Wednesday, December 5, 2012

Mosab Hassan Yousef and his conversion to Christianity

Mosab Hassan Yousef is one of the very controversial figures that suddenly appeared in the media with interestingly strange views about Hamas and its relationship with Israel. The most exciting point in the story of this guy is that he is the son of one of the key political leaders of Hamas organization called Sheikh Hassan Yousef. Mosab has recently converted to Christianity and moved to the US to claim political asylum after revealing his collaboration with the Israeli intelligence. Since then, Mosab has been appearing in the western media speaking about his passionate support for Israel and the "brutality" of Hamas that led him to decide to work with the Israeli intelligence against it.

In fact, reading his book "The Son of Hamas" and watching his interviews in the media has raised lots of question marks about this guy's attitude and behavior. What made this guy suddenly stop his work with the Israeli Intelligence and appear to the people in this way?! and if he has helped the Shin Beit to prevent thousands of suicide attacks and assassinations, how come did the Shin Beit allow this guy to stop working with them and move to claim asylum in the US?!. Any Palestinian working as a collaborator with Israel would not have a wish to be in the current position of this guy despite the huge support and protection that he is receiving from the Israeli and American security offices. The only logical justification for Mosab's action of self-revealing his collaboration and moving to the US is that Hamas could have discovered his work with the Shin Beit in such case, he became with no value for the Israelis. Taking this possibility to be correct, the Israelis would not have any benefit from keeping this guy and would therefore leave him to be arrested by the Palestinians because he would no longer be able to continue providing the Shin Beit with important information about Hamas militants and leaders. Mosab may have had information that the Palestinians had discovered his collaboration which made him take a very clever initiative by doing what he did in order to protect himself from being handed over to the Palestinians which would lead him to death.

Letting such a possibility be not correct, then why did not we see the other collaborators who are still secretly working with the Shin Beit do the same thing as Mosab especially that there could a very big number of collaborators who have been helping the Israelis for much longer period than Mosab. Recently, I have seen the Palestinian government in Gaza killing some collaborators who confessed to have been working with the Shabak since 1980s when Mosab then was still a little kid. Those people could have converted to Christianity and moved to the US like Mosab did but they didn't!.

Any further views about this topic are very much encouraged. 


Monday, December 3, 2012

Is Israel preparing for another war on Gaza?

There is being much analysis on the media as of whether there is going to be another war on Gaza in the upcoming period. After the last war, we have seen both Israel and Hamas claiming to have achieved victory. However, the Israeli government kept hiding the feeling that they were forced to pay an expensive price for launching a military attack on Gaza. Despite the top secret information that the Israeli intelligence had claimed to have about the rockets and missiles in the hands of Hamas and other militant groups in Gaza, no one in Israel expected that those rockets would hit the centers of Tel-Aviv and Jerusalem. In fact, such a surprising escallation of violence placed the Israeli officials in a very critical situation in front of their people, especially after the failure of the Israeli army to stop the launchement of these rockets despite the condenced airstrikes that never left an area of the Gaza strip without being targetted.

At the end, the Israeli government was obliged to make a decision to negotiate with the militant groups in Gaza via Egypt about a ceasefire. This surprisingly happened after the continous declarations of the Israeli officials that they would never sit with "terrorists" around one table. All of such obligations through which Israel was placed has dramatically affected the brave and strong reputation of the Israeli army and government both in the global media and also in the eyes of the Israeli people. Moreover, the resignation of the Israeli minister of army, Ehud Barak, after confessing failure in the war against Hamas, verified and assured such a failure of Israel in the global arena.

I think that Israel, after all these shameful consequences, would not easily accept such a defeat. It would rather do all what's necessary to reclaim the undefeatable reputation of the Israeli army even if it takes it to enter another war on Gaza. Otherwise, the Israeli army will continue losing the rest of confidence it had in the minds of the Israeli people as well as in the minds of the other external enemies of Israel like Iran and Hezbollah. The Iranians actually felt very happy watching the Israeli army failing to destroy the rocket launchers of the Gazan militants. This would reflect the impossibility of Israel's ability to achieve its goals in Iran which is much wider, bigger, and even more complicated than Gaza.    

However, I think breaking the current ceasefire in the region and entering another war of wider goals in Gaza is expected to cost Israel much more than its losses in the last war especially that an agreement of a new ceasefire between both sides would not necessarily be possible in the future as of today.

Any further views are very much welcome.
 

Friday, November 30, 2012

War on Gaza in the light of the Israeli elections 2012

Since Hamas came into government in Gaza after winning the Palestinian elections in 2005, Israel and the US have been imposing an unlawful economic siege on Gaza as a punishment for the Palestinian people who helped to bring Hamas in the government. The Palestinian people did not commit a crime when they chose Hamas to be their leader. They only practiced their right of holding "democractic" elections like any other people did in their country. Regardless of whether Hamas is considered a terrorist party in the eyes of the Israeli and US governments, no one in the world has the right to interfere in the Palestinians' decision of whom they chose to elect. The Israelis too have their right of electing their governing party without the interference of any foriegn body. For example, the Israeli party called "Israel is our Home" is considered one of the right-most wings in terms of hating the Palestinian people and considering them as enemies and terrorists. Still no Palestinian has ever shown an objection to the Israelis' decision of choosing that party to become one of their leaders. The Palestinians never decided to launch rockets towards Israel just because the Israelis chose the "wrong/non-moderate" party to become the leader of their next government.

On the other hand, we have seen Israel launching several wars on Gaza in order to punish the Palestinian people and destroy the Hamas government which they elected in "democractic" elections. The allegation that Israel launches these wars as a way to defend itself against Hamas is a total shame and can never be accepted as a logical sense. When Hamas and the other militant groups in Gaza manufacture or buy rockets, weapons, or explosives, they just do so in order to have the necessary power by which to protect themselves from any external military attacks which is what's done by any legitimate country on earth. Just like Israel has the right to continue militarizing itself by the help of the US and other allies to "defend" itself, why do the Palestinians in Gaza get blamed for doing the same?!

On another argument, Israel always tries to use unlegitmate and unlawful justifications to commit more crimes and attack the civilian people in Gaza. The Israeli leaders use the killing of Palestinians as a winning card to attract more votes in the Israeli elections. This has become a clear fact since Israel focuses on using military attacks on Gaza a month or so before the time of the Israeli elections. In fact, the blame should not be pointed only on the Israeli leaders who commit such crimes, the blame should also be pointed towards the Israeli people who give their votes to the murderers of civilans, women, and children. It is a huge shame to see that the leader who gives the green light to kill the highest number of Palestinian children is the one who gets elected to lead the next government in Israel. It's true and pretty clear like the face of the sun!

Other view points and critical discussions on this topic or another related to the conflict between Israel and Palestine are very much encouraged and appreciated.