as a state, the Israelis as people, his understanding of what constituted Palestine and the general situation in the Middle east. It's a very intense interview, to say the least.
I suppose part of what I walked away from it concluding was that, you know, pools rush in where angels fear to tread. And everybody has an opinion about Israel and Gaza. And most of us don't have the wisdom or the experience to do anything but remain silent in the face of what's happening there. You can watch, listen to Mossab Youssef, and draw your own conclusions about the catastrophe unfolding in the Middle east. His conclusion was that alliance with the Israelis is the best pathway forward, not only for the west, but for the arab world.
There's many people in the arab world who believe that as well. It's why the Abraham Accords are holding, even in the face of Iran's attempts to tear that accord to shreds. So buckle up. It's a wild ride. So obviously, there's a terrible mess in the Middle east and everybody has an opinion about it, but everyone's also woefully under, what would you call it, under informed with regards to the situation there, because it's unbelievably complicated.
And so I think people take sides and make opinions without knowing the first thing about what's actually happening. And so I want to ask you a bunch of, like, really basic questions, and we can. We can flesh out the landscape for everybody who's watching and listening. So the first question I'd like to ask you is, what is Hamas exactly? How would you characterize it?
Mosab Hassan Yousef
You know, before, actually, we say, what is Hamas? We need to ask ourselves, what is Palestine? Okay? Because Palestine is non existential and it was never a country. It's not ethnic group, it's not a religion, it's not a faith.
It's a colonial entity created by the British that lived for about 25 years. And Jews, Arabs, Druze, Christians, Zionists were called Palestinians before the termination of the british mandate. It was called the british mandate of Palestine. So the mandate itself had the name Palestine. Now, this is all taking place after World War one, when the.
After the collapse of the Ottoman Empire. Right, right. Collapses, there's questions about how the political boundary should be drawn. The British establish this state known as Palestine. So what should people think about that?
Jordan Peterson
Exactly? Like, what do you think people should think about the fact that the British were involved? I mean, they won World War one and the Ottoman Empire collapsed. So there was some mopping up to do, and often those things are done in a hurry and with less than optimal information, let's say. Yes.
Mosab Hassan Yousef
Well, the Ottoman Empire continued for about 400 years. During that time, they ethnically cleansed the jewish people from their land, which explains why the jewish people were all over the place after world War one and all the atrocities and the persecution of jewish people. They felt the need to seek refuge, and the homeland was the best option for the jewish people. Now, this led to clashes between the colonizer, which was the British Empire, and the jewish people. The jewish people fought for their independence and they shed blood in the process.
Also, the Arabs did the same in 1948 when the United nations divided the land. Given the opportunity to the Jews and the Arabs to build and establish their own states, the Jews declared their independence, but the Arabs declared war against the Jews. And I think this is a very important point to understand. There was no such a thing as Palestine. And when we talk about the british mandate of Palestine, it was never a state.
It was just a transitional period from the collapse of the Ottoman Empire to the termination of the british mandate. And that was less than 28 years. So that termination was in 1948? In 1947. Okay.
Okay. So why, in your estimation, weren't two states established at that time a state for the palestinian Arabs and a state for the Jews?
From muslim point of view, and this is where it gets tricky. This is where nobody wants to talk about the ideological, religious dimension of this war.
From islamic point of view, the al Aqsa mosque and the surrounding areas does not define boundary. The surrounding areas could be 100 miles, could be 500 miles. Is an islamic trust that no muslim leader has the authority to give it away to the non Muslims. So when the jewish people return to their homeland, the Muslims outraged. And that's the most fundamental reason and motive for the Arabs and Muslims to fight against Israel, because they consider that territory as an islamic land.
Jordan Peterson
Right. And that's the mosque that's built on what was the Temple Mount? Exactly. Actually, the history of the mosque is, is about approximately 1300 years, but the jewish temple beneath is a lot older than that. And the jewish ruins in Judea and Samaria still erected, actually.
Mosab Hassan Yousef
And jewish people have overwhelming evidence of artifacts and archaeology that support their existence over centuries, millennias. But the Muslims don't. There is no currency. There is no book. There is no bible.
There is only a building that is 1300 years old. And this is why for the jewish people don't have a problem in principle, to coexist with other ethnic groups. Like even the zionist movement did not have a problem to have a two state solution back in the day, while the Muslims refuse completely having jewish existence on that land. The same way in Mecca, non Muslims are not allowed to inter Mecca, even to drive through Mecca. The same thing.
They want the situation to be in Jerusalem. How did you come to these conclusions? I don't imagine this is how you looked at the world when you were young.
Jordan Peterson
So how did you come to these conclusions? I understand that your father, Sheikh Hassan Youssef, as a co founder of Hamas. So obviously that's complicated, to say the least. So when did tell me how you looked at things when you were a young man and then what events in your life started to change your mind? Since I was very young, I had.
How old are you now? I'm 45. 45. Okay. Okay.
So you were born in about 1980, 1978? 78, yeah. So the had critical thinking from the early beginning of my life, when the mullah told the funeral crowd that the angels of heaven are going to come back and interrogate this deceased in the grave, they're going to bring his soul back, they're going to torture him, and if he does not answer the right question, it's going to be an open hell. I went back to the graveyard and I investigated. I was only ten years old.
Mosab Hassan Yousef
And since that point of my life, I did not find death intimidating as much as actually became my drive to seek a higher truth. It led me to. So tell me about that again. I don't understand that story exactly. What event was that?
So basically, in the islamic belief, there is something called the grave torture. This is a device the religious authorities use to control the muslim population. When the person dies in the grave, supposedly there is torture and there is interrogation. If the person doesn't know who is his God, who is his prophet, if he failed to answer the questions regarding the religion, they're going to be tortured painfully. They're like.
Jordan Peterson
So it's like a last judgment sort of. Yes, but it happens in the transitional period. So because people die, you know, and they've been dying for thousands of years. So when the afterlife, hell is going to happen, which is a fundamental thing in Islam, the afterlife, heaven and hell, so many people die and is there a torture? So they come up with the story that there is grave torture, whether Muhammad said this or not, but it's widely believed in the islamic faith and many people were afraid.
Mosab Hassan Yousef
When I was very young, I asked all my friends to go back with me to the cemetery, and none of them agreed. And when I went back, I was terrified.
Eventually, I did not hear any screaming, any torture. And I put my ear to the ground trying to. You did this alone? I did this alone because nobody, none of my friends would come back with me to the graveyard. Terrifying.
Jordan Peterson
Is this during the day? It was during the day. During the day. But eventually I found my peace, even at nighttime. And this might sound a bit psychic, but I reached the point that was my challenge to myself.
Mosab Hassan Yousef
Where was I able to lay down in an open grave and look at the stars at midnight? How old were you when you did that? I was maybe 1213 years old. What do you think drove you to do that? It's my fear of death.
Jordan Peterson
Yeah. Because the entire culture, usually people avoid. It, though, rather than confronting it. Well, it sounds strange, but this is when I made peace with death, and this is actually what empowers me, what empowered me throughout my journey. Right, so that's very young when you did that.
Mosab Hassan Yousef
Yes. How many times did you go visit a grave? So basically we were just next to the graveyard. And this is not actually the most important thing of observing death and having an early age encounter with death. That the first palestinian intifada started when I was living in that neighborhood, so.
Jordan Peterson
And you were living where exactly? Right next to the cemetery. Okay, so here is the cemetery wall, and here is my. Here is my bed. Okay, and where are you geographically located at that?
Mosab Hassan Yousef
That's Ramallah and Albert to the north of Jerusalem. Okay. Okay, so you're the capital of what's the Palestinian of Holland. Okay. Okay, so you're north of Jerusalem.
Yes, but this was. We were at the heart of the conflict, and now all the bloodshed, all the youngsters who got shot during the first person antifa that were buried next door. So I guarantee you that there is no one in that conflict that witnessed firsthand bloodshed as much as it did as a child. Hundreds of people times were buried next door, whether they died naturally or they died because of the conflict or internal conflict between Hamas and Fatah, where, you know, they shot each other or stabbed each other. So the entire conflict was displayed in front of my eyes as a child.
And I couldn't find a stronger motive. Why are we suffering? Why are we dying? And who's doing this to us? Of course, the narrative on the palestinian street that this is Israel, this is the jewish people killing us.
And as a child, I did not have the power to discern, to see a higher truth. How could I? It's the same thing with the children now, because they suffer the consequences of war, but they don't realize or understand how the war originated. So in that situation, I had the trauma of the first palestinian intifada. And all the memories stay with me.
This is what empowers me to carry on. And that was when about. That would be 19, 87, 87. Okay. 1987 to 1992 and 1993.
Jordan Peterson
What's the definition of antifa? Chaos. People call it uprising, but the very definition not only of intifada, of Palestine. Very similar definitions. It's chaos, it's disorder, it's anti establishment.
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Mosab Hassan Yousef
Simply, yes. Arafat sitting in Tunisia. This is supposed to be the father of the palestinian revolution. Yeah. The same Yasser Arafat who died with like $4 billion.
Jordan Peterson
That Yasser Arafat. A lot more. Yasir Arafat was an egyptian con artist. He was born in Egypt with an egyptian accent. It was so obvious to know that he's egyptian.
Mosab Hassan Yousef
But everybody was in denial that he's palestinian and he is the father of the palestinian revolution.
After they were kicked out of Jordan, of Lebanon and the end of Indonesia some 2000 miles away, they came up with the idea to engineer the intifada. They wanted trouble, but from within they knew that this could be a lot more effective than trying to destroy Israel from outside. And they sent children to die. This has been their mechanism, their strategy. And who's they?
When I say they? All those who are complicit in this continuous crime. All those who sacrifice children for power and for money. It's a fundamental part of that culture. We have to understand this first was the ideological dimension that I told you about then sacrificing children is not something that makes them feel guilty.
It's acceptable in that culture. So now, as a student, masked men used to come and we were just fifth and 6th grade, we were very young. And they would force all students to evacuate the school. They paralyzed the educational system. They paralyzed economy, transportation, and they wanted complete chaos.
And until today, I asked myself, if you were fighting against Israel, why would you stop the education and the economy and all other aspects of the arab life in the West bank? This is what Intifada means. So instead of going to school. We. Stayed at home for the first two or three years of the first palestinian intifada.
We did not go to school. Now, instead, many of the children got engaged in stone throwing. And this became our game. I was part of that game. And many of my friends got shot in the process throwing stones at the IDF or what we used to call them, settlers, just clashing.
Of course, many civilians got hurt in the process. So they did not want us to go to schools. And I did not understand why. What about the economy? What about the people who were forced to shut down their stores?
And if they did not obey, they became traitors. And in the morning, they came back to their stores and they were burnt down to ashes. So by the means of intimidation, Yasser Arafat sitting in luxury like haniyyah today, sitting in luxury in Qatar. And what's in common between all these Khan artists, that they were outsiders living outside while they wanted the children to die on their behalf. Because what really globalized the intifada or the palestinian cause is the children.
During the first palestinian intifada, when the world saw a child in the face of a modern army, that was outrageous, and everybody sympathized with the cause. So how did the leaders. How did the leaders of the intifada benefit personally from putting children on the front line? How. What's the money pipeline precisely?
Jordan Peterson
I mean, Arafat ended up with an absolute bloody fortune, like an insane fortune. And I know the same thing is happening, but how exactly is that monetized? Is the suffering of children produces an influx of foreign aid that's then pocketed? Essentially, yes. Because on one hand, they delegitimize Israel.
Mosab Hassan Yousef
Israel become a child killer. Right? Right. Then there is no one in the world that does not sympathize with children dying. Right.
So there is no more destructive or powerful weapon in the hands of a corrupt revolution that don't want to fight. They don't have the courage to actually fight in combat, but they prefer that their children would die on their behalf. In the meantime, delegitimize Israel and globalize their cause. The international community don't know the reality. 100% on the ground.
They don't understand this game. Even up to now, they see Hamas using children as human shields, which is very obvious. This is what Hamas wanted from this war. The international community is still in denial.
So when children are dying, this will lead to more chaos. It would lead to war. It would lead to, today a global chaos. But how do you deflate the tension? You deflate the tension by going to the middleman, pay him off, and he's going to stop the madness.
And this is how they paid off. Yasir Arafat paid off Hamas. This is the Gaza war today. This is not the first one. This is the fifth one.
And every time Hamas started the war, they used human shields. Children died. Hamas exaggerated the numbers, the statistics, they weren't accurate. The international community bent over and submitted to a ceasefire, which basically guaranteed Hamas staying in power. But now, how do you silence Hamas for a while?
By giving them lots of money. But this time, Hamas thought they could double down on human shields by putting booby traps all over the place. Schools, hospitals, mosques. They did not leave any secret location in Gaza without using it as a shooting path, digging hundreds of miles of tunnels beneath one of the most populated areas on earth.
Jordan Peterson
How come that wasn't widely known? How come that wasn't widely known in the west. Well, this is obvious. This is obvious, but the world is in denial because it's much easier to condemn Israel. You know, when we have close to 2 billion Muslims repeating a certain narrative, a false narrative that is baseless, that, say, Palestine, and we say the very foundation of this narrative, there is no such a thing as Palestine.
Mosab Hassan Yousef
It never existed. But everybody suddenly became a pro Palestine all the. Well, it fits into the oppressor oppressed narrative. Right, Victor? It's the victim.
Absolutely narrative. It's the victim mentality. So now, even in the United States, the anti bankers, those who are in debt, or anti establishment communists, feminists, socialists, Islamists, are coming in the same room protesting or opposing as pro Palestine. Well, what is Palestine? You are extreme opposites, that you should not be in the same avenue at all.
Without Israel, you would be conspiring to destroy each other. Islamist and communist, clearly. But suddenly, now you are pairing. So this phenomenon of Palestine, it's basically, it shows you falsehood versus truth. And.
Jordan Peterson
Yeah, well, there's something really fundamental to that victim victimizer narrative, right? That's underlying all of this. And if you can tap into that, then you get all the. Well, you certainly get all the left wing radicals on your side instantly, because they're, of course, 100% bought into the victim victimizer narrative. And it enables them to explain the world and also to be moral, because all you have to do is identify with the hypothetical victim.
The thing I see happening in Palestine, you can clear up any misconceptions on my part, is like I've thought for decades, that the Palestinians are sacrificial victims for any outside powers that want to delegitimize Israel. And then it doesn't matter how many Palestinians die, because they're essentially expendable. And that seems to me particularly true in relationship to Iran. So it's completely in Iran's fundamental interest to foment this chaos that you described. It's not in the best interest of the Palestinians in anything like the medium to long run, but it doesn't matter as long as the trouble keeps occurring.
It's hard on Israel, it's hard on the United States. It helps Iran maintain its iron grip. It seems to me obvious that many people in the arab world are waking up to that, have woken up to that. I think that's why the Abraham Accords have more or less held through this, because there are powerful forces allied against Iran, most fundamentally, but it's in their best interest to keep the misery in Palestine going as long as it possibly can. And my suspicions are that what happened on October 7 was command directly.
Please feel free to disagree with me, but this is how it looks to me, is that the Iranians decided that it was time to stir the pot and they produced this massacre, and they hoped they provoked Israel into exactly the sort of reaction that Israel is having and that Israel would take the threat extraordinarily seriously and move in. And as their military victory mounted, public opinion would turn against them and it would fragment the Abraham Accords. I suspect that was their plan. What do you think about that? Is that in accordance with your understanding of the situation?
Mosab Hassan Yousef
Absolutely. This is Iran's attempt to actually rearrange the region. Right. I don't want to go too far. That also China and Russia have ambition of reshaping the world.
Yes, changing the world order. But we don't want to go too far. No, because God only knows how that's going to turn out. But it's basically Iran, Russia, China, they made it very clear that they don't want the United States monopoly over power. They want to change the world order.
Putin understands completely what it really meant for Hamas to go and ethnically cleanse 20 jewish communities. And it was not coincidental, right after the Ukraine russian war, where all the attention was at Europe. And we saw after what happened, as nobody talked about Ukraine, when you bring the three major religions and make them clash, somehow, Hamas was the trigger, probably. I doubt that Hamas understand KGB and Putin's play, but they are part of it, and Putin is complicit in this situation. So Iran does not act on its own.
When they launched, for example, hundreds of ballistic missiles in the 21st century, this is a major attack. I haven't witnessed this in our lifetime, maybe during the iraqi war, but it was not on this scale. So anyway, yes, these people don't care for the global security. They are irresponsible. And worse than this, that we have experience with the communists, or let's say, communist islamic ideologies that they reached at the end, they failed.
The communist islamic model did not bear fruit. It did not emancipate humanity. It did not solve the human problem. And they still insist on replacing capitalism. I don't think capitalism is the perfect solution, but it's the better option for sure.
So anyway, they're insisting and they want this to keep going. And when we have a weak leadership, with due respect, the Biden administration, it's not showing leadership. And in the muslim culture, the arab culture, they don't understand tolerance. There is no such a thing, not in the muslim consciousness. Maybe forgiveness, but not tolerance.
And tolerance is mostly perceived as weakness. And I speak as someone who grew up in that culture. So every time when Trump was there, for example, everybody was terrified of him, unpredictable, and you don't know what he's going to do next. So he moved the american embassy to Jerusalem. Nobody dared even to challenge.
Jordan Peterson
Yeah. Right. Yes. Not even riots or any of that. Right.
Yeah. But now the Obama administration, then, now the Biden administration, the Americans and the american power is not respected. They've enabled Iran. Yes. Yeah.
One of the things that appalled me when, when Biden took office is that I've been following the Abraham accords quite closely because I thought they were, well, really quite the miracle. And I knew from talking to people who were involved firsthand that the Saudis were very interested in having that process continue and very inclined to sign on. And my sense with the Biden administration was that that got scuttled because the Democrats were completely unwilling to give Trump any credit for anything he did during his administration. And I thought that was absolutely unforgivable because it would have been. And the Democrats could have pulled this off.
They could have brought Saudi Arabia into the Abraham accords and they squandered the opportunity. And that's a complete catastrophe, as far as I'm concerned. An unforgivable catastrophe. And here we are now as a consequence of it, at least in part. Let's go back to when you were 13.
I want to pick up the thread of that story. Okay. So you're seeing all this catastrophe, this chaos that you described, that redounds to the benefit of the con men who are running the show, for example, and that is there to delegitimize Israel and the United States and to redound to the credit, let's say, of the Iranians operating the background. You're seeing all the consequences of this firsthand. You decide that for a variety of complicated reasons, you decide that you're going to face your fear of death.
You have this graveyard next. You're going there to investigate and to experiment. What was the consequence of doing that for you? And then how does that tie in with your transformation of worldview over time? When I was very young, and this is stuff I don't like to talk about because I choose not to be a victim.
Mosab Hassan Yousef
So I don't like to become vulnerable because people think that you are weak, stuff that I don't have to talk about, but I think there is no way around it because many people ask, what motivates you and where are you coming from when I was very, very young, I was raped in a culture, in a culture that would kill the rapist, but also they would kill the rape victim. So I never told anybody about that story. I never got any support. How old were you? I was five or six years old when that happened.
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Mosab Hassan Yousef
Now, I had to heal on my own, and it was a hell of a journey in a society that did not have mercy, that they preferred that I would disappear so I don't bring shame on them. Right. And I witnessed so many women being killed after being raped that the father would prefer to kill his daughter, to bury the shame with her, not to have to face the society that his daughter was raped. What type of mentality is this? What type of religion is this?
And this is not just a culture. Okay? Does it reflect on his inability to protect her? Is that the source of the shame? It's his status.
Jordan Peterson
It's his status. It's the father of. He could not protect his daughter. Yeah, yeah. And now maybe the daughter is pregnant.
Mosab Hassan Yousef
This was before abortion, etcetera. Okay? The daughter is pregnant. What is he going to do with the child? No, he prefers to kill the daughter.
He does not want to go even to the, to the degree that his grandchildren is a result of a rape incident. So. And from the 7th century in Islam or in Arabia, they killed infants. So when I say sacrificing children, this is not coincidental, it's rooted in that culture.
So for me it was injust that I had to actually carry the burden instead of getting the support from the family, from the society, like at least to come and say who did it. Today I'm 45 years old, I'm a very strong man. I can confront the whole universe if necessary. And up to now, none of them asked the question who did it? And by the way, I had the power to kill the predator down the road.
He's probably living in a nightmare. Why I didn't actually harm him, because later on I got lots of power even when I was back in the territory. But I chose not to. Instead of going after the rapist, I went after the belief system. And this is where I need to create the change.
Jordan Peterson
I see. So what's so called Islam? And I know this is very sensitive topic. If the belief system, if allah thinks that the rapist and the raped are equal and they deserve the same punishment, then this God does not have authority over my life. And this is where I start questioning the entire belief system and I rebuilt.
How come you're still alive? Well, they tried to kill me and they're still trying to kill me. Not bad. They have been trying to assassinate me politically at least. All these progressives and muslim brotherhood wearing all type of masks in the United States, they have been trying to discredit me.
Mosab Hassan Yousef
So I cannot even speak for myself, to defend myself because I'm speaking on behalf of all the wounded children in the region and I know their game and I know they don't care for the children.
Instead, my father sacrificed me. He said, this is not my son and I don't know if you want to kill him, his blood is allowed. So when you have to choose between a hypothetical God that does not even exist and the future of children or your own child, well, we have a fundamental problem here. Then you come pausing to tell the rest of the universe that Islam is a religion of peace. Well, no, we have a big problem here.
We have to talk about it. And when I start talking about this, I got canceled. Yeah, you got cancelled. So. And now I'm labeled Islamophob.
Jordan Peterson
What? Islamophob. I'm confronting this thing and I'm willing to die in its pursuit because there is no other way. Only the truth can set people free. Only the truth.
Mosab Hassan Yousef
The same thing with Palestine. It totally depends on the destruction of Israel in order for us to see what Palestine is. And the manifestation of Palestine requires the destruction of Israel. Same thing with the islamic state. It requires the destruction of civilization.
All civilizations combined in order to achieve this global state called.
But we don't know how it is going to look like then. So we have first to die for them to live. Then they can prove themselves. It's. If there is anything that defines madness, this is madness.
Jordan Peterson
So you were hurt very badly when you were very young, and then you lived through the intifada, and you're right beside the graveyard, and you decided that you're going to confront death relatively directly and overcome your fear of it. You were doing some religious experimentation, really, at the same time. Then you said that you were testing out this hypothesis that there was torture in the grave. You did that alone because your friends wouldn't come along with you, which is, like, hardly surprising. So you said that you also decided, with regards to being raped, that the proper response to that wasn't to go after the person specifically who was responsible, but to go after something deeper than that, which was the belief system that gave rise to this problem.
All right, so now you're 13. Are these ideas already in your imagination? Like, when do you start sorting? When was it that you started sorting this out? Some of them were in the form of feelings, just gut feeling.
Mosab Hassan Yousef
I did not have the mean to express them, but I knew them. It was not coincidental that I could not tell my own father about the situation. But later on, I knew that my punishment is death.
So today I have the power to express myself. I didn't know everything at that time. Believe it or not, I felt it that this society cannot be trusted. And this is why today, when I stand and tell the world, anyone who identifies as a Muslim, I consider them as a threat. I don't trust them.
And people say, oh, you cannot generalize. This is, like, insane, what you say. No, it's not insane, because if their belief system has sentenced me to death many times for crimes that I haven't committed, then you pause. As a Muslim, you carry that identity. How am I supposed to feel towards you?
It's like coming to a jewish refugee during the nazi era and say, I am a Nazi. Come with me. I'm not going to hurt you. No, you're taking the identity of a nazi regime. And whether you are the bad cup or the good cup, it doesn't matter.
You are serving the same establishment and I'm tired of this moderate versus extremist. Every individual has the responsibility to know what they are identifying with you. My individuality is above all religions, above all gods. I don't accept to just take a label for myself, not knowing what I'm getting myself involved into, because only my parents pushed that religious identity on me. And if I am at that level of consciousness, then how can I trust you with anything?
I cannot trust you with my woman. I cannot trust you with my property. I cannot trust you with my money. I cannot trust you being even close to me, because you don't qualify. You don't know your individuality.
You are unpredictable. You can be friendly now, but five minutes later, you can be a part of a crowd, and you are going to show me your tasks. You might bite me. So then I have a problem. Okay.
Jordan Peterson
What do you make of moves on the part of countries like the UAE and. And the other countries that are involved in the. In the Abraham Accords, let's say, because that. It looks to me like that's a pathway forward much different than the pathway laid out in Iran, that that holds out the possibility of something like a rapprochement between, let's say, Christianity, Judaism and Islam. Do you see any hope on that side of things?
Mosab Hassan Yousef
Yes. With the statement that I made. This is my fundamental stand. I don't compromise this truth, and I don't respect anyone who identified themselves as a Muslim in principle, because. Why?
Okay, but this is my fundamental stand, because I aim to reform a generation. I need people to get out of their cave of delusion and think for themselves. Like, for example, I don't have a problem with the Sufis, and I don't have a problem, actually, with Muslims who don't pose as Muslims. They don't have to bring their religious identity as they are entitled to something. They want to intimidate me or maybe tempt me with something sincere.
Devotional people don't need a religious identity at all. And those exist in the arab and the muslim world. But also, hypocrisy is the other side of the coin. I just did a seminar on the gospels with some scholars, the same group that I walked through the story of Exodus with. We spent 20 hours going through the gospel accounts, and the biggest enemies of Christ are the religious hypocrites.
Jordan Peterson
That's the Pharisees in that story. And they're people who proclaim allegiance to God while acting in their own service. Right. The deepest of all possible sins. Right.
To invert the moral order so that you serve yourself well, claiming to serve what's properly put in the highest place, right? There's no shortage of religious hypocrisy. And I think it is the worst of all possible sins because it inverts the cosmic order, right? It makes everything good subservient to what it is that you want. And that's a very, I mean, that can be, obviously, that's a problem faced by any religious system, because any religious system can become overrun with hypocrites.
But that's really what you're pointing to, is the distinction between hypocrisy. And it says in the gospels that you shouldn't let your left hand know what your right hand is doing. And what that really means is that it's something like practice your devotion in solitude and secrecy, and don't trump trumpet it, don't make a show of it.
The activists in the west are exactly the same sort of people, right? They're wearing their morality on a stick. Look how good I am because I'm on the right side has nothing to do with them organizing their lives in any sense of the word. All they have to do is proclaim allegiance to the victim, and they're on the top of the moral order, regardless of who they have to crawl in bed with to manage that particular stunt, which is what we're seeing everywhere in the west at the moment after October 7, obviously. And all this moral decay, of course there is in common.
Mosab Hassan Yousef
It's a human condition. You know, it's this why we're saying, if we want to see the new man, if we want to integrate to a higher state of consciousness, then we need to drop this political correctness. What's the difference? It's the same thing. It's the same game I was born in.
Jordan Peterson
That's why they end up on the. Same side, and I was born in that belief. Like, at least when it comes to me, I don't have the right to criticize my own belief system. And if I do, I become, it becomes hateful speech. Who says this?
Mosab Hassan Yousef
This is my birthright to rebel and to criticize. This is what makes us superior to animals, especially that there is no such a thing as Islam. We have so many denominations, so basically, at least what we can do now, we can push them back. They have to back off, and we probably can apply political pressure where, you know, they will have to hold extremists accountable. But after October 7, what I saw, and this is why I went outrageous and I really told the arab world, listen, if it comes down to choose between the entire muslim population and a cow.
I choose a cow. Like, at least the cow is very peaceful. It gives us milk, it gives us leather, it gives us meat. It's very peaceful. It's harmless.
But you, what's your contribution? And now we have this global crisis where a minority, religious minority, being persecuted, suffering ethnic cleansing on October 7. And instead of siding with truth to say that this does not represent us as a muslim world, instead they have been weaponizing their religious identity against this religious minority that is most creative, with the greatest contribution to life. And I don't see, like this is the blueprint of our society. I mean, I cannot imagine the western civilization or our civilization without the Jews.
Jordan Peterson
How do you account for the fact that the Abraham accords haven't collapsed? I mean, they haven't, right? They've held. And that's, again, that seems to me to be a very positive thing. I mean, I think you could make a case that perhaps the people who are on the Abraham accord side of the world could have been more forthright in their defense of Israel after October 7.
But at least the whole bloody process hasn't collapsed. I mean, that's what Iran was hoping for. It's not collapsed. And I think it is going to be rejuvenated after this war because it's in the interest of everybody. Yes.
Mosab Hassan Yousef
And now the thing is, Israel is showing everyone that violence did end. So what I am hoping for that, I don't know if we have to go to the point where we have to deal with Iran and Hezbollah, and this war could be a lot longer than people expecting. But eventually the Middle east is going to reach the point, especially Muslims and Arabs, that violence is a dead end. We are not going to tolerate violence. You want to worship the stone, worship it as much as you want.
But don't throw it at me. Don't dare to throw it at me, because I will retaliate.
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Mosab Hassan Yousef
And this was the final result, the use of force. After exhausting every possibility with Islamists, with the Muslim Brotherhood especially, which is Hamas, there is no difference. Now that they learned the lesson, they can stay in their delusion. It's not my responsibility to go and try to pull them out of their cave. But if they choose to act on it and manifest their delusion in the form of violence, in the form of terrorism, then we have very tough warriors and we are going to fight.
I personally am fighting for my very existence. I am not an expert on the topic. They want me to cease to exist, hence my relationship and my understanding of Israel, because Israel didnt do anything wrong to the Arabs and to the Jews, except, you know, just being who they are, and they want them to cease to exist. This is how I feel, why I feel with Israel. There's no difference.
We are in the same situation where I didn't commit a crime against my people. I didn't commit a crime against anyone. Even later on, when I collaborated with Israel in the intelligence service, my main goal was to just stop the madness, stop suicide bombers from targeting civilians indiscriminately. This was my goal. This was my moral compass.
I didn't do it because of a national motivation, but I still became a traitor. I said, why you label me as a traitor? Why you condemn me to death? I did not only save jewish life, I saved also palestinian lives. I saved my father's life and other Hamas leaders lives.
Believe it or not, for ten years, I don't have blood on my hands. I did not take part of killing any human being throughout ten years of war and chaos and bloodshed, working around the clock to save people from their madness, trying to just juggle with the whole situation. I was very young, and I almost got killed so many times in the process. Sitting in a room full of explosives with potential suicide bombers, 19 years old, discussing who's going to die first, that kind of situation. And I am trying, how can I stop this kid from killing so many other people?
This is not about treason. It's about pro life. This is what we were doing. Yet a society that praised suicide bombing attacks, praise death, because blinded with hatred towards the jewish people. That, by the way, they don't know nothing about the jewish history.
They don't know nothing about the jewish suffering. They are not willing to study about the Holocaust. Instead, they're teaching people the wrong and the false narrative, and this is how they guarantee to stay in this victimhood for eternity. So basically, it's so complicated, you know, in my matrix, that I learned a lot about myself, and I fought the good fight. But right now I reached a point that I don't need to explain to anybody anything.
There is a volcano inside me is about to erupt. And I don't care what people are going to say, whether they are going to say, mad, crazy, out of control. They can say whatever they want. We have to eradicate Hamas. We have to finish Islamists.
There is no room for savages in our civilization. And anyone who pose a threat against innocent civilians don't have equal rights. It's as simple as that. And all the voices coming from the United States say, hey, Palestinians, give the Palestinians equal rights. I say, no.
First, I want to see equal responsibility. Show me equal responsibility, and we can discuss equal rights. But you don't compare savages to decent civilians or to decent civilized people who know their responsibility towards themselves and towards their neighbor, and compare say, hey, Israel is democracy. Why you treat the Palestinians in such manner? Well, there is no such a thing as Palestine to begin with.
And the entire social structure need to be studied before we decide what Palestine is, because it's not a nation, just political gangs fighting against each other, finding Israel as a common enemy. And when Israel is not there, they will kill each other. I promise you that.
Jordan Peterson
So what happens to you at 13? Walk me through your life from 13 onward to the point where you start working with the Israelis. So just walk me through that whole biography. So, that was the first person in Intifada. But it looks like I developed so many disorders because of the traumas of childhood and instead a society that can understand a child and what's going on, what they did, they beat me up.
Mosab Hassan Yousef
Everybody from the Hamas leaders to my parents to the teachers at school to the principal, to the other kids in the streets, everywhere I went. At some point, I got beaten up by a mob. In fact, in my life, I got beaten up by a mob multiple times to the point where I went unconscious. And why were you a target of that sort of violence? I was just troublemaker, and I am still a troublemaker.
This is one of my best qualities. So basically, they did. They wanted me to behave accordingly according the religious laws and the cultural laws. But I didn't know I was behaving that way. I just wanted to rebel.
There was lots of anger inside me, and there is still lots of anger. So what were you doing that was causing trouble? I broke the rules at the mosque. I played, and I just was very playful kid, and they wanted me to just not do anything if I ran in the mosque. Once, the imam at the mosque lift me up above his head and throw me flat on my back where I lost my breath.
And in other occasions, I was whipped by a hamas leader with the electric cable to the point I lost consciousness. How old were you? Between the ten and 18 years old. This is, like, where the brutality of the society took place. So if I was only a rape victim when I was very young, I would say, okay, that was one event.
But come on, everybody was conspiring against me. And I still wonder why so many forces wanted me dead. They still don't have compassion to just look and say, it's like, wow, this guy went through a lot. Like, maybe, you know, whatever he's saying, he has the right, at least to express it, but they want to strip me, even the right to talk about it. So it's a brutal culture.
When some say what happened on October 7 was barbaric. It's not only Hamas. There is a majority in the gazan society that is complicit in this crime. In fact, for those who watched the footage of the October 7 crimes, it was not only Hamas that committed the crime. Most of the crimes, especially raping and kidnapping, were committed by gazan civilians.
And I know now this is considered, or somebody can discredit me because I'm generalizing, but I say the vast majority of that society don't have mercy when it comes to children. And no woman can walk freely and feel safe at midnight anywhere in the palestinian territories. This is why a father is willing to kill his daughter if she would leave the house without a companion. Because if she leaves the house without a companion, there is a big chance that she's going to be raped on the streets. And why you're taking such a risk, they would beat them up if they leave the house alone.
So it's a troubled society. It's a death culture. And I don't mean to label them as savages. And I don't want to say this because it's so hard. It's my biological family.
This is where I came from, and I love the people. I want the people to integrate, but they want me dead still. And as long as they are not able to make peace with their own child, I don't know how they can make peace with other nations, with other people, with other. What was your relationship with your father like? I loved my father.
I loved him. He was my God. Even though he beat me up so many times, I loved him, and I loved my mother as well. I loved my people. I did not hate them.
I was just troublemaker. But it's not out of hatred. Even the ones who hurt me the most, I was able to let go. Even my rapists, or that guy, I told you, he beat me up, or the teacher, I did not go after them. And it was not coincidental that existence gave me so much power.
During the second pairsinian intifada, which I was, I had the capacity to pretty much give the permission to an army to kill somebody, and I refused, especially when they were my opponents. So how did you come to be in that position? So you're a young man, 13 to 18. What's happening in your life and where do you end up? So basically, at the age of 18, the gap between me and that society was really wide.
And I questioned many things about that culture, who we are, and why people just so cruel.
And I wanted to take revenge, but I thought I'd take revenge from Israel. And somehow I wanted to go just suicidal, because it was very hard to take a gun and go shoot my people. So I thought, okay, how about I go against the occupiers, our enemies? And I decided that I'm going to buy a purchase gun and shoot some Israelis and just go as a shahid. That was my only escape, and that was only at the age of 18.
So I got the guns, and before I did anything, thankfully, I was arrested by the israeli intelligence. During interrogation, they offered me to work for them. And I thought it was an opportunity to actually say yes and destroy them from wither. On one hand, I would be released from prison, and I would have a lot more information, a lot more power, and again, do something against it, because there was no way for any intelligence service to buy me, let's say, by money or by intimidation or any of that. So that was actually my real motive, and it's described in detail in my books.
But instead of releasing me, they said, you must go to prison. If we release you, people will get suspicious and you will get killed. So I end up going to prison for 16 months. This was my first imprisonment in prison. I told Hamas about this encounter with the israeli intelligence in prison.
In prison. Okay. I told them the truth, and this is my plan. But they said, is this everything? I said, this is everything.
They said, no, you write more so there is nothing else. So who's your handling? What's your mission? They did not give me any mission. Hamas became suspicious of me.
Instead of helping me, I became a suspect. But my father is one of the founders of the movement, so they could not torture me. But in the meantime, they were torturing hundreds of other prisoners for suspicion of collaborating with Israel. Dozens were killed during that time, and hundreds were tortured. They destroyed their lives completely, and they were brutal.
Jordan Peterson
Some of this was taking place in the prison? You were in prison? All of it? All of it. I see.
Mosab Hassan Yousef
So I'm talking about the 16 months of a nightmare beyond anyone's imagination, where I am suspect, but they are not touching me, while everyone else, everyone around me is being tortured and killed for 16 months. And I was wondering, is my turn going to come? Because of my father's status and their hypocrisy and, of course, their shame, they did not do anything to me. But the thing is, up to that point, I did not betray. I just told them the truth, not under pressure.
I thought, you know, they could help me, that this is my plan, and this is how things went wrong between me and Hamas, to the core. When I was released from prison after 16 months, Hamas followed up outside prison. My father was still in prison, but different israeli prison at that time. So he wasn't there to protect me. And I was outraged.
Jordan Peterson
Was he in prison with you? No, no, no. My father was in a high security prison. I was in, like, more of a jail. Okay.
Okay. So he was inside prison to protect me. And when I was released, he was still in israeli prison. My father spent some 30 years of his life in israeli prisons. So now, outside the prison, Hamas is coming after me to say, just keep us posted.
Mosab Hassan Yousef
What's going on? And now they're. I don't want to say blackmailing me, but in the human nature, the handler of Hamas found opportunity, actually, to. To take total advantage. He wanted me to become somehow like his bitch, and I was in a situation I prefer to die.
You know, I did not betray my people. I don't have any intention to betray anybody. I thought that, okay, you know, we're fighting against occupation, and this is the way to just become a shaheed and exit all this tragedy for good. So I was going suicidal. I did not mean, you know, to sell my people for money.
So the only refuge was left on the table. Is to actually go to the israeli intelligence and ask them for help from Hamas this time, because Hamas, what were. They requiring of you, the Hamas handler? What was being required of you? The more they put you at defense.
And you are in a society like this where everything is ruled based on shame and honor. It's the most shameful thing. They can ask you to do whatever they want you to do, and it's up to the individual. It's not even to the Hamas movement. So.
And they are going to hold it against you for eternity. What kind of life is this? It's like someone is holding something against you, but. And nothing will clean that shame no matter what you do, except if you die. Even if I became a suicide bomber, the shame will hunt me to my grave.
This was the reality of it. So this is where I think everything just went out of control. I was like, since childhood, I had no mercy from these people. And right now, trying to actually just escape my misery by dying for Allah, by dying for the nation against the zionist occupation, they're coming after me. So this is my psychic.
And I was no matter what I do, even if I die, I will never be able to please them. And why would I die? So in the first encounter with the israeli intelligence, I told them the whole truth. Going online without ExpressVPN is like leaving your kids with the nearest stranger while you go to the restroom. Theyre probably not a kidnapper or a serial killer, but why would you ever take that risk?
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Jordan Peterson
How did you make contact with them. They made a contact after I was released from prison. This was the original plan, wasn't it? Yeah. Okay.
Mosab Hassan Yousef
Yeah. So after I was released from prison, they contact me. And in the first meeting, I asked them, why didn't you come to help the people who were tortured in prison if you now want me to work for you. You abandoned money. You abandoned me.
They said, none of these people who were tortured and killed had any relationship with the israeli intelligence. It's all in Hamas head. The handler said, I have been working with the agency for 18 years. One asset in our district was cut in the action. And this man still alive in the United States, and he gave me the name of that person.
He said, this is the only one. This is the only true story. The hundreds of others who have been killed had no relation. They are all innocent people. Well, if he was telling me the truth, this is even more disastrous.
And I decided to go to the second. To go back to the second meeting, and the third meeting and every meeting, they were just building me up, I was so broken. Building you up in what? Building me up in education. Conversation.
Open conversation about who they are, what they do. So this is when your political attitude started to switch, your attitude towards history. Not yet. This was just the early beginning. It was the early beginning because simply they said, here is money.
You go back to school. And they gave me enough money, exact amount that pays for my school. And when I needed to do anything financial, they said, not possible. We cannot give you any amount of money, because if we give you money and you cannot prove where you got this money from, they will kill you. So I said, you only go to school.
Oh, what's my mission? There is no mission. There was no gun. There is no ghost power. What school did you go?
Jordan Peterson
So, did you go back to high school? I went back to the high school from high school, but also they wanted me to go to college, and I graduated four years college. And during that entire time, they funded my education and my education only. And there was no other deal than that. There was no other deal.
Mosab Hassan Yousef
Why did they do that? Because this is how they work. And this is how the israeli intelligence work. They say from the beginning, they said, listen, we don't work with losers. It doesn't matter.
Like, the fact that you are son of a Hamas leader does not qualify you. You must be like us. You need to think like us, and you need to be a part of your society, and you need to be productive. You cannot be a loser. If you are a loser, you will not gain the respect of your own society.
And they did a long process of fooling Hamas that we don't have a relationship that included some attack on our house, some arrests in the future, or type of allusion orchestrated by the israeli intelligence to just convince the society that I was a wanted person at some point, that there was no way in the world that I had a relationship with the israeli intelligence, especially when Hamas start building their trust with me again. And I had top secrets of the movement, but the Israelis did not act upon my intelligence or my information to just keep Hamas feeling safe for as long as possible. So part of the building me up, you know, it was, we had hundreds of meetings, and they showed me many of the values. For example, when we got into operation later on, civilians were involved. We avoid civilians every time.
The civilian involvement was a big concern for the agency. And I was really surprised, because I thought that the wisdom on the palestinian street that the Israelis will give you poison to put in the town's water, they will give you a gun to shoot your own people. They will make you rape women and take footage of them so you can blackmail them. They will all type of crazy stories that they had. It had nothing in reality.
And I was on my own. They never connect me with anyone else. And after my college, this, I think, was the period where I was ready to do something good for myself. What did you take in college? I studied history.
Jordan Peterson
In what aspect of history? It was history and social studies, but I studied world history, Middle east history, the history of religion. Of course, you cannot cover everything in four years, but I did as much as I could, and I was very interested in the topic. So what did your education change for you?
Mosab Hassan Yousef
Education was just the first step. I had to educate myself. Like, for example, while I was in prison, I studied English.
I memorized Oxford dictionary. I was reading 16 hours a day. And I spent lots of time in Israel in prison. This is how I spent my time. When I was released, I opened up to Christianity, especially the Bible.
And the Bible had a huge impact on my life, especially, you know, the New Testament and the teachings of Christ, which to me, you know, it's not Christianity as much as Christ consciousness. It's a state, advanced state of consciousness, and the challenge of love thy enemy. And that came in a place where I was conflicted, where you actually had enemies. Exactly. Who is my enemy?
Like, is it my people? Is it my rapist? Is it my torturer? Is it Israel? Is it?
Who is it? So the challenge of love thy enemy really made peace with the world somehow. And I decided that I don't have enemies anymore. And this is what helped me actually heal and progress. So I made a principle that I did not want to kill any of my opponents.
But I have to say that today I regret it. Today I regret it. The influence of Christ consciousness of just love everybody unconditionally did not get me to where I needed to be, because today I'm under the influence of cause and effect, not right and wrong. And I think there is no escape for anybody from karma or from their own actions. Nobody's above this universal law.
It has nothing to do with cultures. And I tried so hard to save my father's life. If I wasn't in the picture, they would have killed him a thousand times. Saying that he's. I thought to myself, he's Mudre.
He's in a political wing, he's not a military wing.
But this is the problem of, this is a moderate, and this is extremist. Then you go into this rabbit hole, and you never find your way out. I thought to myself, no, you are complicit in Hamas crimes. Then you qualify for the same punishment as any of their attackers on October 7. And this is why I had to take a moral stand and say, all Hamas leaders must be executed.
What happened on October 7 was a capital crime. A genocide cannot be taken lightly. This is not just an act of resistance.
To wipe out 20 plus communities based on their ethnic background, based on their religion, it's not an act of resistance, is not justified. Killing babies, killing children, raping women, kidnapping hostages, killing animal, burning trees.
Nothing gets worse than this, and it requires captured crime. And I had the thought, what about my father, who I loved very much, who disowned me 14 years ago?
I never gave up on him. I was like always, you know, in my heart, this is my father. I love you. Whatever you know, you did necessary to just shun me and throw me to the mouth of death. It's no problem, as long as you are okay.
But after October 7, I had to make a very difficult choice, because this is where or when we have to draw the line. All of us are connected to a certain interest, that this is a family relationship, this is a love relationship, my relationship to this property, my personal interest to a certain degree. Hence, we compromise the truth, even though the obvious truth, that what happened on October 7 is wrong. It doesn't matter if they. If Muslims did it, they are wrong.
I don't care if they are Buddhists, if they are Americans. It doesn't matter who they are, it was wrong. And I take the moral stand. My father is complicit in this. And especially when I saw him on the top of a demonstration supporting Hamas in our town in Ramallah, this was the moment that I thought, he's not my father anymore.
Cannot be. And the hostage situation was very hard, that I didn't know how Israel is going to bring those hostages back. And Hamas want mass murderers to be released. Happened to be same people who were torturing prisoners on my watch and happened to be the same mass murderers who carried suicide bombing attacks during the second palestinian intifada, like Ibrahim Hamid and Abdullah al Barghouti, people I knew personally, this people Hamas is asking to release.
Jordan Peterson
And. We cannot release them. We cannot put them back to the streets for innocent hostages. Such impossible situation. So my suggestion, and this is, again, you know, the Israel.
Mosab Hassan Yousef
I knew the israeli government will not do that, but I give them the permission to execute all these mass murderers, because if they were executed from the beginning, Hamas would have not kidnapped a one year old hostage asking for their release. But then what about my father, my own father? Is he an exception?
He could not be an exception. No one can be an exception if they are complicit in a genocide. So this is where, you know, since October 7, it just as chaotic as it is in the Middle east. And my life also is chaotic, and I don't have way around it to see the muslim population weaponizing their religious identity against the jewish. As a religious minority.
And I have known the jewish people for about 27 years now. Actually, my relationship with the jewish nation is a lot deeper than my relation with the muslim nation. It's a lot longer, a lot deeper. Many of the jewish mothers, throughout this journey, they took me in, you know, a country, a nation that really gave me so much support. I'm not talking about financial support as much as, like, sincere concern for my well being.
I've been to hundreds of jewish families, Shabbat dinners. I have adapted. Nephews, jewish nephews that they're fighting in Gaza today. So in the face of such a situation, how can I abandon the jewish people? Those are my people right now.
And the Arabs, also the arab children. I see myself. This is me. And I see how the predators, the pro Palestine and the Hamas billionaires and the other criminals, taken advantage of the situation on a global scale.
I find myself just fighting at so many fronts that it just. It makes out of me an absolute mad person. So you. Your education was paid for by the. By the israeli intelligence agency and you started to question your concept of their work, and then you broadened your education.
Jordan Peterson
Formally, how is it that you worked for the israeli intelligence organization? How did that come about? And what sort of work did you do? Because you said, to begin with, they. Were just paying for your education, and you were talking to them, right?
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Mosab Hassan Yousef
Things became serious at the beginning of the second palestinian intifada. And that was so the beginning of this journey with the israeli intelligence started in 1996. The second palestinian intifada started in 2000, right before 911. So I was already towards the end of my school, and I knew enough about Hamas, about the Palestinian Authority. And it happened that I was part of Yasir fat meetings, and I was part of other palestinian factions meetings, islamic jihadist Fatah.
And my relation. Based on my father's public status, I was able to go pretty much anywhere I wanted to go. And people knew me from my childhood, even though I was troublemaker, you know, at that time, I was a lot more stable. And what position exactly did your father play or hold? So.
So, basically, my father's position, of course, is changing, but because of internal elections, and his status would never be revealed to the public, not even to Hamas members, because the voting for his status would be only limited to the Hamas leadership. At that time, I think he was from the or he maintained throughout his career with Hamas top, top leadership in the Hamas Shura council, plus a huge chance that he's one of the founders of Hamas. But he never revealed that. I know I knew this from other Hamas leaders, but he would never reveal that information to me. Okay.
Okay. So they usually reveal this information after his death. So we're talking about he's not only a leader of the movement, he's also the spiritual leader of the movement. Today he could be the spiritual father of the movement. This is his significance.
So not just logistical. And, of course, after my story came out, his status in the movement was shaken, but somehow they wanted to give him as much support as. As they could. Okay, so now we're at the second intifada. This is about this.
Jordan Peterson
You said this is just before 911. This is around the year 2000. Okay, so what's happening? And you have access to all these meetings. Right.
But you've already established relationship with the israeli intelligence. Yes. So, basically, trust between me and the israeli intelligence was already established, and I was highly motivated to capture a suicide bomber before they reached their target. Israel was really struggling with this issue we had. So that became your mission?
It was suicide bomber prevention oriented. Yes. The thing is, everything was happening in front of my eyes. The only thing, I just needed to set my intention that, do I want to do this job? Do I want to do this very difficult job or not?
Mosab Hassan Yousef
Because even though I established the relationship with the israeli intelligence, but did not mean that I was forced to do anything. So I was in the mosque, I was in the meetings. I was in the safe houses. I was pretty much everywhere. And any strange encounter between two Hamas members, I was able to just detect that this is unusual.
We have to look into it. Now, what was more important, that the israeli intelligence had lots of information, but it would take an expert hours and hours to go through thousands of pages to come to a conclusion. For me, if I hear the story, I would come to the conclusion immediately. So I was able to piece the puzzle. And many people think that I was informant like, going and bringing information, but what they didn't realize, actually the israeli intelligence had the information already and all.
I was just in a meeting piece in the puzzle.
And then when I go back to the society, I act based on what I know now from. From the meetings. So the information, the intelligence that I received from the Shin bet helped me navigate a thousand times stronger than if I was only a son of Hamas leader. So I end up knowing about Hamas a lot more than what my father knew about Hamas operation.
So being part of that culture and having whatever information, it made my position very, very strong that I was able to reach a suicide bomber before they reached their target. How many times did you do that? Okay. And I hate to talk about this I hate to talk about it, because this is where I start playing the hero. And even in the book, I would talk about it, but I think right now it's inevitable, because many people are trying to discredit my journey, and it's a vow.
It's also that I'm supposed not to talk about operation and reveal the secrets of our work to the enemy.
But you can say the least. Dozens of suicide bombing attacks, dozens on a regular basis, from capturing five suicide bombers at the time to seven suicide bombers at the time, to capturing the masterminds. That includes the bomb maker. And that was our biggest concern. In fact, somebody like Abdul al Barghouti, which was very, very dangerous Hamas asset, the most dangerous Hamas bomb maker, he's in israeli prison today.
I was the first to reach his location, his lab, and recognize him responsible for the death of at least 100 people at that time, before he was arrested. Ibrahim Hamid and the entire Hamas military wing of the West bank, which they were using a research santa as their cover, they never come to the mosque. They never participate in Hamas activities. They are all shaved. They don't have beards.
They're in the intellectuals, etcetera, historians. And I had my suspicion, but the agency did not have any information about this guy. Guys, there were five of them. And I kept arguing for about three years, arguing with the agency, that these people are doing something wrong, doing something, and nobody would listen to me until finally we realized that these people have been the core group behind 95% of the suicide bombing attacks during the second palestinian tifada. Just, they were there, and we could not make the connection.
Then finally, the agency is like, how did you come to this conclusion so many times? They were just like, a gut feeling, or like, literally, I would just be taking my little sister to the school in the morning, and all of a sudden, I see this most wanted entering a building, and this was his apartment, his safe house. Then I called the agency, and I say, I found him. But how did you find him? I was just driving, and he just entered the building.
They could not believe it. Ibrahim Hamid. The agency did not see him in eight years. They did not see his face in eight years. And I finally locate him.
So it was at some point, I remember avid Ikhtar was the head of the agency at that time. He said, get him out, get him out. He's going to get killed. Because the amount of operation, whether in Fatah, Hamas, islamic jihad, public front for liberation of Palestine, in fact, Yasser Arafat, after winning the Nobel Prize, Prize.
I was the source that brought the information of his relation to suicide bombing attacks. Because I was in that meeting and the information that was given to Ariel Sharon, the israeli prime minister at that time, my identity was never revealed. The same information that was used in the UN Security Council. So why am I telling you this? Not to brag about it.
The amount of intelligence. My life was on the line every day, every single day, during the second palestinian intifada, all the way up to Hamas coup in Gaza. And I told the israeli intelligence that Hamas is up to something they said, but this is too much. It's too hard to believe. The Palestinian Authority has 35,000 police officers.
Hamas has only 5000. It's not possible for them to overthrow the Palestinian Authority. I told them, this is Hamas plan and this is what's going to happen. And that was three months before Hamas took over Gaza Strip. Okay?
Now where it's gonna get tricky. You know, this is stuff that I don't like to talk about. Nobody gave a damn. And three months later, Hamas was in power. And instead of destroying Hamas and not allowing them to grow the world pressure against Israel, that this is an election and Hamas won the elections, and we have to accept them as a legitimate political party.
And they just kept playing this game. And Israel agreed to go into their rabbit hole until Hamas became the power it became. And even from the first war with Hamas, Israel was determined to destroy Hamas completely. But the world came, seize fire now and we cease fire. The first war, the second war, the third war, the fourth war.
And every time they use children as human sheets. And this time there is no way around it. You'll have to eradicate them. Otherwise they will do a lot worse in the next war. How do you understand the relationship between Hamas and Iran?
It's a very weird and awkward relationship because Shia and Sunni, they hate each other. So there is a bloody history between both sects. But.
It'S in Iran's interest to destabilize the region. They find in Hamas a device. They give Hamas billions of dollars, but they. Why do you think the Americans, especially the Democrats, why do you think they can't see this? Because everybody's after their interest.
Like, for example, right now we have Iran's full attack on Israel. Ballistic missile. Okay? We downed many of those. And the United States helped the UK, other NATO countries.
This is arab states. Arab states. Okay, this is great, but are we supposed to be a defense? Is this the best we could do, that we just stand at defense? The superpower?
I would destroy the iranian nuclear program immediately. This is what I called from day one. I said, the most adequate response to October 7 is the destruction of Iran's nuclear program. You cannot give a muslim country a nuclear power. It was a big mistake to let Pakistan to become a nuclear power.
This could lead to. To a global situation, a very ugly situation. They are not responsible. They are dictatorship. They are not accountable to anybody but Allah.
Jordan Peterson
How can you give them our interpretation of Allah? Of course. Yeah, and Allah itself, I don't want to say even interpretation, because Allah, as is in the Quran, is a very dangerous entity. So it's not a matter of misinterpretation that, you know, the guy is a very good guy in the Quran, and the Islamists or extremists see him as a bad guy. No, he's a bad guy.
Mosab Hassan Yousef
Sooner or later, the world is going to wake up on a disaster and realize what we are saying is the truth. So the United States is not doing their job. We have advanced weaponry, like, for example, the electromagnetic bomb. Will drop one of these, paralyze their entire system. No civilians will die in this process.
Just send them back to the Stone Age and in the meantime, destroy their nuclear program. Show them, you know, who is the boss. But instead, we are compromising so they can get access to our intellectual property and use our weapons against us. This is insanity. But why the Biden administration doing this?
Because he's trying to please the voters. He's trying to please Rashidatlib. He's trying to please LBT. That's all part of that victim victimizer narrative. Yes, he's trying to please everybody.
And I say, you know, if strong leaders take risk, take risk. Weak leaders try to please everybody. And I think this is the situation of this administration. You cannot please everybody. You cannot please Israel and please Rashida eatlab simultaneously.
You cannot. You need to choose who's my ally in this situation. Israel is a reliable ally, and they are under attack, and they are protecting the american interests in the region. They are maintaining the stability of the, of the region. I don't want to say the world.
It's not just an ally, but then they come and. And accuse America of giving support to Israel. Well, how much support Israel give the United States? How much support the jewish population in the United States? American Jews give the american treasury from their tax money and in every aspect of economy.
Jordan Peterson
What conclusions did you draw about the jewish society in Israel as he became more and more familiar with its nature? Well, first of all, it's democracy, that it's a diverse society. There are the Muslims there are the Jews, the Christians. They're human rights. You know, one of the things that was just unbelievable during the second palestinian intifada, when a building collapsed and there were clashes on the checkpoints everywhere, shooting at soldiers, and it was very dangerous for the Israelis to come to enter the city of Ramallah.
Mosab Hassan Yousef
But when the building collapsed, we did not have rescue team, we did not have a fire department, because it's such a corrupt system that invested all the money in luxury, and they never invest the money in infrastructure. So the dozens of workers stuck under the rubble, and we cannot get them out. So we had to call the Israelis during the second intifada, while we shooting at them, to say, please come into Ramallah, to the city center and help us. So the Israel sent the fire department, of course, with the IDF to protect them the entire day, evacuating the. The victims, taken them to israeli hospitals.
And after a long day, the IDF exit the city of Ramallah, and people rewarded them, shooting at them, throwing Muratov cocktails, throwing stones, etcetera. I was there because my job was just be there to make sure that the troops are okay. So the troops protecting the rescue team, I am there to make sure that the troops are okay, and the civilians of Ramallah are waiting for the troops to evacuate after helping the Palestinians by throwing stones, mulatto cocktails, and shooting at them. This type of events, you know, are just insane. And it just keeps going like this.
Everything about the palestinian mentality, the arab culture, and you see the law and order, that there is protocol, the israeli intelligence follow a protocol. No one was arrested. If Israel did not have evidence of their involvement in terrorism and no one was assassinated, especially the most dangerous terrorists that Israel could not arrest, that they were hiding in the city centers, that none of them were killed. If they did not have direct relationship to suicide bombing attacks and they had blood on their hands, none. So you saw an organization that ran by rule of law.
Absolutely. And there is no doubt about it. And this is why I'm heartbroken, because I know what's happening in Gaza right now really pushed israel to the corner, that they had no other choice. And there was no possibility to avoid civilian casualties after October 7, because I know at their heart they would never hurt an innocent civilian. And they gave the.
Jordan Peterson
Why did you become convinced of that? Because in our operation, this is how we dealt with the situation. When you saw this firsthand. Yes. Like later on, one of the exceptions of my entire career, that it was a day where the agency had no choice but to kill one of Yasar Arafat's bodyguards, his name was Mohanad Abu Halawa.
Mosab Hassan Yousef
This guy killed about 13 Israelis, and he was hiding in Yasser Arafat compound. I was the one who discovered him. So I was the only one who could recognize him. And the israeli intelligence said, listen, we have no one else except you. And this guy is going every night shooting and killing people.
Yasser Arafat gave him immunity. The israeli intelligence could not go into Yasar Arfat compound and arrest him. And they could not predict where he's going. And they didn't know how he looked like, so they wanted him dead. That was the only way to deal with him.
So the agency said, listen, you have your moral thing. You don't want to kill anybody. But if this guy is not dead, he's going to kill people tonight, tomorrow night, and he's going to go like this. So this is when I had to compromise.
The first attempt, a top Fatah leader was in the cop. His name is Marwan Barghouti. He's today in israeli prison. And everybody said that this could be the next palestinian president. And the operation was canceled because there was other terrorists in the cop.
I'm not talking about, like, a civilian in the car. And this guy was so hard to find. Like the agency would say, you know what? Eliminate both of them. We are not going to take a risk that he's going to kill more israeli civilians.
And the operation was cancelled. I was really shocked. I was shocked. So our job was many times when we knew about the safe house of terrorists. Okay, is his family there?
Okay. When is his family leaving? Always. Civilian situation was taken into consideration. And this is a ten year experience.
So when people come to me today, it's like that Israel is ethnically cleansing the Palestinians. It's a lie. Israel. Israel is accountable to international law. Israel cannot do this.
Even if there was corruption, let's say, some racist within the IDF, and they did something illegal, they would be held accountable. But this is not a state policy. It cannot be. But people want to see it in black and white. If you come, try to bring them other truth, like, for example, what's happening today is a collateral damage.
And it's not only that. Who's killing the civilians? Did people take into consideration that Hamas put booby traps everywhere? And how would we know the difference between israeli airstrike and Hamas? Bobby trap that targeted civilians?
And how do we know actually, that it's not in Hamas interest to kill civilians? So then how many Hamas clearly in their interest. Of course, this is the most powerful weapon in their hands to delegitimize Israel and get legitimacy. I think it's impossible to understand the situation in Israel without understanding that the Palestinians are expendable. Yeah.
So Hamas is committing not only a capital crime by committing a genocide on October 7, which actually defines the genocide, then the Muslims around the world outnumber Israel and change the narrative so fast that we go from a jewish genocide on October 7 to a palestinian genocide in less than 70 days. This is how fast that's effective work. On Iran's part, in my estimation. So let me. We're running near the end of the time we have in this session for everybody watching and listening.
Jordan Peterson
I'm going to continue this conversation on the daily wire plus side for another half an hour. So, you know, be welcome to join us there. I guess I'd like to ask you, there's many things, obviously, that we've left undiscussed, but that's going to be how it is. I would like you to tell me what you think about what's happening on the streets in western cities, but most specifically on university campuses, with regards to the pro Hamas movements that seem to be everywhere. If you were speaking with a group of students who are acolytes of the victim victimizer narrative and portraying their moral superiority by adopting the identity of allies of Hamas, it's like, what do you have to say about that?
Mosab Hassan Yousef
Again, it's not one, one phenomenon. It's many with different motives are coming to claim to be a pro Palestine. It's not only a pro Hamas. Hamas is actually igniting the blood loss in many of the demonstrators. So when Hamas, when Hamas scores and shed blood, this gives them the pleasure of inflicting pain on their opponents.
They say, oh, they deserve it because they are designers. They are the colonizers. They are the occupiers. They are the bankers. They are the ones who control the economy.
Those are the ones we are in debt to. So many people come with a different motive, and this is just the hatred against the successful minority. Yeah, this is the curse. When you are a successful minority, many people are going to come after you, especially if you are down or if you are wounded, that they will come and try to kick you while you're down. So many forces that they are, as we discussed the beginning, that they are opposing forces, but somehow they got united in.
In a very disgusting way that shows you the moral decay of such groups. And I'm not talking only about students. There are historians, there are intellectuals, there are lawyers who bought into the BDS or the pro Palestine propaganda, which is basically that Israel is an apartheid state, that Israel has been or the Zionists been ethnically cleansing the palestinian people. If the Palestinians had a palestinian state, would have not been in this situation. Hamas is a resistant group, and everybody project their hatred based on their intelligence and based on their ability to express that.
So some intellectuals, they can represent their hatred, but in a deceptive way that does not show hatred, just like show. It'S always allyship for the victim, you know? Yes. Yeah. That's the best possible mask for, like, a sadistic hatred.
Jordan Peterson
That's for sure. Yeah. So are you speaking anywhere? Like, do you have the opportunity to speak publicly? Well, I have been cancelled from many universities because you probably now understand why.
Mosab Hassan Yousef
Yeah, I'd say so, but I'm okay with that. I'm not afraid of being canceled. I've been canceled by my own family, by my own people. So when I have american campuses or american universities canceling me, I'm not affected. Like, I don't feel ashamed that, oh, my God, you know, this is a threat to my career.
I never intend to make a career, you know, and I don't care about my public image as much as I care about where do I stand morally, and am I at peace with myself or not? But anyway, I find my way to speak to the students, and I challenge them. Yesterday we had a debate.
I thought, I've been trying to get the pro Palestine advocates, anyone, to an open debate. Let's go. Let's talk about the thing. This is the way of the west dialogue. We cannot be clashing like this.
Inciting for violence, harassing jewish people, harassing successful people, bringing the Hamas nightmare into the american soil, globalizing the intifada, globalizing the chaos. Well, these are very dangerous terms that we don't know what we are talking about. From the river to the sea. They don't understand that back in 1987, when people start chanting from the river to the sea, violence followed just shortly after that. And this is my childhood trauma.
And when I saw the people chanting from the river to the sea, I knew we were in trouble. So this is why I tried to counter this force, but nobody wants to listen. So I thought to myself, yeah, well. That narrative, that underlying narrative of victim, victimizer, that's very intractable. It's very difficult thing to move.
Jordan Peterson
It's so morally attractive. Well, and try to get them out of their comfort, out of their convenience, truth, and they will crucify you. This is the price you pay. So practically, just two days ago, we had a debate. I had to pay somebody $20,000 from my pocket to debate me on the topic because no one else agreed to.
Where was our debate? Berkeley University. And that's one of the most respectful educational institutions that they cannot even host a debate on their own. A debater had to pay from his own pocket to bring his opponent to have a discussion. And the funny thing, that this guy acts like a giant outside of the debate, like, when you see him.
Mosab Hassan Yousef
Al Jazeera is Al Jazeera host and was a CNN anchor, delivered the speech to the United nations and called from a United nations podium from the river to the sea. But when he came to the debate, he agreed with 90% of the things that I was saying. I was like, then, who are you that you're outside? You know, just this outrageous anti zionist, anti Israel, pro Palestine, and all of a sudden here, you're just chickened out. And I cannot find a debate like a decent debate.
I've been calling them out, you know, come debate me. Let's talk about this. This is not a joke. Children are dying. This is not a political stand.
This is not a career. I'm not your typical expert coming on the topic. You get in the way where I'm trying to stop the death of innocent children, protect them from predators that had been killing them for 70 years by the name of Palestine. You get in my way, I destroy you if necessary. So I'm not politically correct.
I cannot be. And I don't care if you cancel me or not. And I'm not in a position even to reason with you. We are at war right now. It's finished.
We can talk about it later. But it breaks my heart that America is my country now, and I have responsibility towards the people, that we don't want to bring the antifa here. We don't want to globalize the antifa. In fact, we want to de globalize it. We want to localize it.
We want to cut all the foreign entities that have been trying to take advantage of this conflict, and we have to give the power to the people, to the Arabs. They are Arabs. They are not Palestinians. So please help me with this. This is what I've been trying to spread, that there is no such a thing as Palestine.
Palestinian is a political identity. It's a corrupt one, a colonial one. It's actually very disrespectful for the Arabs who were born in that region to call themselves after a colonial entity and adapt it as a national identity. It's just absurd. This is why I didn't use the term for myself.
It was like, no, keep them Arabs. They were born there. They have the birthright to be there. But what they need, they don't need a state. They need a police force.
They need education. They need economy. They need decent leadership that works towards building a nation. They need a civil constitution. They need to be friends with Israel and drop their stupid idea of destroying Israel because Israel is going nowhere.
If they cannot see Israel as just the same way they see themselves when they look at an israeli child like they see them as their own child, then we have a problem. We cannot justify the killing of jewish children because they are jewish. This is where I need this to be. And I don't want this whole nationalism, this whole Palestine. So, of course, when I see now globalizing the issue, bringing it to the states and making free, free Palestine, what is why your Palestine is not a hostage in my basement.
Stop saying free. Free Palestine. You know, decent human beings, decent Americans will say, free the hostages, not tear down the posters of hostages, you know, not even allowing their families to represent their case in the land of the free. And what they want to free, they want to free a concept, a dangerous political concept that actually depends on the destruction of order at the expense of children, at the expense of generations, at the expense of individuality. Who are we?
You know, we are Americans. This is. I mean, not only Americans, anybody in the west. This is our value system. So this is where it gets really, as you see, like I speak about it, with lots of strong emotions, because there is no way, there is no other medium.
For me, what's happening is absurd. Not only on the american campuses. Before you say free Palestine, at what expense? At the expense of Israel. You want ethnic cleansing from the river to the sea so this hypothetical political entity would take place in reality.
And who's going to pay the price? The palestinian children. And for how long? We have been paying this price for 70 years. And all we received in return, suffering, pain, confusion, and a minority of con artists became billionaires.
Yasir Arafat had $9 billion in his bank account before he died. And it vanished because his wife stole it after she killed him. And this is the first time I see it in public. Yes, after his wife am plac the life support and he died. Even the palestinian people don't know this and let them go figure his wife is his killer.
So we're talking about such corruption and fight for money where the first lady is killing the father of the nation and in the meantime, screwing a Mossad agent. So I'm done with this. I don't want to see more children dying, and I don't care for the palestinian entity. All right, sir, thank you. We'll pick this up on the daily wire plus side for everybody watching and listening.
Jordan Peterson
Yeah. Thank you very much for talking to me today. Thank you all for your attention. And as I said, if you want to join us on the Daily Wire plus side to conclude this conversation, please feel more than welcome to do so.