Robert Inlakesh challenges claims that Israel created or propped up Hamas, showing how they distort Palestinian history and deny Palestinians political agency.
Since October 7, 2023, a narrative has developed that seeks to explain away Hamas through an argument that holds Israel accountable for creating the Palestinian political party, often implying that the group has also been propped up. Behind what is generally an argument made in good faith are some crucial flaws that expose a gap in the understanding of Palestinian politics.
“Hamas was a creation of Israel”: If you have been paying attention to media, both independent and alternative, since at least the beginning of the Gaza genocide, you have most likely heard this argument. You may have also heard that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu “propped up Hamas” in the Gaza Strip as part of a wider plot to prevent the formation of a Palestinian State.
Most of those arguing these talking points are doing so from a good-faith position, often using the information they present in order to dismiss Zionist propaganda talking points. Yet, in doing so, these commentators imply something deeper that is both factually inaccurate and presents Palestinians as eternal victims lacking any real autonomy.
In order to get to the bottom of this issue, we must first look at the arguments given to justify the claim that Hamas was a creation of Israel and what the facts truly show. Then analyze the implications of the claim being made, also assessing whether these allegations hold up to reality.
Was Hamas Funded by Israel?
Hamas, which is an acronym for Harakat al-Moqowama al-Islamiyya (The Islamic Resistance Movement), was never actually funded by Israel. The misconception comes from the Israeli relationship with the Mujamma al-Islamiyya that operated in the Gaza Strip.
The Mujamma was a social organization and charity that was created in 1973 by Sheikh Ahmed Yassin. While it was the precursor organization to Hamas, it was very different and the history behind the journey between the two will help explain where the misconceptions arise.
While high-ranking members of the Fatah Party in Palestine – Hamas’ biggest political opponents domestically – the most well put together argument on this topic, presenting the claim that Israel helped create Hamas, comes from well-known journalist Mehdi Hassan. If you look at the evidence he cites, the most compelling source is that of former Israeli Brig. Gen. Yitzhak Segev, who was Gaza’s military governor during the 1980s.
After retiring from his role in the military, Segev told the New York Times that Israel had developed a strategy that involved emboldening Islamic groups in order to undermine the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) of Yasser Arafat. He also stated that the “Israeli government gave me a budget” for funding the Mujamma, adding that “the military government gives to the mosques”.
Another source cited is Avner Cohen, a former Israeli religious affairs official, who worked for the occupying army in Gaza and stated that he submitted a report in the mid-1980s to his military superiors that explicitly warned not to play the divide-and-rule game in the occupied territory.
Discussing the Muslim Brotherhood roots of Hamas, in a video published for The Intercept in 2018, Mehdi Hassan makes the claim that once the Israelis occupied the Gaza Strip in 1967, “they didn’t just tolerate these Islamists, they encouraged them”. This is an inaccurate representation and oversimplification of the historical record.
In Gaza, the Mujamma was often referred to colloquially as the “Ikhwan” (used to refer to the Muslim Brotherhood) and was evidently the organization’s Palestine branch. Yet the framing of Israel backing “Islamists” after occupying Gaza during the June 1967 War is factually incorrect. It wasn’t until 1979 that the Israelis officially recognized the Mujamma al-Islamiyya as an organization permitted to operate with the approval of the occupying military administration. In addition to this, not all Muslim Brotherhood-linked “Islamist” groups received Israeli support.
So the real question is: Why provide any level of support to Mujamma? Well, this question has already partially been answered – it is for the purpose of divide and rule – but even this answer still lacks the full context, which leads to a totally different conclusion than what you may have been led to believe in the absence of context.
The same year that Israel had legalized the Mujamma, a different Islamic organization was beginning to form, led by a Doctor named Fathi Shiqaqi. It called itself Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ). PIJ, which would formally announce itself in the Gaza Strip in 1981, was never funded nor accepted as a legitimate entity by the Israeli occupying authority. Thus, the idea that Israel gave blanket support to “Islamists” is incorrect.
The reason why the Israelis explicitly opposed PIJ was that it emerged with an immediate call to armed struggle, which is where it diverged greatly from the Mujamma. At this time, Sheikh Ahmed Yassin’s social/charity organization, which sourced almost all of its funding from the Arab Gulf States, explicitly denounced armed struggle and argued passionately that Islamification of society was required before any violent uprising could begin. These opposing positions even led to street clashes between the two opposing Islamic groups in Gaza.
At the time when Israel began providing funding to the Mujamma – which by no stretch constituted the majority of its financing – the occupying military government was dealing with an armed resistance in the Gaza Strip that was primarily socialist in nature. The PFLP was by far the most serious resistance group operating in the territory. It is also important to keep in mind that the Fatah Party-led PLO was a banned group in Gaza; simply carrying a photo of its chairman, Yasser Arafat, could land you in military detention.
Then came along a Gulf State-funded organization that preached non-violence and even had members among its rank and file who would clash with secular Palestinians in the streets, while beginning to build an Islamic civil society sector that helped people without the Israelis having to pay for it. In their eyes, it presented as a win-win scenario to provide support to an apolitical social group, at a time when there were no Islamic resistance movements operating inside Palestine.
From Social Organization to Armed Resistance
In 1982, things began to slowly change. A series of mass demonstrations occurred across Gaza, which preceded the Israeli assault on Lebanon that would ultimately result in the killing of 20,000 people and the defeat of the PLO. In the Gaza Strip, many former supporters of Fatah and the PLO who had become disillusioned with the secular resistance group began turning towards a solution and waiting right at their doorstep was the PIJ.
In 1967, the Israelis inflicted a defeat on Nasserism, and the Egyptian brand of Secular Arab Nationalism more broadly, creating a need for soul-searching and birthing a series of resistance groups who would follow a completely different path and adhere to different ideologies. For example, Palestinian leader George Habash, who led the Nasser-aligned Arab Nationalist Movement (ANM), went on to found the Marxist group known as the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP).
The 1982 defeat of the PLO, which was followed by a series of civilian massacres such as the mass murder of Palestinian refugees in Lebanon’s Sabra and Shatila Camp, created the perfect storm of soul-searching and urgency from which the Islamic movements would end up emerging. A similar case occurred in southern Lebanon with the emergence of Hezbollah, a Shia Islamic group which would lead the resistance against Israel’s occupation of the south.
So let’s now circle back to Avner Cohen’s report to his superiors in the mid-1980s, ringing the alarm bell about playing a divide-and-rule game in the Gaza Strip. His report makes total sense, because by that time, members of the Mujamma and its leadership had been arrested for beginning to smuggle weapons into the occupied territory. At this time, however, the organization’s official position was still against armed struggle, while PIJ was actively carrying out attacks that inflicted casualties on the Israeli occupiers.
For example, the Islamic social organization’s leader Sheikh Ahmed Yassin was arrested and sentenced to jail time for his involvement in bringing weapons into Gaza in 1984. Similarly, Yahya Sinwar, who was in his early twenties at the time, was arrested in 1985 for his involvement in establishing the Mujamma’s security apparatus known as al-Majd. By this time, although the group had not yet launched any armed action, the signs began to appear that the movement was changing in its orientation, as their rivals in PIJ were attracting more members, which triggered an immediate Israeli crackdown.
With the eruption of the Intifada in 1987 – which began inside Gaza’s Jabalia Refugee Camp – PIJ were the first group to engage in a publicly documented armed clash with Israeli soldiers. Meanwhile, the PLO’s leadership, which was now based in Tunisia, was struggling to try to influence the Intifada. In late 1987, the decision was then made by Sheikh Ahmed Yassin and others to launch the armed struggle and declare the creation of Hamas; from that point on, the Mujamma was banned completely as an organization, the group’s leadership was heavily cracked down upon, and the rest is history.
If the argument is that Hamas exists because of Israel, then this goes for every other Palestinian resistance group. Nobody argues that the Mujamma did not receive some level of support from the Israelis for the purposes of attempting to divide the Palestinian people; this is objectively true, but the events of 1982, the civilian massacres in Lebanon, combined with the worsening conditions in the Gaza Strip, were all the contributing factors that led to the formation of Hamas.
There was no blanket check on all “Islamist” groups, just on an organization that provided services funded by the Gulf States and opposed armed struggle, while opposing the socialists on social issues, who were at the time the most serious threat to the occupying army on the ground.
Denying Palestinians Autonomy
The Palestinian struggle is often presented, by well-meaning individuals, in a way that fails to account for the Palestinian people themselves. This comes as a result of commentators, journalists, and even academics failing to grasp domestic Palestinian politics and account for the sentiments of the population.
Arguing that Hamas was really created by Israel permits defenders of Palestinian rights in the West to work their way around dealing with why Hamas became the most popular movement in Palestine. While the PLO and the Fatah organization that led it do not have a history originating in charity/social groups that received funding or a permit to operate by the occupying authorities, they were created outside the borders of occupied Palestine. Hamas grew out of the occupied refugee camps of the Gaza Strip.
As history turned out, the Fatah-led PLO would go on to recognize Israel and at the stage the Palestinian Authority that is led by the Fatah Party and now rules the PLO has turned into a subcontractor for the occupation of the West Bank. It is not more legitimate in the eyes of the Palestinian population because its roots are more pure than those of Hamas; it is judged upon what actions its leadership takes and who they answer to.
Another argument, which often accompanies the “Israel created Hamas” claim, is that of “Netanyahu propped up Hamas”. Factually speaking, this is again originally a politically charged allegation that was developed by the Israeli opposition that opposes the rule of its current Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. However, in 2022, when Netanyahu was voted out of office and both Naftali Bennet and Yair Lapid took over as Prime Minister, those same funds reached the Gaza Strip.
As with the “Israel created Hamas” allegation, the idea that Netanyahu funded and/or propped up Hamas has connotations that have to be dealt with. In a way it makes Netanyahu the perfect scapegoat and again closes down a conversation that requires you to deal with the reality of Hamas and why Palestinians support it over any other Party.
To begin with, the idea that Benjamin Netanyahu propped up Hamas is blatantly false. There is simply no evidence that the Qatari aid money, which was originally sent to Gaza in the form of suitcases filled with cash, was essential to the survival of Hamas as the governing force in the besieged coastal territory.
What had happened was that in late 2017, the Palestinian Authority (PA), which had continued to pay its members salaries in Gaza, had begun to halt and slash the salaries they were paying, placing pressure on the population that was already suffering under conditions that would render the territory unlivable – as per United Nations experts – by the year 2020.
The primary backer of the Hamas political wing is Qatar, yet in 2017 it was subjected to a siege imposed by surrounding Gulf Arab States. One of the primary demands made of the leadership in Doha was that it kick out Hamas and stop its funding to the Palestinian movement. In the Gaza Strip, the newly elected leader of the movement, Yahya Sinwar, had started making major changes that same year in an attempt to ease the suffering of the population.
Hamas had issued a new Charter, accepting in principle a Two-State solution if the correct conditions were to be met, also explicitly condemning anti-Semitism and attempting to present a more pragmatic platform. Later that same year, celebrations erupted across Gaza as Hamas agreed to allow the West Bank-based PLO to take over the civil administration of the besieged territory. The excitement was short-lived, however, as the US and Israel intervened to pressure the PA into walking away from the agreement. Israel also began applying even greater economic pressure on the PA, because of its diplomatic and legal signals, choosing to weaponize the release of tax funds to the Ramallah-based authority.
Again, the argument that Israel had played the divide-and-rule game is factually accurate, but the conclusions that many in the West draw from these moves are what is incorrect. For example, in 2007 the US Bush administration had worked with the Israelis and Egyptians, providing arms, in addition to funds, to the then head of the PA’s Preventive Security Forces, Mohammed Dahlan, to overthrow the democratically elected government in Gaza. When this failed, it triggered what is known as the Palestinian Civil War between Hamas and Fatah, which Israel also encouraged. In 2014, the Israelis even launched their assault on Gaza, at the exact time that would crush a unity agreement between Hamas and the Fatah-led PA.
In 2018, Hamas endorsed the Great Return March that brought hundreds of thousands of non-violent demonstrators to the concentration camp gates of the Gaza Strip. Ultimately, the international community ignored the peaceful mass uprising, claiming that Israel had a “right to defend itself” from civilians posing no threat to their heavily armed soldiers, who would eventually slaughter around 300 civilians and injure over 36,000.
During the initial period of the mass non-violent uprising, Hamas completely held its fire against Israel until the occupying forces attempted to kidnap a Hamas commander later that year, in a botched raid.
Then, with Hamas having tried to amend its charter, attempting diplomacy, endorsing non-violence, and attempting to hand over control of Gaza to the PA, it was stuck. All it had to show for this was more Israeli airstrikes, an attempt to kidnap a commander, more severe economic constraints and growing radical Israeli policies encroaching upon the status of the Holy Sites in Jerusalem. No Israeli government would even consider easing the siege on Gaza. So the alternative was to use their weapons.
Netanyahu realized from his past experiences in the Gaza Strip that physically uprooting the Palestinian armed resistance was going to require costs that were simply too large to stomach. But he still wanted to increase the pressure. When Hamas began pulling off embarrassing blows against the Israeli army and the threat of large-scale rocket fire on the bordering Israeli settlements started to become a nuisance, he struck a deal with Qatar so that they could bring in cash that Hamas used to pay its employees in the civil sector. The result was, in essence, an understanding that would temporarily ease tensions and take care of the threat of rocket fire.
If you were to follow the back-and-forth clashes between the resistance in Gaza and Israel over that period, the Israelis were even deterred from carrying out large-scale attacks on the territory and would often bomb soft targets in order to avoid heading into a larger war. One of the levers that the Israelis would use to increase or decrease tensions was the issuance of permits for Palestinians to leave Gaza and work in the settlements, or to access health facilities. Hamas on the other hand, would allow or disallow youths to send burning balloons over the separation fence to apply pressure to the Israeli government in return, because at the time these balloons would cause fires that became an issue for the settlers.
In August of 2022, the Israeli military even launched “Operation Breaking Dawn”, during which they exclusively targeted Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ), in an attempt to divide them from Hamas. Former Israeli PM Yair Lapid, who now heads the Israeli opposition bloc, led this effort. Netanyahu may not have been in power at the time, but the same divide-and-rule game was being played, while the understandings with Hamas that kept them out of that round of warfare were kept in place.
All of this is relevant to address, because once you start to see the details, it becomes clear that these simplistic arguments that allege Netanyahu propped up Hamas and that Israel created them in the first place are demonstrably false. The element of truth is that the Israelis have consistently played the game of divide and rule. This does not demonstrate that Hamas was created, controlled, and even kept alive by the Israelis.
Hamas has long been and remains the most popular Palestinian political party. It enjoys such broad support because of its resistance against Israel, and it is an organic movement that grew out of the refugee camps of the Gaza Strip. In the West, it is politically safe to simply dismiss this fact by employing arguments that paint the group as somehow Israel’s fault and inorganic.
For a moment, just think about what this argument actually implies about Palestinians living inside the occupied territories, if the most popular movement in their country is a creation of Israel that was propped up by Benjamin Netanyahu: It would mean that they are both ignorant of their own domestic politics and so gullible that they fall for the schemes of their occupiers without so much as a second thought.
Without intending to do so, these work to undermine Palestinian autonomy and silence their voices. There is no need to attempt to explain away Hamas; they exist and are the largest of a series of Islamic-oriented national liberation movements that operate under occupation. Every national liberation struggle has used violent tactics, just as Hamas has. They are not a “unique evil”; they have consistently shown they are willing to negotiate and have even sat down to negotiate directly with officials representing the Trump administration.
This explanation will not be popular, because it forces those in the West to actually contend with what Hamas is as an organization and why it enjoys support amongst Palestinians. In order to understand this, it requires further research, but it also entails listening to Palestinians inside of Palestine. Ask yourself: are Western commentators with no in-depth knowledge of Palestine correct on this question? Or is the vast majority of the Arab World and Palestinian population not smart enough to figure the answer out for themselves?
– Robert Inlakesh is a journalist, writer, and documentary filmmaker. He focuses on the Middle East, specializing in Palestine.