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.It took a while to get used to the idea of being really free free to be myself, free ofclandestine meetings and Israeli prisons, free from always looking over my shoulder.It was weird.And wonderful.Walking down the sidewalk one day in California, I spotted a familiar face coming towardme.It was the face of Maher Odeh, the mastermind behind so many suicide bombings theguy I had seen back in 2000 being visited by Arafat s armed thugs.I later exposed them asthe founding cell of the ghostly Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades.I wasn t completely sure it was Odeh at first.People look different out of context.I hoped Iwas wrong.Hamas has never dared reach into the United States to conduct a martyrdom op-eration.It would be bad for the United States if he was here.It would be bad for me too. Our eyes met and held for a fraction of a second.I waspretty sure I saw a spark of recognition there before hecontinued down the street.EpilogueIn July 2008, I sat in a restaurant having dinner with my good friend Avi Issacharoff, ajournalist with Haaretz newspaper in Israel.I told him my story of becoming a Christian be-cause I wanted the news to come from Israel, not from the West.It appeared in his newspa-per under the headline Prodigal Son. As is the case with many followers of Jesus, my public declaration of faith broke the heartsof my mother and father, brothers, sisters, and friends.My friend Jamal was one of the few people who stood by my family in their shame andcried with them.Terribly lonely after I left, Jamal met a beautiful young woman, got engaged,and was married two weeks after the Haaretz article appeared.Attending his wedding, my family couldn t hold back their tears because Jamal s weddingreminded them of me, how I had destroyed my future, and how I would never marry and havea Muslim family.Seeing their sadness, even the new bridegroom started to cry.Most of theother people in the wedding cried, too, but I m sure it was for a different reason. Couldn t you wait to make your announcement until two weeks after I got married? Jamalasked me in a phone conversation later. You made the best thing in my life a disaster. I felt awful.Thankfully, Jamal remains my best friend.My father received the news in his prison cell.He woke up to learn that his oldest son hadconverted to Christianity.From his perspective, I had destroyed my own future and his fam-ily s future.He believes that one day I will be taken to hell before his eyes, and then we will beestranged forever.He cried like a baby and would not leave his cell.Prisoners from every faction came to him. We are all your sons, Abu Mosab, they toldhim. Please calm down. He could not confirm the news reports.But a week later, my seventeen-year-old sister,Anhar, who was the only family member allowed to visit him, came to the prison.Immediately,he could see in her eyes that it was all true.And he couldn t control himself.Other prisonersleft their visiting families to come and kiss his head and weep with him.He tried to catch hisbreath to apologize to them, but he only wept harder.Even the Israeli guards, who respectedmy father, cried.I sent him a six-page letter.I told him how important it was for him to discover the realnature of the God he has always loved but never known. My uncles waited anxiously for my father to disown me.When he refused, they turnedtheir backs on his wife and children.But my father knew that if he disowned me, Hamas ter-rorists would kill me.And he kept his covering over me, no matter how deeply I had woundedhim.Eight weeks later, the men at Ktzi ot Prison in the Negev threatened to riot.So Shabas,the Israel Prison Service, asked my father to do what he could to defuse the situation.One day my mother, who had been in weekly contact since my arrival in America, calledme. Your father is in the Negev.Some of the prisoners have smuggled in cell phones.Wouldyou like to talk to him? I couldn t believe it.I didn t think I would get a chance to talk to my dad until he was re-leased from prison.I called the number.No one answered.I called again. Alo! His voice.I could barely speak. Hi, Father. Hi there. I miss your voice. How are you? I am good.It doesn t matter how I am.How are you? I am okay.We came here to talk to prisoners and try to calm the situation down. He was the same.His chief concern was always for the people.And he always would bethe same. How is your life in the USA now? My life is great.I am writing a book. Every prisoner was given only ten minutes, and my father would never use his position toget special treatment.I wanted to discuss my new life with him, but he didn t want to talkabout it. No matter what happened, he told me, you are still my son.You are part of me, andnothing will change.You have a different opinion, but you still are my little child. I was shocked.This man was unbelievable.I called again the next day.He was sick at heart, but he was listening. I have a secret I need to tell you, I said. I want to tell you now, so you don t hear it fromthe media. I explained that I had worked for the Shin Bet for ten years.That he was still alive todaybecause I had agreed to have him put into prison for his protection.That his name was at the top of Jerusalem s assassination list and that he was still in prison because I was no longerthere to ensure his safety.Silence.My dad said nothing. I love you, I said finally. You will always be my father. PostscriptIt is my greatest hope that, in telling my own story, I will show my own people Palestinianfollowers of Islam who have been used by corrupt regimes for hundreds of years that thetruth can set them free.I tell my story as well to let the Israeli people know that there is hope.If I, the son of a ter-rorist organization dedicated to the extinction of Israel, can reach a point where I not onlylearned to love the Jewish people but risked my life for them, there is a light of hope.My story holds a message for Christians too.We must learn from the sorrows of mypeople, who carry a heavy burden trying to work their way into God s favor.We have to getbeyond the religious rules we make for ourselves.Instead, we must love people on all sidesof the world unconditionally.If we are going to represent Jesus to the world, we have to livehis message of love.If we want to follow Jesus, we must also expect to be persecuted.Weshould be happy to be persecuted for his sake.To Middle East experts, government decision makers, scholars, and leaders of intelli-gence agencies, I write with the hope that a simple story will contribute to your understandingof the problems and potential solutions in one of the most troubled regions of the world.I offer my story knowing that many people, including those I care about most, will not un-derstand my motives or my thinking.Some people will accuse me of doing what I have done for the sake of money.The ironyis that I had no problem getting money in my previous life but am living practically hand tomouth now.While it is true that my family struggled financially, especially during the longstretches when my father was in prison, I eventually became a fairly rich young man.With mygovernment-provided salary, I made ten times the average income in my country.I had agood life, with two houses and a new sports car.And I could have made even more [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
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.It took a while to get used to the idea of being really free free to be myself, free ofclandestine meetings and Israeli prisons, free from always looking over my shoulder.It was weird.And wonderful.Walking down the sidewalk one day in California, I spotted a familiar face coming towardme.It was the face of Maher Odeh, the mastermind behind so many suicide bombings theguy I had seen back in 2000 being visited by Arafat s armed thugs.I later exposed them asthe founding cell of the ghostly Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades.I wasn t completely sure it was Odeh at first.People look different out of context.I hoped Iwas wrong.Hamas has never dared reach into the United States to conduct a martyrdom op-eration.It would be bad for the United States if he was here.It would be bad for me too. Our eyes met and held for a fraction of a second.I waspretty sure I saw a spark of recognition there before hecontinued down the street.EpilogueIn July 2008, I sat in a restaurant having dinner with my good friend Avi Issacharoff, ajournalist with Haaretz newspaper in Israel.I told him my story of becoming a Christian be-cause I wanted the news to come from Israel, not from the West.It appeared in his newspa-per under the headline Prodigal Son. As is the case with many followers of Jesus, my public declaration of faith broke the heartsof my mother and father, brothers, sisters, and friends.My friend Jamal was one of the few people who stood by my family in their shame andcried with them.Terribly lonely after I left, Jamal met a beautiful young woman, got engaged,and was married two weeks after the Haaretz article appeared.Attending his wedding, my family couldn t hold back their tears because Jamal s weddingreminded them of me, how I had destroyed my future, and how I would never marry and havea Muslim family.Seeing their sadness, even the new bridegroom started to cry.Most of theother people in the wedding cried, too, but I m sure it was for a different reason. Couldn t you wait to make your announcement until two weeks after I got married? Jamalasked me in a phone conversation later. You made the best thing in my life a disaster. I felt awful.Thankfully, Jamal remains my best friend.My father received the news in his prison cell.He woke up to learn that his oldest son hadconverted to Christianity.From his perspective, I had destroyed my own future and his fam-ily s future.He believes that one day I will be taken to hell before his eyes, and then we will beestranged forever.He cried like a baby and would not leave his cell.Prisoners from every faction came to him. We are all your sons, Abu Mosab, they toldhim. Please calm down. He could not confirm the news reports.But a week later, my seventeen-year-old sister,Anhar, who was the only family member allowed to visit him, came to the prison.Immediately,he could see in her eyes that it was all true.And he couldn t control himself.Other prisonersleft their visiting families to come and kiss his head and weep with him.He tried to catch hisbreath to apologize to them, but he only wept harder.Even the Israeli guards, who respectedmy father, cried.I sent him a six-page letter.I told him how important it was for him to discover the realnature of the God he has always loved but never known. My uncles waited anxiously for my father to disown me.When he refused, they turnedtheir backs on his wife and children.But my father knew that if he disowned me, Hamas ter-rorists would kill me.And he kept his covering over me, no matter how deeply I had woundedhim.Eight weeks later, the men at Ktzi ot Prison in the Negev threatened to riot.So Shabas,the Israel Prison Service, asked my father to do what he could to defuse the situation.One day my mother, who had been in weekly contact since my arrival in America, calledme. Your father is in the Negev.Some of the prisoners have smuggled in cell phones.Wouldyou like to talk to him? I couldn t believe it.I didn t think I would get a chance to talk to my dad until he was re-leased from prison.I called the number.No one answered.I called again. Alo! His voice.I could barely speak. Hi, Father. Hi there. I miss your voice. How are you? I am good.It doesn t matter how I am.How are you? I am okay.We came here to talk to prisoners and try to calm the situation down. He was the same.His chief concern was always for the people.And he always would bethe same. How is your life in the USA now? My life is great.I am writing a book. Every prisoner was given only ten minutes, and my father would never use his position toget special treatment.I wanted to discuss my new life with him, but he didn t want to talkabout it. No matter what happened, he told me, you are still my son.You are part of me, andnothing will change.You have a different opinion, but you still are my little child. I was shocked.This man was unbelievable.I called again the next day.He was sick at heart, but he was listening. I have a secret I need to tell you, I said. I want to tell you now, so you don t hear it fromthe media. I explained that I had worked for the Shin Bet for ten years.That he was still alive todaybecause I had agreed to have him put into prison for his protection.That his name was at the top of Jerusalem s assassination list and that he was still in prison because I was no longerthere to ensure his safety.Silence.My dad said nothing. I love you, I said finally. You will always be my father. PostscriptIt is my greatest hope that, in telling my own story, I will show my own people Palestinianfollowers of Islam who have been used by corrupt regimes for hundreds of years that thetruth can set them free.I tell my story as well to let the Israeli people know that there is hope.If I, the son of a ter-rorist organization dedicated to the extinction of Israel, can reach a point where I not onlylearned to love the Jewish people but risked my life for them, there is a light of hope.My story holds a message for Christians too.We must learn from the sorrows of mypeople, who carry a heavy burden trying to work their way into God s favor.We have to getbeyond the religious rules we make for ourselves.Instead, we must love people on all sidesof the world unconditionally.If we are going to represent Jesus to the world, we have to livehis message of love.If we want to follow Jesus, we must also expect to be persecuted.Weshould be happy to be persecuted for his sake.To Middle East experts, government decision makers, scholars, and leaders of intelli-gence agencies, I write with the hope that a simple story will contribute to your understandingof the problems and potential solutions in one of the most troubled regions of the world.I offer my story knowing that many people, including those I care about most, will not un-derstand my motives or my thinking.Some people will accuse me of doing what I have done for the sake of money.The ironyis that I had no problem getting money in my previous life but am living practically hand tomouth now.While it is true that my family struggled financially, especially during the longstretches when my father was in prison, I eventually became a fairly rich young man.With mygovernment-provided salary, I made ten times the average income in my country.I had agood life, with two houses and a new sports car.And I could have made even more [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]