Jerusalem --

The son of a Hamas founder who renounced his father's militant group to spy for Israel has returned to the Jewish state on a pro-Israel lecture tour, an Israeli official said Thursday.

Mosab Yousef was invited by Druse Arab lawmaker Ayoob Kara, a member of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's Likud Party.

Kara's spokesman, Mendi Safadi, said Yousef will be in Israel nearly a month lecturing at universities and other places. He will also hold a news conference at Israel's parliament next week. He was unavailable for comment Thursday. Yousef published a shocking autobiography, "Son of Hamas," two years ago in which he described his decade of service as a secret Israeli agent. He claims to have prevented dozens of suicide attacks and helped Israel to hunt down militants including his father. Hamas considers him a traitor, and his father, Sheikh Hassan Yousef, who is imprisoned in Israel, has disowned him.

"My father, like many Hamas leaders, is ignorant of simply the historic right of the Israeli nation," Mosab Yousef told Israel TV Thursday. "I love Israeli people," he added.

Yousef moved to California in 2007 and converted from Islam to Christianity.

Yousef says he was considered one of Israel's Shin Bet security service's most valuable assets and was dubbed "The Green Prince," a reference to his Hamas pedigree and the Islamists' signature green color.

The United States granted him temporary asylum in 2010 after abruptly dropping concerns he was a terrorist threat.