Another voice insisting Israel strike Hamas in Gaza had added its call to the fray; this time, it is the son of a prominent Hamas leader. Mosab Yousef is the son of Sheikh Hassan Yousef, a founding member  and the leader of Hamas in the Palestinian Authority. The younger Yousef served as an agent of the Israel Security Agency, or Shin Bet, from 1997 to 2007, the same time he ran his father’s office.

Yousef was interviewed by Avi Issacharoff for Walla! News and The Times of Israel. Issacharoff is the one who publicized Yousef’s role in the Shin Bet in the first place.

Nicknamed the “Green Prince” for the color of Hamas and his relatively prestigious family within the organization, Yousef told Issacharoff, “To get to peace with the Palestinians, Israel needs to go to war against Hamas in Gaza, and fast.

“I know that this will sound to some people like dangerous rhetoric, a push for war, but my motivation is precisely the opposite. I’m speaking out because you can’t deal with reality by running away from it. You can’t take refuge in temporary solutions. Hamas has to be tackled at its roots, uprooted once and for all, and now is the perfect moment to deal with Hamas militarily in Gaza. The longer Israel waits,” he warned, “the more dangerous an enemy Hamas will become and the harder the battle. This is the time to initiate a war against Hamas.”

Yousef was the heir apparent to his father’s role in Hamas. The eldest of eight children, he was arrested several times for violence against Israel. In his 2010 autobiography Son of Hamas, he says this is what Palestinian children are raised to do and believe. During his incarceration, he was questioned by the Shin Bet and became impressed with what he described as their humane tactics. He agreed to become an operative for the agency.

Israel is taking the wrong approach with Hamas by negotiating a series of temporary ceasefires, Yousef said. “These ceasefires only enable Hamas to rebuild its strength, politically and militarily.

“Hamas is not an organization with political imperatives, acting out of political interests. It is first and foremost an ideological movement, and there can be no negotiating or compromising with it. It cannot be appeased through diplomatic compromise…Negotiating with Hamas — via a third party, openly or covertly, with or without mediators — is a mistake. You are just strengthening Hamas and its strategy.”

Palestinians, Yousef said, see Israel now as weak. Israel needs to show it is, in fact, strong. He linked a show of strength in Gaza with bringing peace to Jerusalem.

“The people throwing stones and petrol bombs in Jerusalem, and carrying out terrorist attacks, think that Israel is weak…The Israelis have to stop being scared, and to demonstrate strength and determination,” he replied. “And the (Arab) residents of Jerusalem have to make up their minds about where they want to live, in Israel or outside it. Those who live here need to show their loyalty.”

Yousef believes decisive action in Gaza will not only wipe out Hamas, it will lay the groundwork for lasting peace negotiations with the Palestinian Authority. “Israel needs to carry out a thorough operation in Gaza, and in so doing make clear to Abbas what the right path is. It’s the path of peace.”

That action, though, has to be precise. “Israel shouldn’t go into Gaza. It needs to avoid that trap. It also shouldn’t declare war. It should just attack, to make Hamas bleed and die. That’s their strategy and it’s the strategy that will defeat them. It needs to be a surprise move, targeting their top echelons. And there needs to be cooperation with Egypt, to block the smuggling into Gaza, in order to cut off their supplies of weapons and of material for making weapons.”

Then, he recommended, “start a military operation, without announcing it, targeting everything connected to Hamas, without hitting civilian targets.”

Yousef converted to Christianity in secret in 1999, and in 2007 fled to the US. He was granted asylum there in 2010. His autobiography was made into a documentary entitled “The Green Prince”, which won the Audience Award for World Cinema: Documentary at this year’s Sundance Film Festival.