Palestine is ‘just a device that the Muslims use as a weapon against Israel,’ says ‘Son of Hamas’ Mosab Hassan Yousef

Mosab Hassan Yousef spoke at the Jerusalem Post Annual Conference on Tuesday, where he addressed the question of a Palestinian state and called for a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. 

Mosab Yousef, son of Hamas co-founder Sheikh Hassan Yousef and a former member of Hamas, expressed strong opposition to a two-state solution headed by the Palestinian Authority, as suggested by many in the West.

“Palestine is non-existential. It’s just a device that the Muslims use as a weapon against Israel, and as a weapon against the Jewish people,” Yousef told the conference attendees. “Palestine depends on the destruction of Israel. If there is any definition of Palestine, it means the absence of Israel,” he stated.

I recently spoke at the @Jerusalem_Post conference in NYC. There I said, Palestine is a device that Muslims use as a weapon against Israel and against the Jewish people. pic.twitter.com/mUg1DgPDI7

— Mosab Hassan Yousef (@MosabHasanYOSEF) June 6, 2024

Those who call for a two-state solution “either want Israel to cease to exist, or they are not aware of this existential threat,” Yousef added.

The former Hamas member said that he views the Palestinian Authority (PA) as a greater threat than the Hamas terrorist organization because it “advocates worldwide through their embassies” who are “fighting against Israel and its legitimacy.” 

Yousef also said it's not true that the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is over land, as many claim.

“The Jewish slaughter at the hands of Muslims has been going on for approximately fourteen centuries,” Yousef said. 

“The Jewish people are in denial,” he continued. “I understand why. Because if the Jewish people admit that, then they will have to confront a majority of Muslims.” 

However, he said from the beginning of the war, and even prior, “I came to realize that the ideological dimension of this war cannot be ignored.” 

“I’m not calling for a religious war, there has been a religious war, and it’s about time to wake up.” 

Yousef added: “Hamas is not only acting on their own, they belong to the Muslim Brotherhood, the Muslim Brotherhood belongs to a religion, and that religion has a scripture, and it’s about time to open the books for the rest of the world.” 

Later in his speech, Yousef said the PA also has ties with the Muslim Brotherhood through its founder Yasser Arafat. 

“I did not mean to talk about Islam this much, but in my opinion, Palestine, the Palestinian Authority, the PLO, Hamas, Islamic Jihad, the Muslim Brotherhood, all of them are inspired by the same death cult,” he warned.  

“Yasser Arafat was Muslim Brotherhood, Abdullah Azzam was Muslim Brotherhood, Osama Bin Laden was Muslim Brotherhood, Hamas - Muslim Brotherhood. All of them are Muslim Brotherhood. So, we have a big problem and we need to wake up.” 

Yousef challenged the idea that giving up control of land for a Palestinian state would lead to security for Israel. 

“Nobody can afford a Palestinian state that is hostile to Israel. What happened on October 7th cannot be ignored,” he stated. “You cannot give them Judea and Samaria, you cannot give them the mountains, you cannot sacrifice the Jordan Valley, this is a defense line. I speak from a security point of view,” he said, before joking that he sounded “like a right-wing Jewish extremist.” 

He said the PA could not be trusted because it sponsors and encourages terrorism.

“Yasser Arafat was a terrorist,” Yousef noted. “I was in his meeting when he gave my father the authority to blow up buses, markets, and beaches during the second Palestinian Intifada.” 

Yousef said he agreed with his interviewer, Dr. Dan Diker, president of the Jerusalem Center for Foreign Affairs, that Israel needed to switch from defense to offense in countering the Palestinian narrative. “Palestine is not a country,” he remarked, “it’s only an ideology.” 

Yousef believes there are solutions and said the world must "get anchored in the truth and face reality, face things as they are. As long as we try to escape it, we are not able to provide a good solution for this problem.” 

While he noted several political solutions, he said the fundamental issues in trying to solve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict are economic problems caused by poor investment strategies and PA nepotism and corruption, as well as a lack of education. 

“I’d start with educating the Arabs of the West Bank on the Holocaust. This should be mandatory for every Arabian to learn from the Jewish experience,” Yousef argued.

He said the Jewish resilience after the Holocaust inspired him. The idea to "never be a victim, to rise above pleasure, above pain. This is the model that inspired me.” 

While he briefly addressed several options for political leadership in the Palestinian Territories, including recruiting Israeli Arabs to leadership and police positions, Yousef ended his talk by challenging the audience.

"We need to really have a deep look into the situation and be honest with ourselves. Is this serving the Arabs? Is this serving the Jews? Is this securing the future of the generation or not? Then after that, we make our decisions.”