by Martine Gozlan
Hamas has a representation that lives in luxury and attends the best restaurants of the Bosphorus
It is the only revolt of Arab people against its leaders that does not have right of citizenship in the European media, especially in French media. The revolt took place in Gaza last March: Hamas repressed in the blood the anger of people who shouted “We want to live!”. It’s the opinion makers who, from London to Paris, repressed it in silence.
This revolt did not oppose Palestinians to Israeli soldiers but to their own corrupt leaders who were indifferent to the suffering of the Gazans.
Hajar Harb, our sister of this unfortunate territory submitted on one side to fanaticism, on the other to the Egyptian and Israeli blockades, had nevertheless shown a month earlier a great courage by reporting on the bribes required by doctors in exchange of medical certificates: only these may authorize the release from Gaza.
She was brought to justice and sentenced. The solidarity of his compatriots has scared the judicial system: Hajar is finally discharged on the eve of the hunger protests.But another voice has just risen. It belong to Soheib Yousef.
The own son of a senior executive of the Islamist organization in the West Bank, Hassan Yousef, currently imprisoned in Israel. Soheib was stationed in Istanbul where Hamas has a representation that lives in luxury and attends the best restaurants of the Bosphorus. With the blessing of Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who authorized the installation of an intelligence platform that had put on alert the enemies brothers of the Palestinian authority as well as certain Israeli. This valuable information was sold at a good price to Iran. Money was passing by Turkish banks.
It was Soheib the defector who revealed that case and many others.For this he fled the Middle East to an Asian country remained secret. And he calledChannel 12, the most watched Israeli TV. The one who sent straight away a reporter, Ohad Hemo, in the depths of Asia to meet him. This can be considered a passage to the enemy or true fury of a Palestinian in front of the duplicity of his former companions? Revolt against the father? In this case, Soheib is not the first.
His older brother, Mosab, joined the Shin Bet and worked to thwart attacks from 1997 to 2007. It is nicknamed “The Green Prince” before his final installation in the United States. His family has cut all the ties with him and evokes his “mental disorders”.
In his interview with the journalist Ohad Hemo – a personality quite on the left, who hasoften denounced the blockage of peace talks – the young Soheib says he does not wantwalk in the footsteps of the big brother. He is not interested in working for Israel: he decided to say with disgust everything he saw around him.
We can judge: “..The Hamas executives live abroad in five-star residences with swimming pool, their children are enrolled in heir children are enrolled in private schools, they are paid between 4000 and 5000 dollars a month, while the income monthly per household in Gaza is $ 360, they have private club membership cards. …”
In Gaza itself, the district of the executives is full of luxurious villas. New fortunes have built thanks to the traffic of goods passing through tunnels. These tunnels dug in diverting millions of dollars from European aid, employing children.
How many small Palestinians were buried by accident while officials knew all the risks and used intentionally the misery of the parents? How many of them have been brought to the separation fence with Israel for a year, as it is shown by a recent report, for a few tickets to their family, to serve as a human shield in front of the real members of Hamas and Islamic Jihad trying to infiltrate enemy territory?
So many events that do not pass the glass ceiling of information on Gaza. Because the Palestine, this real cause, was diverted to become an alibi. How to explain that no French pro-Palestinian organization has echoed the revolt of the Gazans, the brave word of Hajar Harb? That the religious dictatorship of Hamas, the dishonourable status of women, have never been denounced by those who claim to be defenders of human rights?
This is the debate that could finally open after the revolt of March 2019, the warning cry of our Palestinian sister, and finally the revelations of Soheib Youssef?
He is not the first to speak, and this is what matters. If we still believe, as in these columns, in the possibility of a Palestinian State, sovereign and democratic, alongside the Jewish State, this truth should be written: Hamas betrays the Palestinians.
Article first published on Global Watch Analysis.
Martine Gozlan is a Journalist and essayist, editor-in-chief at the weekly Marianne, specialist in Islamism and the Middle East.
