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About the Book
"Attitude 101" by John C. Maxwell is a guide to understanding the importance of attitude in achieving success in life. Maxwell emphasizes the power of a positive attitude and provides practical tips for developing and maintaining a winning mindset. Through real-life examples and anecdotes, he illustrates how attitude can impact every area of life, including relationships, career, and personal growth. Ultimately, Maxwell argues that by choosing to adopt a positive attitude, individuals can overcome challenges, seize opportunities, and reach their full potential.
Mosab Hassan Yousef
Mosab Hassan Yousef (Arabic: Ů
ؾؚب Řس٠ŮŮŘłŮ; nicknamed "The Green Prince"; born 5 May 1978) is a Palestinian who worked undercover for Israel's internal security service Shin Bet from 1997 to 2007.
Shin Bet considered him its most valuable source within the Hamas leadership. The information Yousef supplied prevented dozens of suicide attacks and assassinations of Israelis, exposed numerous Hamas cells, and assisted Israel in hunting down many militants, and incarcerating his own father, Hamas leader Sheikh Hassan Yousef. In March 2010, he published his autobiography titled Son of Hamas.
In 1999, Yousef converted to Christianity, and in 2007 he moved to the United States. His request for political asylum in the United States was granted pending a routine background check in 2010.
Biography
Mosab Hassan Yousef (later Joseph) was born in Ramallah, a city 10 kilometers (6.2 mi) north of Jerusalem. His father, Sheikh Hassan Yousef, was a Hamas leader who spent many years in Israeli prisons. He is the oldest of five brothers and three sisters.
When Yousef was growing up, he wanted to be a fighter because that was according to him what was expected of Palestinian children in the West Bank. Yousef was first arrested when he was ten, during the First Intifada, for throwing rocks at Israeli settlers. He was further arrested and jailed by Israel numerous times. As his father's eldest son, he was seen as his heir apparent, and became an important part of the Hamas organization.
Yousef said he saw the light after a stint with his dadâs comrades in an Israeli jail during the mid-1990s. At Megiddo Prison, he witnessed Hamas inmates leading a brutal year-long campaign to weed out supposed Israeli collaborators. "During that time, Hamas tortured and killed hundreds of prisoners,â he said, recalling vivid memories of needles being inserted under finger nails and bodies charred with burning plastics. Many, if not all, had nothing to do with Israeli intelligence. âI will never forget their screams,â he continued. âI started asking myself a question. What if Hamas succeeded in destroying Israel and building a state. Will they destroy our people in this way?â
Yousef's doubts about Islam and Hamas began forming when he realized Hamas' brutality, and that he hated how Hamas used the lives of suffering civilians and children to achieve its goals. Yousef was held by Shin Bet agents in 1996. While in prison, he was shocked by Shin Bet's interrogation methods, which he considered humane, when compared to how Hamas operatives tortured imprisoned suspected collaborators. He decided to accept a Shin Bet offer to become an informant.
Espionage career
Beginning with his release from prison in 1997, Yousef was considered the Shin Bet's most reliable source in the Hamas leadership, earning himself the nickname "The Green Prince" â using the color of the Islamist group's flag, and "prince" because of his pedigree as the son of one of the movement's founders. The intelligence he supplied to Israel led to the exposure of many Hamas cells, as well as the prevention of dozens of suicide bombings and assassination attempts on Jews. He has claimed that he did not inform for money, but rather that his motivations were ideological and religious, and that he only wanted to save lives.[13] In order to thwart any suspicions of collaboration, the Shin Bet staged an arrest attempt, telling the Israel Defense Forces to launch an operation to arrest him, and then provided him intelligence allowing him to escape at the last minute, after which he went into hiding for the rest of his career.
Yousef says he supplied intelligence only on the condition that the "targets" would not be killed, but arrested. This led to the detention of several key Palestinian leaders, including Ibrahim Hamid, a Hamas commander in the West Bank, and Marwan Barghouti. Also, Yousef claims to have thwarted a 2001 plot to assassinate Shimon Peres, then foreign minister and later President of Israel. According to his former Shin Bet officer, "Many people owe him their lives and don't even know it."
Conversion to Christianity
According to his story, Yousef met a British missionary in 1999 who introduced him to Christianity. Between the years 1999 and 2000, Yousef gradually embraced Christianity. In 2005, he was secretly baptized in Tel Aviv by an unidentified Christian tourist. He left the West Bank for the United States in 2007, and lived some time in San Diego, California, where he joined the Barabbas Road Church.
In August 2008, Yousef publicly revealed his Christianity, and renounced Hamas and the Arab leadership, thereby endangering himself and exposing his family in Ramallah to persecution. Yousef has also claimed that his aim was to bring peace to the Middle East; he hopes to return to his homeland when there is peace.
Yousef has stated that despite his conversion to Christianity, he is "against religion", and does not adhere to any denomination of Christianity. He has stated, "Religion steals freedom, kills creativity, turns us into slaves and against one another. Yes, I am talking about Christianity as well as Islam. Most Christians I have seen, seem to have missed the point, that Jesus redeemed us from religion. Religion is nothing but man's attempts to get back to God. Whether it is Islam, Christianity, Judaism, Buddhism, Hinduism, animism, any ism. Religion can't save mankind. Only Jesus could save mankind through his death and resurrection. And Jesus is the only way to God."
Autobiography
Yousef's co-authored autobiography, Son of Hamas: A Gripping Account of Terror, Betrayal, Political Intrigue, and Unthinkable Choices, written with the assistance of Ron Brackin, was published in March 2010.
Yousef's brother Ouwais denounced the report about his brother's activities, saying: "It was full of lies; it's all lies." Ouwais also revealed that the last contact between his family and Mosab took place more than a year before the news of his spying. Sheikh Hassan Yousef, Mosab's father, while in an Israeli prison, disowned his son for spying for Israel. The Haaretz report on Yousef was described by Hamas MP Mushir al-Masri as "psychological war being waged against the Palestinian people... [it] did not deserve a response".
Deportation threats and political asylum
For a time, Yousef was threatened with deportation from the U.S., after his request for political asylum was denied, since statements in his book about working for Hamas were interpreted as "providing material support to a U.S.-designated terrorist organization", despite Yousef's explanation that they were "intended to undermine the group". His case then proceeded to the deportation stage, despite Yousef's advocates' warning that he would likely be executed by the Palestinian Authority if deported to the West Bank.
On 24 June 2010, Shin Bet handler Gonen Ben Itzhak, who for 10 years worked with Yousef under the cryptonym "Loai", revealed his own identity in order to testify on behalf of Yousef at an immigration hearing in San Diego. Ben-Yitzhak described Yousef as a "true friend", and said, "he risked his life every day in order to prevent violence".
Partially as a result of this, Immigration Court Judge Richard J. Bartolomei, Jr., ruled on 30 June 2010, that Yousef would be allowed to remain in the United States after being fingerprinted and passing a routine background check.
He is a frequent guest speaker on various American news channels, where he talks about the atrocities committed by Hamas.
Films
A documentary adaptation of Son of Hamas titled The Green Prince, directed and written by Nadav Schirman, premiered at the 2014 Sundance Film Festival, where it won the Audience Award for World Cinema: Documentary. The Green Prince will be re-made into a live-action feature film.
Yousef is collaborating with US-based actor and film producer Sam Feuer in the production of two films: a feature film adaptation of Yousef's book Son of Hamas and documentary The Green Prince, and a historical depiction of the life of the Muslim prophet Muhammad based on the accounts of eighth-century historian Ibn Ishaq.
Views and controversies
Some elements of Yousef's story have been questioned. Former Shin Bet Deputy Chief Gideon Ezra described Yousef's claims as "too good to be true", and stated that, "there are hundreds of collaborators like him. He is not unusual. He just decided to write a book about it." The conversion to Christianity narrative promoted by Yousef and his book publishers remains unsubstantiated as well. Critics have alleged that Yousef claimed he was a Christian (for a longer period of time) in order to help secure asylum in the United States. This tactic is common for Muslim immigrants seeking to avoid deportation to countries where apostasy laws exist. However, he has since become an active figure in evangelical non-denominational Christianity in America, and has appeared on programs such as The 700 Club. Interest in the book from Christian readers helped make it a New York Times best-seller. During an appearance on The 700 Club to promote his book "Son of Hamas", he was welcomed and interviewed by host Pat Robertson.
At an "End Times Prophecy" conference in 2010, hosted by California-based evangelist Greg Laurie, Yousef told the crowd in attendance that Islam is "the biggest lie in human history." He further suggested at the conference that the Quran should not be legal in the United States ("banned on American soil").
In May 2016, talking to a Jerusalem Post conference in New York, Yousef claimed that at one time that he was working for, and being paid by, Israel, the United States, the Palestinian Authority, and Hamas, all at the same time. He went on to say that Islam as a whole is comparable to Nazism, and must be defeated.
keep him from his knees
My Dear Globdrop, Most regretfully did I receive your last letter. Slumped over at my desk for nearly the entire day, I failed to detect the slightest evidence of rational thought. You coughed and sneezed all over the page and still thought to send it, did you? Next time you desire to unclutter the pockets of your mind, rifle through the lint and half-gnawed bones with one of your peers instead of your superior officer. The only nugget I found (and I admit to having slogged through only half of the small booklet you called a letter) was the bit about your manâs resolves to âgive more time to prayer.â I hope, for your sake, that you have not applied standard protocol to such a vile practice. In other pursuits, we consider it sport to let the game run free for a bit. We allow the patients to exercise new levels of self-control, discipline, purity, and the like. The joy they feel when they assume themselves finally free heightens our fun when, to their horror and despair, we recapture them in old habits. And this is not just for entertainment: The last state becomes worse than the first. The merry-go-round of failure weakens their will to fight back, and soon, they wonât attempt to run free even when the door is flung open. Their fresh starts make for more bitter endings. But we do not trifle with prayer, ever . Have you forgotten that one stands on the other side of them, listening ? Keep the Prey from Prayer This ought to be painfully apparent. Would you allow an all-but-conquered army, surrounded and besieged, to send out even one letter pleading for reinforcements? Would you not hunt that messenger down, put arrows in his back, and burn the letter? It is bad enough that our bitter Enemy â I have it on credible report â actually wants  to help them. No, silence toward the Enemy is hellâs only policy. You must silence him as soon as possible. A few pointers. 1. Distract him in his closet. This first step is almost too simple to be devious: show him his surroundings. When he has time to sit and observe â something he otherwise would rarely do â show him everything. The more bothersome, the better. Let him hear that horrid Mr. Snoodle bark at a squirrel down the street. Let him see the mailman walk irreverently across his yard. Let him notice the chipped paint upon the windowsill, the small crack in the ceiling fan, the childrenâs play toys left disobediently about on the carpet. Once he is divided, end the affair promptly with something he can quickly do â he should clean the dishes or vacuum the carpet. Assure him, of course, that this will only be a temporary detour that will allow for greater focus. Send him away after anything and everything. 2. Remind him of righteous deeds to do. Now, donât be afraid to use even â and my pen recoils to write it â ârighteous distractions.â This, I hope you can finally begin to appreciate, reveals how much we loathe the time he spends upon his knees â that place where all horrid events begin. Get him to say, as one of their generals has said, You wouldnât believe how many good things keep me from praying â not sin. Sin does not keep me from praying; righteousness keeps me from praying: answering holy emails or just checking out one more piece of relevant news to pray about. . . . Itâs not evil that keeps us from praying; itâs good things. So â only in times of deepest desperation, mind you â suggest a million fine deeds he could otherwise be doing: a friend could use an encouraging text message. The elderly man next store could use his driveway shoveled. Perhaps he ought to call and check in with that sister who is struggling. We can destroy those resolves in due time. The act at hand, the speaking directly with the Enemy, stands priority. Without refueling, they can only get only so far. 3. Remind him how little he has prayed. Perhaps you naively assume that this misses the point â why remind a starving man that he has not eaten enough bread? But this squanders an opportunity. If he is set on yelping to the Enemy, prostrating himself on the floor like a spaniel, two courses of action can proceed: either he gets fed and returns to the banquet over and over again â and we lose him  â or we spoil the bread in his mouth by inducing a sense of guilt . Instead of allowing him to begin where he is  â one meal at a time, as it were â suggest all the ways he falls short of where he should be by now . As he finally begins to intercede for his sister, ask, Why have you waited so long?  Should he pray for our humans to follow the Enemy, inquire, Why were you unbothered by their plight till now?  If he begins that wretched way he taught them, âMy Father,â let the name turn to guilt before he finishes: Do other sons fail so much at prayer?  Ten minutes of prayer seems like such a weak window for someone who has been a Christian so long. A steady diet of shame turns prayer inward ÂŹâ a gaze into the mirror at imperfections, not a gaze at the Enemy or his alleged perfections. Make prayer a reminder of everything your man is not, rather than a communing with all the Enemy is. Press blame upon him, and he soon may return to his unencumbered, guilt-free starvation. 4. Remind him that he is free  from taking prayer too seriously. Label all prayer habits as legalism. Planning to spend thirty minutes in prayer a day? That is law, not grace. Where â be sure to ask him â does the Bible say he needs  to wake up at 6:30 in the morning? Anyone who tells him he must  spend time communing with the Enemy doesnât know what freedom  the Enemy affords. Tell them that he is perfectly free  to be prayerless before the Enemy â of course, by this we mean that he is free to stand clueless, weaponless, and defenseless before us. Let him be regular in checking social media, regular in watching his shows, regular in playing Ultimate Frisbee and going to concerts, regular in walking the dog, eating, sleeping, and playing the saxophone â but make the idea that he might be regular in prayer works based . Keep him from prayer, and he shall surely become prey. 5. Remind him of tomorrow. He works hard after all. Working two jobs. Busy with countless Christian activities. What does the Enemy really expect of him? The Enemyâs Son sought to rouse his drowsy disciples to their prayer posts on the night everything changed, but he couldnât . They were too tired to âwatch and pray that they may not enter into temptation.â The spirit may have been willing, but the flesh was weak. We licked our lips as their eyelids drooped. You can always pray tomorrow morning  was our lullaby. A little sleep, a little slumber, a little tapping of the alarm clock, and we shall come upon them like a thief in the night. Lead Them into Temptation The Enemy instructs them to pray that they might not enter into temptation  â I hope you see the seriousness by now. He even commands them to pray daily with the wretched words, âLead us not into temptation.â Keep them from all of this. Leave them over-busy and exhausted, pushing prayer to the bookends of their days until it is little more than a half-conscious moan or sigh. At all costs, do not let them truly believe that God is and, most of all, that he rewards those who seek him â with himself. Your tried and tempted uncle, Grimgod