1986 — Hamas founded in Hebron
1987 — Hassan Yousef takes a second job, teaching religion to Muslims at the Christian school in Ramallah; beginning of the First Intifada
1989 — Hassan Yousef’s first arrest and imprisonment; Amer Abu Sarhan of Hamas murders three Israelis
1990 — Saddam Hussein invades Kuwait
1992 — Mosab’s family moves to Betunia; Hassan Yousef is arrested; Hamas terrorists kidnap and murder Israeli police officer Nissim Toledano; Palestinian leaders are deported to Lebanon
1993 — Oslo Accords
1994 — Baruch Goldstein kills twenty-nine Palestinians in Hebron; first official suicide bombing; Yasser Arafat returns triumphantly to Gaza to set up Palestinian Authority headquarters
1995 — Israeli prime minister Yitzhak Rabin assassinated; Hassan Yousef is arrested by the Palestinian Authority; Mosab buys illegal, inoperative guns
1996 — Hamas bomb maker Yahya Ayyash is assassinated; Mosab is arrested and imprisoned for the first time
1997 — Mosab released from prison; Mossad unsuccessfully attempts to assassinate Khalid Meshaal
1999 — Mosab attends a Christian Bible study
2000 — Camp David Summit; Second Intifada (also known as the Al-Aqsa Intifada) begins
2001 — French Hill suicide bombing; Dolphinarium and Sbarro pizza parlor suicide bombings; PFLP secretary-general Abu Ali Mustafa assassinated by Israel; Israeli minister of tourism Rehavam Ze’evi assassinated by PFLP gunmen
2002 — Israel launches Operation Defensive Shield; nine killed in Hebrew University attack; Mosab and his father are arrested and imprisoned
2003 — Western Coalition forces liberate Iraq; Hamas terrorists Saleh Talahme, Hasaneen Rummanah, and Sayyed al-Sheikh Qassem are killed by Israel
2004 — Death of Yasser Arafat; Hassan Yousef released from prison
2005 — Mosab is baptized; truce ends between Hamas and Israel; Mosab’s third arrest and imprisonment; Mosab released from prison
2006 — Ismail Haniyeh elected Palestinian prime minister
2007 — Mosab leaves the occupied territories for America
Copyright
Visit Tyndale’s exciting Web site at www.tyndale.com.
Copyright © 2010 by Mosab Hassan Yousef. All rights reserved.
Author and cover photo copyright © 2009 by Tyndale House Publishers, Inc. All rights reserved.
Interior map copyright © 1993 by Digital Wisdom. All rights reserved.
Scripture taken from the
Yousef, Mosab Hassan.
Son of Hamas : a gripping account of terror, betrayal, political intrigue, and unthinkable choices / Mosab Hassan Yousef, with Ron Brackin.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references.
ISBN 978-1-4143-3307-6 (hc)
1. Yousef, Mosab Hassan. 2. Christian converts from Islam—Israel—Biography. I. Brackin, Ron.
II. Title.
BV2626.4.Y68A3 2010
248.2'46092—dc22
[B] 2009046326
ISBN 978-1-4143-3668-8 (International Trade Paper Edition)
Notes
1
No one has ever had this information before. In fact, the record of history is already filled with numerous inaccuracies about the day that Hamas was born as an organization. For example, Wikipedia inaccurately claims that “Hamas was created in 1987 by Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, Abdel Aziz al-Rantissi and Mohammad Taha of the Palestinian wing of Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood at the beginning of the First Intifada….” This entry is accurate regarding only two of the seven founders, and it is off by a year. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hamas (accessed November 20, 2009).
MidEastWeb says, “Hamas was formed about February 1988 to allow participation of the brotherhood in the first Intifada. The founding leaders of Hamas were: Ahmad Yassin, ‘Abd al-Fattah Dukhan, Muhammed Shama’, Ibrahim al-Yazuri, Issa al-Najjar, Salah Shehadeh (from Bayt Hanun) and ‘Abd al-Aziz Rantisi. Dr. Mahmud Zahar is also usually listed as one of the original leaders. Other leaders include: Sheikh Khalil Qawqa, Isa al-Ashar, Musa Abu Marzuq, Ibrahim Ghusha, Khalid Mish’al.” This is even less accurate than the Wikipedia entry. See http://www.mideastweb.org/hamashistory.htm (accessed November 20, 2009).
2
The PLO’s first high-profile plane hijacking had occurred on July 23, 1968, when PFLP activists diverted an El Al Boeing 707 to Algiers. About a dozen Israeli passengers and ten crew members were held as hostages. There were no fatalities. But eleven Israeli athletes were killed four years later in a PLO-led terrorist attack at the Munich Olympics. And on March 11, 1978, Fatah fighters landed a boat north of Tel Aviv, hijacked a bus, and began an attack along the Coastal Highway that killed about thirty-five people—and wounded over seventy others.
The organization had had an easy time recruiting from among the Palestinian refugees who made up two- thirds of Jordan’s population. With money flooding in from other Arab countries in support of the cause, the PLO became stronger and better-armed than even the police and the Jordanian army. And it wasn’t long before its leader, Yasser Arafat, was in striking distance of taking over the country and establishing a Palestinian state. King
