printEnlightened, realistic, intelligent people (western, left-liberal intellectuals are precluded by definition) who visit or come to know Israel—the place, the people, the purpose of it all—abandon the easy, destructive, fashionable path of the Palestinians.
Such a man is Mosab Yousef, a “Son of Hamas”—also the title of his book—interviewed extensively by CNN’s Christian Amanpour.
This extremely bright young man’s central conversion is religious—once he embraced Christianity, his political change of heart followed. (How ironic, then, that western “intellectuals,” claiming to bear christian witness, routinely root for savagery as against civilization?!)
Amanpour, a fan of that authentic, ever-elusive, tame Islam, was shocked to hear these two stupendously courageous statements from Mosab Yousef:
1. The gangster of the world is the God of the Qu’ran.
2. Shin Bet has rules; is committed to a constitution, is not thirsty to kill Palestinians. Hamas’s goal, on the other hand, is to kill civilians, plain and simple.
Amanpour—who finds herself unable to abide Yousef’s admission that Shin Bet has a moral code, Hamas does not—then spent the rest of the admittedly penetrating interview trying to discredit Israel and the convert.
“Who turned you to working for the Israelis,” she demanded of Yousef.
Tellingly, the Hamas gangster she entertained to that end had a fit about being pitted against an Israeli expert on espionage, Yossi Melman of the leftist Haaretz.
An enlightened young man, with a fidelity to what’s infront of his eyes, turning against Hamas? This, to the western woman hot for the Hamas hottie, his bombs and his “causes”, is incredible.
Amanpour and the other Muslim academic she herded in for the occasion are, seemingly, quite invested in discrediting a born-again Christian whose conversion has seen him reject barbarism.
Regulars on the pro-Palestinian libertarian/left sides of the ideological spectrum might be warned of a major contradiction they risk committing, as they gather to slander Mosab Yousef, “Son of Hamas”:
Boy-oh-boy, has this man hungrily embraced civilization both from the depths of his being and in his actions. Yousef is risking his life to court the ways of the West: speaking, writing, arguing; having fun and making money while doing it all.
Now this is a hero in the Randian mold. May he stay safe.
I agree – he is brave in the honest meaning of the word. Amanpour is an unlikely interviewer – she must have thought she could cut him down to size and turn the tables on him and do what she does best – blame Israel for everything wrong in the world.
But the Son of Hamas knows first-hand the real Hamas that the honest among us only know through our readings.
Hamas has a bit more honesty about its Jew hating killing than Fatah. The leftists prefer the Abbas brand of packaging which obscures the nature of Fatah.
I do not know if there is a libertarian consensus against Israel. Certainly some sorts on the Lew Rockwell site are hung up on denouncing 99% of what Israel does, independent of whether others are an order of magnitude far worse.
Funny that “a hero in the Randian mold” is a Christian.
A precursory Allah is the pretense upon which Mohammed founded the diabolical “religion” Islam – in his own image. It is little wonder then that pretense, in this case “justice”, should be second nature to the followers of and apologists for Islam’s pathologies, the worst of them being their third nature – blood thirsty murder. If the scales can be made to fall from the eyes of the Mosab Yousef then there’s hope for Amanpour and the her ilk, which, were it to come to pass, would make for a far more impressive ‘miracle’ than just making the blind see.
George, one would hope, but I maintain that Amanpour and her ilk have all the freedoms they need to have come down on the side of freedom, democracy, and the rights of the individual. That she and they have not done so – after all this time – means that she and they are predisposed to supporting centralized rule where papa and mama government take care of little you and me, since they are much smarter than we are.
So don’t hold your breath. There is no fundamental core belief in humans. Some are evil, others are stupid, and still others are both. There is only hope for the stupid, but not much.
In 1975 I took a geography couse as a junior in high school. The instructor was the proverbial football coach. However, he made an interesting comment about the rise of Mohammad’s empire. He said that the Muslims inflicted their peace as they conquered more territories. I never thought I would see in just three to four years the rise of the Ayatollah Komienei (sp?) and the effect that the “peaceful” religeon of Islam would have on Iran, and the kidnapping of American citizens at the American Embassy in Tehran.
The fact that the “son of Hamas” was able to convert to Christianity and survive has to be a story all unto itself. The fact that the left lacks the intellectual curiosity to examine the facts beyone their preconceived notions has always amazed me. I guess being a solid member of the left has a lot in common with the 17 year old who thinks he knows everything but, has no idea of what questions to even ask.