We had not gone far when al-Faransi’s cell phone rang. Al-Faransi was on Jerusalem’s assassination list, and Arafat’s headquarters was calling to warn him that Israeli helicopters had been following him. I opened the window and heard two Apaches closing in. Though it may seem strange to those who have not sensed God speaking to them in an internal voice, on this day I heard God speak to my heart, instructing me to turn left between two buildings. I later learned that had I continued to go straight, the Israelis would have had a clean shot at my car. I turned the car and instantly heard that divine voice say, Get out of the car and leave it. We jumped out and ran. By the time the helicopter reacquired its target, the only thing its pilot could see was a parked car and two open doors. It hovered for about sixty seconds and then turned and flew away.
I learned later that intelligence had received a message that al-Faransi had been spotted getting into a dark blue Audi A4. There were many just like it in town. Loai wasn’t in the operations room at the time to check my location, and no one knew to ask whether this Audi might belong to the Green Prince. Few members of the Shin Bet even knew of my existence.
Somehow, I seemed to always benefit from divine protection. I wasn’t even a Christian yet, and al-Faransi certainly didn’t know the Lord. My Christian friends were praying for me every day, however. And God, Jesus said in Matthew 5:45, “causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous.” This was certainly a far cry from the cruel and vengeful god of the Qur’an.
Chapter Twenty-Four
PROTECTIVE CUSTODY
Fall 2002—Spring 2003
I was exhausted. I was tired of playing so many dangerous roles at once, tired of having to change my personality and appearance to fit the current company I was keeping. When I was with my father and other Hamas leaders, I had to play the part of a dedicated member of Hamas. When I was with the Shin Bet, I had to play the part of an Israeli collaborator. When I was at home, I often played the part of father and protector of my siblings, and when I was at work, I had to play the part of a regular working guy. I was in my last semester of college, and I had exams to study for. But I couldn’t concentrate.
It was the end of September 2002, and I decided that it was time for act 2 of the play that had opened with the Shin Bet’s phony attempt to arrest me.
“I can’t keep up like this,” I told Loai. “What will it take? A few months in prison? We go through the motions of interrogation. You release me. Then I can go back and finish school. I can go back to my job at USAID and live a normal life.”
“What about your father?”
“I’m not going to leave him behind to be assassinated. Go ahead and arrest him too.”
“If that’s what you want. The government will certainly be happy that we finally caught Hassan Yousef.”
I told my mother where my father was hiding, and I let her visit him. Five minutes after she arrived at the safe house, special forces poured into the area. Soldiers ran through the neighborhood, shouting at all the civilians to get inside.
One of those “civilians,” smoking a narghile (Turkish water pipe) in front of his house, was none other than master bomb maker Abdullah Barghouti, who had no idea that he had been living across the street from Hassan Yousef. And the poor IDF soldier who told him to get inside had no idea that he had been shouting at Israel’s most wanted mass murderer.
Everybody was clueless. My father had no idea that his son had given him up in order to protect him from being assassinated. And the IDF had no idea that the Shin Bet had known the whereabouts of Hassan Yousef all along and that some of their soldiers had even eaten lunch and enjoyed a nap in the house where he was hiding.
As usual, my father surrendered peacefully. And he and the other Hamas leaders assumed the Shin Bet had followed my mother to his hideout. Naturally, my mother was sad, but she was also relieved that her husband was somewhere safe and no longer on Israel’s assassination list.
“We’ll see you tonight,” Loai told me after the dust settled.
As the sun began to set on the horizon, I sat inside my house, looking out the window, watching as about twenty special forces troops moved in fast and took their positions. I knew I needed to get my head down now and prepare for a little rough treatment. A couple of minutes later, jeeps drove in. Then a tank. The IDF sealed the area. Somebody jumped onto my balcony. Somebody else banged on my door.
“Who is it?” I called out, pretending I didn’t know.
“IDF! Open the door!”
I opened the door, and they pushed me down onto the floor, quickly searching me for weapons.
“Is anybody else here?”
“No.”
I don’t know why they bothered to ask. They started kicking in doors anyway and searching the house, room by room. Once outside, I found myself face-to-face with my friend.
“Where have you been?” Loai asked, talking harshly to me, as if I truly were what I pretended to be. “We’ve been looking for you. Are you trying to get yourself killed? You must have been crazy to run from your father’s house last year.”
A bunch of angry soldiers looked on and listened.
“We got your father,” he said, “and we finally got you! Let’s see what you have to say under interrogation!”
A couple of soldiers threw me into a jeep. Loai came over, leaned in so no one could hear him, and asked, “How are you doing, my friend? Is everything okay? Handcuffs too tight?”
“Everything’s fine,” I said. “Just get me out of here, and don’t let the soldiers beat me during the ride.”
“Don’t worry. One of my guys will be with you.”
They brought me to Ofer Military Base, where we sat in the same room in which we used to meet for a couple of hours of “interrogation,” drinking coffee and talking about the situation.
“We’re going to take you to Maskobiyeh,” Loai said, “just for a short time. We’ll pretend that you went through a tough interrogation. Your father is already there, and you’ll get to see him. He is not being questioned or tortured. Then we’ll take you to administrative detention. You’ll spend several months there, and after that, we’ll ask to extend your sentence for three more months because anybody with your status would be expected to spend a respectable time in prison.”
When I saw the interrogators, even those who had tortured me during my previous stay, I was surprised to discover that I felt no bitterness whatsoever toward these men. The only way I could explain it was using a verse I had read: Hebrews 4:12 says that “the word of God is living and active. Sharper than any double-edged sword, it penetrates even to dividing soul and spirit, joints and marrow; it judges the thoughts and attitudes of the heart.” I had read and pondered these words many times, as well as Jesus’ commands to forgive your enemies and love those who mistreat you. Somehow, even though I was still unable to accept Jesus Christ as God, his words seemed to be alive and active and working inside me. I don’t know how else I would have been able to see people as people, not Jew or Arab, prisoner or torturer. Even the old hatred that had driven me to buy guns and to plot the deaths of Israelis was being displaced by a love I didn’t understand.
I was put into a cell by myself for a couple of weeks. And once or twice a day, when they weren’t busy interrogating other prisoners, my Shin Bet friends came to check on me and chat. I ate well and remained the prison’s best-kept secret. This time, there were no stinking hoods or crazy hunchbacks or Leonard Cohen songs (although he would one day become my favorite recording artist—weird, huh?). In the West Bank, word circulated that I was a really tough guy who gave no information to the Israelis, even under torture.