Son of Hamas

listened to music, watched television, thought about the past ten years, and wrestled with depression.

At the end of three months, my mother told me that someone was asking for me on the phone. I told her I didn’t want to talk to anyone. But she said the caller told her that it was urgent, that he was an old friend and knew my father.

I went downstairs and picked up the receiver. It was someone from the Shin Bet.

“We want to see you,” the caller said. “It is very important. We have good news for you.”

I went to the meeting. My not working had created a no-win situation for them. They could see I was determined to quit.

“Okay, we’ll let you go to the United States, but only for a few months, and you have to promise to come back.”

“I don’t know why you keep insisting on something you know you’re not going to get,” I told them calmly but firmly.

Finally, they said, “Okay, we’ll let you go with two conditions. First, you have to hire a lawyer and petition us through the court to allow you to leave the country for medical reasons. Otherwise, you will get burned. Second, you come back.”

The Shin Bet never allowed Hamas members to cross the borders unless they needed medical treatment that was unavailable in the Palestinian territories. I actually did have a problem with my jaw that didn’t allow me to close my teeth together, and I couldn’t get the surgery I needed in the West Bank. It had never really bothered me much, but I figured it was as good an excuse as any, so I hired a lawyer to send a medical report to the court, requesting a permit for me to travel to the United States for the operation.

The whole purpose of this exercise was to provide a clear paper trail in the courts and show I was wrestling with a hostile bureaucracy in an attempt to leave Israel. If the Shin Bet let me go without a struggle, it would imply favoritism and people might start to wonder what I had given them in exchange. So we had to make it appear that they were making it tough on me and fighting me every step of the way.

But the lawyer I selected proved to be an obstacle. He apparently didn’t think I had much of a chance, so he demanded his money in advance—which I paid him—and then he sat back and did nothing. The Shin Bet had no paperwork to generate because they received nothing from my attorney. Week after week, I called him and asked how my case was progressing. The only thing he had to do was process the paperwork, but he kept stalling and lying. There was a problem, he said. There were complications. Again and again, he said he needed more money, and again and again I paid him.

This went on for six months. Finally on New Year’s Day 2007, I got the phone call.

“You’re approved to leave,” the lawyer declared, as though he had just solved world hunger.

* * *

“Can you meet just one more time with one of the Hamas leaders in Jalazone refugee camp?” Loai asked. “You’re the only person—”

“I’m leaving the country in five hours.”

“Okay,” he said in surrender. “Be safe and keep in touch with us. Call once you cross the border to make sure that everything is all right.”

I called some people I knew in California and told them I was coming. Of course, they had no idea I was the son of a top Hamas leader and a spy for the Shin Bet. But they were very excited. I packed a few clothes in a small suitcase and went downstairs to tell my mother. She was already in bed.

I knelt by her side and explained that I would be leaving in a few hours, crossing the border into Jordan and flying to the United States. Even then, I could not explain why.

Her eyes said it all. Your father is in prison. You are like a father to your brothers and sisters. What will you do in America? I knew she didn’t want to see me go, but at the same time, she wanted me to be at peace. She said she hoped I would be able to make a life for myself there after being in so much danger at home. She had no idea just how much danger I had seen.

“Let me kiss you good-bye,” she said. “Wake me in the morning before you go.”

She blessed me, and I told her I would be leaving very early and she didn’t need to get up to see me off. But she was my mother. She waited up with me all night in our living room, along with my brothers and sisters and my friend Jamal.

While I was putting all my belongings together before my flight, I was about to pack my Bible—the one with all my notes, the one I had studied for years, even in prison—but then I sensed a prompting to give it to Jamal.

“I don’t have a more expensive gift to give you before I leave,” I told him. “Here is my Bible. Read it and follow it.” I was sure he would honor my wishes and probably would read it whenever he thought of me. I made sure I had enough cash to last me for a while, left the house, and went to the Allenby Bridge that connects Israel with Jordan.

Getting through the Israeli checkpoint was no problem. I paid the thirty-five-dollar exit tax and entered the huge immigration terminal with its metal detectors, X-ray machines, and the infamous Room 13 where suspects were interrogated. But these devices, along with strip searches, were mostly for those coming into Israel from the Jordanian side—not for those leaving.

The terminal was a beehive of people in shorts and fanny packs, yarmulkes and Arab headdresses, veils and ball caps, some wearing backpacks and others pushing hand trolleys stacked with luggage. Finally, I boarded one of the big JETT buses—the only public transportation permitted on the concrete truss bridge.

Okay, I thought, it’s almost over.

But I was still a little paranoid. The Shin Bet simply did not let people like me leave the country. It was unheard of. Even Loai had been amazed that I’d gotten permission.

When I reached the Jordanian side, I presented my passport. I was concerned because while three years remained on my US visa, my passport was due to expire in fewer than thirty days.

Please, I prayed, just let me into Jordan for one day. That’s all I need.

But all my worrying was for nothing. There was no problem at all. I grabbed a taxi into Amman and bought a ticket on Air France. I checked into a hotel for a few hours, then went to Queen Alia International Airport and boarded my flight to California via Paris.

As I sat on the plane, I thought about what I had just left behind, both good and bad—my family and friends as well as the endless bloodshed, waste, and futility.

It took a while to get used to the idea of being really free—free to be myself, free of clandestine meetings and Israeli prisons, free from always looking over my shoulder.

It was weird. And wonderful.

* * *

Walking down the sidewalk one day in California, I spotted a familiar face coming toward me. It was the face of Maher Odeh, the mastermind behind so many suicide bombings—the guy I had seen back in 2000 being visited by Arafat’s armed thugs. I later exposed them as the founding cell of the ghostly Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades.

I wasn’t completely sure it was Odeh at first. People look different out of context. I hoped I was wrong. Hamas has never dared reach into the United States to conduct a martyrdom operation. It would be bad for the United States if he was here. It would be bad for me too.

Our eyes met and held for a fraction of a second. I was pretty sure I saw a spark of recognition there before he continued down the street.

Epilogue

In July 2008, I sat in a restaurant having dinner with my good friend Avi Issacharoff, a journalist with Haaretz newspaper in Israel. I told him my story of becoming a Christian because I wanted the news to come from Israel, not from the West. It appeared in his newspaper under the headline “Prodigal Son.”

As is the case with many followers of Jesus, my public declaration of faith broke the hearts of my mother and