The Courage of Mosab Yousef

This post is from the Save Mosab Yousef website. The author is Bob Belvedere, the Humble Dispatcher Extraordinaire at The Camp of the Saints. Mosab talks about his family, and among the many things I have read about him, this was my first time to see this. Bob's comment at the end is one of those 'Amen' moments. I doubt that any of us have come close to being where Mosab is in his life, and maybe even his spiritual journey.

The Courage of Mosab Yousef
by Bob Belvedere, The Camp of the Saints
Originally published June 16, 2010

One of the reasons I got involved with this effort to publicize the case of Mr. Yousef is because of the strength he found within himself to do what was right despite of the awful consequences to himself and his family.  He was able to see that his duty to truth and justice far outweighed any personal considerations of comfort or happiness.

Here is part of his own account of what he has suffered:

Try to remember how you felt whenever your mother or father told you how proud they were of you when you accomplished some little thing, won an award, graduated from school, got a good job or a raise. Now imagine that your picture is on the front page of the newspaper, along with a story exposing all of your secret sins in agonizing detail. Imagine your shame and embarrassment, how your family would look at you then, how your friends, neighbors and coworkers would treat you. 

And that is small, compared with the fear and guilt and shame heaped upon Muslims by their god. The god of the Qur’an is not tolerant, understanding or forgiving. He hates furiously and punishes without mercy everyone who crosses his red lines. 

The shame my decision to go public has brought on my family can never be scrubbed clean. I broke their hearts and ruined their lives. Who will marry my sisters now? How can my brothers return to their schools? 

And why? Because of me. I cannot help feeling like Israel’s King David who cried out, “My guilt has overwhelmed me like a burden too heavy to bear.” 

My family has already suffered so much. Why did I have to be responsible for piling on even worse suffering? 

But I did not feel that I really had a choice. More than 1.6 billion Muslims live sincerely and ignorantly in the pitch darkness of Islam. And I was in a unique position to set many of them free. Son of Hamas was my shot, and I had to take it, no matter what the cost.
So what have I gotten out of writing a bestseller? 

The U.S. government has rejected my plea for political asylum, saying that I was connected with a terrorist organization, even though I was never a member of Hamas. I can never become a citizen, and if I leave the country, I cannot return. 

Because I became a Christian and helped to save Israeli and Palestinian lives, I am condemned to death by the Qur’an and its god, making it the duty of every good Muslim to kill me. 

By going public, I put the lives of my mother, brothers and sisters at extreme risk. They still live in the West Bank, which is ruled by the Fatah faction of the PLO. Fatah hates Hamas because it killed many of its members in Gaza after the 2006 elections. What if Fatah members, afraid that I will reveal more secrets about them, go out of control and start shooting at my parents’ house? 

Even Christians in the Middle East are tainted because of me. Now, every Muslim will accuse them of collaborating with Israel, threatening their lives.

Mosab Yousef will never know much in the way of Earthly happiness – certainly not as much as we Americans and citizens of The West do and have the potential to enjoy.  However, because of the service he has performed for the freedom-loving peoples of Israel and, by extension, the freedom-loving peoples of Western Civilization, he deserves to get whatever happiness is possible.

He deserves to stay in The United States Of America and to eventually become a citizen.  He asks only these two things.  He does not ask for a government handout.  We can take comfort that he has been embraced by a loving God and be assured that when he passes on he will be greeted in the Kingdom Of Heaven with the words ‘Well done, good and faithful servant, well done’.  But there will be no comfort for us if we don’t fight for this good and brave man.

Please write to your representatives in the Congress.  If you are a friend or acquaintance of any member of the media [mainstream or new], please write to them; they have the power to get the word out, to put the pressure on those who will be deciding Mr. Yousef’s fate.

UPDATE on 17JUN2010 at 0805…
Over at No Sheeples Here, Carol has featured this posting in her IN THE SPOTLIGHT sidebar.  It’s a fitting tribute to Mr. Yousef who is certainly no sheeple.  Thank you, Carol.