For Israel, every traveler is an ambassador

"I was in jail with Hamas people, with senior figures in the organization who ran an apparatus called Majad, a kind of internal security body of Hamas aimed at uncovering Israeli agents. They tortured prisoners, most of them from Hamas, whom they suspected of collaboration. My job was to write down the confessions and testimonies. As the sheikh's son, I was trusted. It was there that I lost my faith in Hamas. They killed people for no reason. While everyone was warning me about the Shin Bet, for the first time in my life I saw Hamas people torturing their comrades, members of their nation, with exceptional cruelty. The truth was of no interest to them. If they so much as suspected someone, that was the end of him. They tortured people brutally, burned them, jabbed them with needles, put out cigarettes on them."

These enemies of yours, the Shin Bet, the soldiers, are only trying to do their job. I thought to myself how Hamas would behave in a reverse situation: Would they show mercy to Jews? And I thought: 'Who are you trying to kid? Hamas and Fatah would behave more humanely?' I couldn't define who my enemy was anymore.

"True, the Shin Bet made horrible mistakes and killed innocent people, but its main goal, like Israel's, was to preserve the principles of a democratic country. There are 1.2 million Palestinians living inside Israel, within the Green Line, who enjoy rights and benefit more from Israel's prosperity and welfare than in any Arab state. Still, those soldiers took my father away before my eyes and shot people before my eyes, and believe me, it was no small thing for me to work for those people. It was a real turnaround."

"I saw torture, killing, a war over land. For me, human life and saving human lives is the most important thing, more important than any piece of land or real estate. I wanted to save - and did save - human lives, Israeli and Palestinian. I did not do it because the Shin Bet pressured me, or for money. I did it because I understood what Hamas really is and I had to make a change. For my sake and for the sake of others. I thought to myself that even if people claim I am a traitor, let them say it. People will not believe it, they will think I did it for money, but they have no idea. I was happy, delighted when I stopped a suicide bomber."

"They planned the intifada, and don't let anyone tell you anything different," he continues. " the Hamas leadership in Hebron and Gaza did not want to take part in the riots, because they said Arafat did not deserve to be helped after he persecuted the organization so harshly. And the truth is that Hamas in Gaza did not take part in the demonstrations at the start of the intifada. But my father was in favor ."

What do you mean by "planned"? Did Arafat ask them to do it?

"I can't tell you for certain that he gave an order. But he did give them his blessing. Listen, man, what do you think? Barghouti, Hussein al-Sheikh, all those who organized the demonstrations - they met with Arafat every day. So what did they talk about? But that is not the worst thing I discovered at the time about Arafat. I was the one who revealed that the first squad of the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigade was actually a group from Arafat's Presidential Guard, Force 17, which got money from Barghouti, who got it from Arafat."

"Many people think the terrorists' motivation is the Israeli occupation, the corruption, but all that is just the backdrop. It is not the root of the problem. The occupation is like the rain that falls on the soil in which the seed has been planted, but it is not the seed itself. The root of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict does not lie in security or politics: It is a war between two gods, two religions. Between the God of the Torah and the God of the Koran. The Koran teaches that this is Waqf land - a sacred endowment which must not be given up. The Torah taught the Jews that this is their land and must not be given up.

"It follows that there will be no peace in the Middle East. Israel's problem is not with Hamas or with any other organization, nor with the interpretation Hamas reads into the Koran. It is with the god of the Koran. After all, even a moderate Muslim who reads the Koran must read that the Jews are the sons of apes and that the infidels must be killed. The Palestinians must stop blaming Israel, or the West, for all their problems. If they want true freedom, they must free themselves from their God."

You sound completely pessimistic. What about a Palestinian state?

"That is not a solution. Today we do not have a leadership worthy of ruling, not Hamas and not Fatah. The Palestinians move between the corrupt leadership of Fatah, and the Hamas leadership, which sends them all to die. Besides, Hamas cannot make peace with the Israelis. That is against what their God tells them. It is impossible to make peace with infidels, only a cease-fire, and no one knows that better than I.

"The Hamas leadership is responsible for the killing of Palestinians, not Israelis. Palestinians! They do not hesitate to massacre people in a mosque or to throw people from the 15th or 17th floor of a building, as they did during the coup in Gaza. The Israelis would never do such things. I tell you with certainty that the Israelis care about the Palestinians far more than the Hamas or Fatah leadership does. Israel withdrew from Gaza, and instead of the place being built up and cultivated, look what happened there. We need to take a break from these leaders. And I call on the government of Israel: Never accede to Hamas demands, not even about Gilad Shalit. They will not hurt him - he is too important to them. Even if it goes on for 10 years, Israel must not give in and release all those people from prison."