Hamas Founder’s Son to Dr. Phil: Pro-Palestinian Activists in U.S. Belong in ‘Mental Asylum’ – Hamas Would ‘Massacre’ Them

In a riveting Dr. Phil primetime episode, Mosab Hassan Yousef, son of Hamas’s cofounder, charged that there is “lots of hatred” against Jews in Islamic culture, insisting that “the vast majority” of Palestinians support Hamas, that October 7 was “an attempt for ethnic cleansing” and part of a “holy war,” and that without Israel as a common enemy, the Palestinians “would kill each other.” 

He also mocked pro-Palestinian activists for “giving Hamas cover,” saying the terror group would “massacre them with no mercy” while accusing them of supporting “the enemy of civilization,” and insisting they belong in a “mental asylum.” 

Mosab Hassan Yousef, originally aligned with his father Sheikh Hassan Yousef’s Hamas terrorist group, eventually grew disenchanted with the organization’s violent tactics and chose to covertly aid Israeli intelligence. He later chronicled his journey and transformation in his autobiography, Son of Hamas.

Mosab Hassan Yousef speaks at a screening of uncensored footage from the October 7th massacre in Israel by Hamas terrorists at United Nations on November 20, 2023, in New York City. (Noam Galai/Getty Images)

Early Indoctrination

Speaking with celebrity psychologist Dr. Phil McGraw on Tuesday, the eldest son of Hamas’ founder recounted growing up in an environment filled with hatred for Jews, a sentiment he attributes to ideological reasons rooted in Islamic texts, though noting these texts do not explicitly condone such hatred.

“There’s lots of hatred in that culture against the Jewish people; it’s not a secret,” he said. “In fact, the Muslim belief system has a fundamental problem with the Jewish people.” 

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Sharing his personal experience, he described the Jewish people as “the most amazing, most productive, and most successful nation in the world that doesn’t harm anyone else,” while attributing Muslim hatred for Jews to ideology.

“They don’t have a reason except the ideological reason, and that is in some Islamic texts they say that Muhammad had a problem with the Jews, and Muhammad is their Prophet so they follow his footsteps,” he said. “But in reality, Muhammad did not write a word that says anything against the Jewish people.”

“You can say hatred is one motive, but it’s not only hatred,” he added. “It’s human delusion. It’s envy. It’s anger.”

Violence as a Holy Mission

He then described the actions of Hamas as an attempt at ethnic cleansing and a manifestation of a broader intent to dominate under the guise of a holy war.

“There is lots of violence, and what Hamas did on October 7 was an attempt for ethnic cleansing,” he said. “In fact, they succeeded in ethnically cleansing close to twenty Jewish communities, and this shows you their intention: they want to dominate.” 

“This was a holy mission; it’s a holy war,” he added. “In Islam, to kill for Allah is a way of worship. This is the stuff that nobody likes to talk about.”

WATCH — Dem Rep. Smith: Media Have Been Too Soft on Hamas for Refusing Ceasefire, Using Human Shields:

After Dr. Phil highlighted the United Nations Relief and Works Agency’s (UNRWA) support for indoctrination through Palestinian education, with children taught to glorify terror, Yousef noted that having a child killed in such a way is not only a good thing, but “encouraged” in Palestinian society.

“This is practically what [my father] did in real life. When he had to choose between the cause and his own son who saved his own life,” he said. “In fact, I sacrificed everything to save his life, and my reward was to be disowned, shunned, and he publicly stated that my blood is allowed [to be spilled].” 

“That was some 12 years ago, 12 years before I disowned him,” he added. 

Disillusionment of Support for Palestinians 

Dr. Phil pointed to student organizations’ reactions to Hamas’s October 7 massacre, claiming they “reveal a disturbing degree of Ivy-covered intellectual rot.” 

“Americans nationwide have been appalled and shocked. The leadership of these supposedly highly sophisticated schools are so busy virtue signaling that words are violence, but violence, horrific, inhumane violence, is social justice that they have forgotten it is their job to teach their students to think and to test reality,” he said.

He then showed a clip of Yousef concurring, expressing disappointment in seeing American support for Hamas, while criticizing the lack of awareness about the group’s true nature and intentions.

“To all those students, I say that it’s very disappointing to see Americans supporting Hamas and thinking that Hamas is a cool thing, while Hamas does not respect any of those followers. While those followers don’t know that Hamas would torture them and massacre them with no mercy. They [Hamas] call them [American supporters] useful idiots. They don’t know that Hamas is a dark, black hole,” he said. 

Supporters gather at Harvard University to show their support for Palestinians in Gaza at a rally in Cambridge, Massachusetts, on October 14, 2023. (JOSEPH PREZIOSO/AFP via Getty Images)

“You have no idea what you’re talking about. I am being emotional. I have the right to be emotional because I speak on behalf of the children, as a Palestinian child,” he added. 

According to Yousef, young Americans supporting Hamas can be attributed to the fact that “the majority of people lack purpose.” 

“They want a cause, and without a cause, they don’t exist,” he said. 

He also insisted that such supporters back a destructive entity that threatens global stability, and are themselves viewed as useful “idiots” by the Palestinians:

I spent lots of time in Hamas’ presence with other Hamas leaders and members from different districts. Then, most importantly, I worked with the Israeli intelligence, and I had the honor to be a part of the counter-terrorism unit; and I was born there and part of that culture, part of that religion, and I barely understood this monster. This is why I described it as a black hole. Then some people hear about Hamas, or they see an avatar of a Hamas fighter carrying a rifle, a ‘freedom fighter,’ and they think it’s a fancy idea to support such a monster. This is why I call them idiots, absolutely idiots, because they don’t know what they are supporting. They are supporting a monster that has been hijacking an entire society and endangering the entire Middle East, pushing the world toward a global war. 

“Instead of condemning such a monster that just committed ethnic cleansing against innocent people, then kidnapped hundreds of hostages, then used their own people as human shields — none of those pro-Palestine people condemned Hamas up to this day,” he added. 

Yousef explained that they are supporting “not only the enemy of Israel [but] the enemy of civilization.” 

“So, when I see protesters on campuses like Harvard, of course, I was outraged. I am still outraged. What’s happening is insanity. Those pro-Palestine people need to go to a mental asylum,” he said.

Confronting Apologists

In a heated exchange later in the episode, Palestinian human rights activists argued that the conversation was “being contextualized in the wrong way” as they attempted to spin support for Palestinians in the current conflict as an advocacy for the “total liberation of all oppressed peoples.” 

After accusing Dr. Phil of “play[ing] into Islamophobic tropes” by asking whether she endorsed the October 7 massacre, one activist admitted that Hamas had “take[n] away innocent life,” but sought to question why the terror group was “empowered” and “platformed” to begin with.

“Let me tell you something. When somebody comes over a fence and goes into someone’s house and burns their infant in its crib, I don’t give a damn why they did it. It’s wrong,” Dr. Phil stated emphatically.

When he called attention to the Hamas charter, which calls to eliminate the Jewish people and the Jewish state, Yousef warned that the matter “does not end there” and accused pro-Palestinian activists of “actually giving Hamas cover” and  “participants” in Hamas’s crimes.

“In fact, since October 7, I personally don’t differentiate between Hamas and what’s so-called Palestinians because actually, there are no Palestinians; there are tribes,” he said. “There is the tribe of Hamas, and there is the tribe of the Islamic Jihad, and there is the tribe of Khalil, and there is the tribe of Nablus; and each one has different interests, and all of them are conflicted.” 

“If they did not have Israel as the common enemy, they would kill each other,” he added. “This is the reality of so-called ‘Palestine.’”

After one of the activists accused him of expressing “common colonial rhetoric,” Yousef responded that he “do[es]n’t know what Palestine is.” 

“In fact,” he continued, “the keffiyeh that you are wearing is just a statement to show that you really lack the authenticity to represent the case and what’s so-called the cause. This is a human problem; the cause must die.” 

“I think enough is enough, and now it’s proven, and you are helping Hamas to prove it to the world that Palestine depends on the destruction of the state of Israel, and this is not acceptable, and we are not going to agree to it,” he added. “And I tell you something, for the next 10 or 20 years, the Palestinian people will pay the bill that Hamas has caused today, and most likely in blood.”

When asked if he viewed Hamas and the Palestinians as “one and the same,” Yousef reiterated that  “after October 7, yes, there is no difference.” 

“The vast majority of the Palestinian people support Hamas. This is a fact. This is proven by statistics. And your silence now, you’re not even — you cannot even condemn Hamas and say that what they did on October 7 was an act of a savage group. You don’t have that power,” he said. 

“On what authority do you speak? You only speak on the authority of Hamas propaganda,” he added, “because if you were a decent human being, you could say that the thousands killed on October 7, that was a crime against humanity. It was genocide.”

The matter comes as radical anti-Israel protests have broken out since the current conflict in Gaza began on October 7, after the U.S.-designated Islamic terror group, whose charter calls for relentless jihad, perpetrated the worst terrorist attack in Israel’s history in October in an operation stemming from its extremist beliefs. 

The attack saw some 3,000 terrorists burst into Israel by land, sea, and air, gunning down participants at an outdoor music festival while others went door-to-door hunting for Jewish men, women, and children in local towns who were then subject to torture, rape, execution, immolation, and kidnapping.

The onslaught resulted in roughly 1,200 dead inside the Jewish state, over 5,300 more wounded, and at least 242 hostages of all ages taken — of which more than half remain in Gaza.

The vast majority of the victims are civilians and include dozens of American citizens.

According to world-renowned military historian and professor Dr. Victor Davis Hanson, Hamas’s “death cult” relies on “useful Western idiots” to support the Palestinian cause, which has “fused with the leftwing DEI industry.” In addition, he argues, pro-Palestinian protests and support for Hamas in the U.S. have alienated many Americans and will all but ensure a tough conservative president in the coming presidential elections.

In December, Dr. Phil condemned America’s universities for fostering the intense antisemitism the country has seen in the months following October 7, stating that Ivy League institutions have become “left liberal, woke hotbeds fostering intellectual rot rather than critical thinking.”

Following Hamas’s attack, Yousef described the terror group’s cause as “sick,” insisting it must be removed from power, while asserting that war is now the sole pathway to peace. He also laid blame for civilian casualties solely on Hamas, whom he accused of “hijacking” Palestinian society, and accused the terror group’s supporters of caring least for Palestinians “oppressed” by Hamas.

According to Yousef, Hamas has always aimed to annihilate Israel, demonstrating no acceptance of the state’s right to exist. 

“This is my message as an ex-Hamas member, as a son of one of Hamas’ founders: enough of this. If we don’t stop them now, the next war is going to be deadlier, and only God knows what will happen next if Hamas is not finished as soon as possible,” he said.

In November, he called on Israel to kill his very own father, Hamas co-founder Sheikh Hassan Yousef, if the Palestinian terror organization refuses to release the remaining hostages in the Gaza Strip.

Joshua Klein is a reporter for Breitbart News. Email him at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.. Follow him on Twitter @JoshuaKlein.