The story of a young man in the Israeli lobby

March 3rd, 2015

FAKE NEWS for the Zionist agenda

Hossam Shaker

It is interesting that the AIPAC conference programme includes one session dedicated to a young Palestinian man. At first glance, it would seem as if the Israeli lobby in America was supporting peace and harmony, but there is no need to be optimistic. This young man was a “former Palestinian” who said that Israel is right in everything it does and that the violations committed by its army are legitimate; it is victim blaming and the glorification of the executioner.

At first, the story may seem interesting; a Palestinian boy leaves his family, country and cause and attacks his culture under false justification spun by the occupation’s propaganda. In addition to this, he is also the son of a Palestinian Hamas leader and therein lies the extraordinariness of his story, making it very exciting.

Those who have kept up with the story since its beginning, with the sudden emergence of the young man named Mosab, and then transforming the suspicious story into the book Son of Hamas/The Green Prince, followed by the efforts made to promote the book and the production of a film with the same title, would find themselves facing a hollow media bubble. The young man’s story and history was exaggerated in this context in a naïve manner in order to give his individual story great significance.

The pro-Israeli propaganda tried to portray Mosab as an innocent boy whose conscience woke up and he emerged to tell the truth. However, this young man’s journey was not one of an awakened conscience, but a journey of falling into the grips of the Israeli intelligence, which lured him and used him to spy on his community. They then carried him up to the propaganda platform before the world to talk in the language of self-hate.

Those contemplating the young man’s experience and expressions would doubt his emotional and psychological balance and stability. This is not the first case in which a victim embodies their oppressor. This is a well-known syndrome affecting those who have experienced war and prisoners of war and has been diagnosed as Stockholm Syndrome after a long-term kidnapping ended in the Swedish capital and they found that the hostages sympathised with their captors. The kidnapping took place in a Swedish bank, lasting six days in late summer 1973, unlike the decades long occupation which has kidnapped an entire nation and persecutes boys and their families through systematic subjugation.

There are things that are worth paying attention to in this young man’s story, specifically the system of extortion and solicitation utilised by the Israeli authorities and intelligence to hunt down Palestinians, including children and young men in order to turn them into eyes, ears and even killers working against their community. Extortion and solicitation is exercised in a variety of ways aiming to dominate society and penetrate its fabric. In this context, ethics, principles and law are lost, as pressure is put on the psychological, biological and living needs of humans, until they break in a moment of weakness or need, which is channelled to create an individual lacking will.

If we analyse the experience of Mosab, we find that there are multiple entryways for extortion and solicitation against him, keeping in mind that he is the son of a Palestinian leader who was being targeted by Israel and lived in a society in which the leaders spend half of their lives in Israeli prisons. In this society, mothers take on arduous roles to provide for their numerous sons and daughters in a pressured environment. Therefore, carefully studied attempts to lure weak prey by means of persuasion and intimidation may be successful.

This long path is dotted with procedures and measures that have been developed from experiences of using intelligence and brainwashing, in addition to maximising the privileges given to the young man who found himself on the same platform visited by American presidents, while his peers spend their lives in large and small prisons behind Israeli bars, barbed wires and walls.

The Israeli intelligence’s work mechanisms against boys and young men, as well as the general public in the Palestinian community are truly stunning. The world follows the tragic stories of what the Israeli officers and their spies are doing to the community’s fabric; how they break bonds, penetrate families, relatives and neighbours, and how they turn individuals, in a moment of weakness, into entities with no consciences who are brainwashed to carry out dirty tasks and used to murder.

What more can this young man say other than what the Israeli army spokespeople are saying about him? They brought him in to justify the occupation, promote the Israeli wars and distort the Palestinian people and their resistance. However, what sort of influence does this propaganda speech have? The “Green Prince”, as he is called by the Israeli intelligence services, is not a peace activist, he is supporting Israel’s wars and attacks no matter how serious the violations they commit are.

Israel’s propaganda relies on exciting stories of its own legends and narratives have become weak. This young man, who was Palestinian, has emerged and has tried to seem more Israeli than the Israeli spokespeople; how rational and credible is this narrative when there is no mention of Palestine itself and the confiscated rights of its people?

Mosab’s story is evidence of the Israeli propaganda’s lacking and failure, as it relies on a young man lured by the occupation to express narratives and stories they have prepared for him after undergoing an effective brainwashing process.