The film version, which had its world premiere here this week at the Sundance Film Festival, is narrated by two voices: the Green Prince himself, Mosab Hassan Yousef, and his Shin Bet handler, Gonen Ben Yitzchak. Based on Yousef\u2019s autobiography, \u201cSon of Hamas,\u201d the film tells the story of his odyssey from young militant to spy for Israel’s security service to Southern California asylum seeker fighting to avoid deportation back to the Middle East.<\/p>\n
Yousef\u2019s code name within the Shin Bet was derived from the green color of the Hamas flag and his near royal pedigree among Palestinians. Told through a combination of interviews, reenactments and archival footage, his story takes the viewer inside two worlds.<\/p>\n
For Yousef, Hamas was \u201cour family business.\u201d His father spent more than a decade and a half in Israeli prisons for his leadership role in Hamas. Most recently, he was arrested in 2011 and released on Jan. 19, two days after the film premiered.<\/p>\n
The younger Yousef was himself arrested at age 17, and not for the first time, for buying guns. It was during the months-long confinement that followed in Israel’s Megiddo prison that he came to understand Hamas’ brutality. Yousef decided he had been living a lie and agreed to become a spy for his sworn enemy.<\/p>\n
For Yousef’s handler, turning the son of a Hamas founder was a career-making achievement. Ben Yitzchak, the son of an Israeli army general, was inspired to join the Shin Bet following the assassination of Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin. Yet all was not to end well for the agent.<\/p>\n
Ben Yitzchak grew close to his source and, from the Shin Bet’s perspective, betrayed the agency, trusting Yousef over his senior officers and breaking with procedure by meeting with him alone in the field and allowing him vacation time in Israel, including a rental car and a hotel.<\/p>\n
From Ben Yitzchak\u2019s perspective, it was all necessary to maintain the relationship and save Israeli lives. Haaretz reported that the pair had prevented dozens of planned attacks, including a plot to assassinate President Shimon Peres and former Chief Rabbi Ovadia Yosef.<\/p>\n
\u201cSo many people owe him their life and don’t even know it,\u201d Ben Yitzchak told Haaretz.<\/p>\n
Eventually Ben Yitzchak was fired from the Shin Bet, but the bond between he and Yousef grew stronger. Yousef declined to work with subsequent handlers and had reached the breaking point after 10 years of living his underground life. He was allowed to relocate temporarily to San Diego under the guise of needing dental surgery.<\/p>\n
The Israelis thought the break was temporary, but Yousef had other ideas. Once in the United States, he began a new life, joining a Christian church, writing a book and applying for political asylum. But his application was denied and U.S. authorities began proceedings to deport him as a terrorist.<\/p>\n
In the end, only Ben Yitzchak was willing to attest to the veracity of Yousef’s claims, flying from Israel to San Diego for a decisive hearing in 2010. The gambit worked, thanks in part to a campaign that included letters from members of the Israeli Knesset and the U.S. House of Representatives. Yousef remains in Southern California to this day, disowned by his family but embraced by many new friends and supporters.<\/p>\n
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