Following the October 7 attack, claims began to surface suggesting that Hamas, the Palestinian group behind the attack, was funded by Benjamin Netanyahu to obstruct a peace agreement with the Palestinian Authority and that Hamas was, in fact, a creation of Israel. However, Israel did not create Hamas, and this notion represents an exaggerated misinterpretation of historical events. So, where did these claims originate, and is there any basis for them?
To fully understand the origins of these claims, we must look back to 1973 when Sheikh Ahmad Yassin, a Palestinian member of the Muslim Brotherhood, founded the Mujamma al-Islammiyah. This Islamic social organization aimed to promote a conservative interpretation of Sunni Islam within the Gaza Strip.
At the time, Israel maintained a direct occupation of Gaza and was actively working to suppress Palestinian resistance groups aligned with the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), which was engaged in armed conflict against Israel from its base in Lebanon. As the Mujamma, often referred to as the “Ikhwan” or Brotherhood, focused on building an Islamic civil society and preaching non-violence against the Israeli occupiers, it also positioned itself in opposition to secular-nationalist, socialist, and communist Palestinian factions. Israel, recognizing this divide, saw an opportunity in the Mujamma’s stance.
Israeli Opportunism
According to reports from the Washington Post at the time, Israeli occupation forces showed leniency toward Mujamma activists. Former Israeli Brigadier General Yitzhak Segev claimed that the Israeli government allocated a budget of hundreds of thousands of dollars to support some of the group’s projects. However, most of Mujamma’s funding reportedly came from the Arab Gulf States and the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood. In 1979, Israel formally recognized the Mujamma as an official organization, allowing it to operate freely without interference from Israeli authorities.
This evidence has frequently been cited as the basis for claims that Harakat al-Muqawama al-Islamiyya, or Hamas, was a creation of Israel. A closer examination suggests that this conclusion likely arises from a misinterpretation of historical events. The notion that Israel established, controlled, or still influences Hamas today appears to overlook the complex realities surrounding the group’s formation and development.
In reality, while the Mujamma initially operated under the influence of Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood, aiming to establish a Palestinian branch to Islamize society and provide essential services, the group encountered significant challenges. These obstacles eventually led to a shift in its strategy, pushing it away from the original goals it had been created to pursue. Over time, this evolution would lead to the emergence of a more militant posture, marking a departure from its earlier focus on social and religious conservatism. This transformation, driven by both internal and external pressures, set the stage for the group’s eventual transition into Hamas.
The Rise of Armed Resistance
The Mujamma found success in building a wide array of social infrastructure, including schools, mosques and libraries, and even playing a pivotal role in founding the Islamic University of Gaza. Along with establishing religious institutions, it operated medical clinics and orphanages and provided essential aid such as food and resources to those in need, garnering a strong base of supporters.
However, in the late 1970s, another organization began to take shape—Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ), officially declaring its presence in 1981. Founded by Dr. Fathi Shiqaqi, PIJ drew some inspiration from the Muslim Brotherhood and was heavily influenced by Iran’s Islamic Revolution. Unlike the Mujamma’s initial non-violent approach, PIJ preached armed resistance as the solution to occupation. As the Israeli occupation intensified, culminating in the invasion of Lebanon in 1982, mass protests erupted across Gaza and the West Bank, spurred by Israel’s increasingly brutal tactics in the occupied territories.
Following the PLO’s defeat in Lebanon in 1982, during which Israel’s military actions claimed the lives of approximately 20,000 Lebanese and Palestinians and oversaw atrocities like the massacres at Sabra and Shatila refugee camps, the Palestinian resistance movement faced a significant shift. With the PLO’s fighters having fled to North Africa, many former PLO supporters turned their allegiance to Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ).
While the Mujamma maintained its stance that uniting Muslims and establishing a perfect Islamic society was a necessary precursor to overthrowing Israeli occupation, PIJ’s message centered on the immediate need for armed resistance. This ideological divide between the two groups led to occasional clashes, as PIJ advocated for a more militant approach to resistance, in contrast to the Mujamma’s focus on social organization and religious unity.
In the mid-1980s, under the leadership of Sheikh Ahmad Yassin, the Mujamma established a security apparatus known as “al-Majd.” This marked a shift in the group’s activities, as it began moving away from its purely social and religious mission towards a more militant agenda. Al-Majd was involved in smuggling weapons into Gaza, which led to the eventual arrest of Sheikh Yassin and numerous others associated with the operation.
This development signaled a significant transformation within the Mujamma, as the group started to engage in covert military activities alongside its social projects, laying the groundwork for what would later become Hamas.
Israel’s Miscalculations
In 1987, in reaction to Israel’s illegal occupation, the first Intifada erupted across the West Bank and Gaza Strip. This mass uprising, initially characterized by widespread non-violent protests, escalated tensions between Palestinians and Israeli forces. Notably, an armed clash between Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) fighters and Israeli forces in Gaza’s Shujaiyeh neighborhood preceded the broader uprising, helping to grow PIJ’s following as the group continued to advocate armed resistance.
Later that same year, a significant shift occurred within the Mujamma. Sheikh Ahmad Yassin, who had previously led the group’s religious and social initiatives, along with others, concluded that the time had come to take up arms. As a result, the Mujamma transformed, and Hamas—Harakat al-Muqawamah al-Islamiyyah, or the Islamic Resistance Movement—was officially born. The group’s leadership embraced armed resistance, marking the beginning of Hamas as a militant and political force in the Palestinian struggle against Israeli occupation.
The emergence of Hamas in the late 1980s must be understood within a broader historical and political context of widespread disillusionment and shifting ideologies in the Middle East. The group, along with other Islamic resistance movements, rose during a period of profound despair and frustration among Palestinians, similar to the way various Palestinian Marxist movements, like the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), had gained prominence after the downfall of Egypt’s President Gamal Abdul-Nasser and the collapse of his vision of Socialist Arab Nationalism.
In the wake of Egypt’s crushing defeat in the June 1967 Six-Day War, during which Israel launched a surprise attack, Nasser’s once-dominant ideology began to lose credibility across the Arab world. This ideological vacuum spurred the growth of alternative revolutionary movements. One such outcome was that George Habbash, who had led the Arab Nationalist Movement, formed the Marxist PFLP, which sought to pursue Palestinian liberation through leftist ideals. Similarly, Hamas emerged from the remnants of the Mujamma at a time when Islamist movements began to resonate more strongly with many Palestinians, offering both religious and armed resistance as an alternative path to achieving independence.
An ideological shift was underway within Palestine after the defeat of 1982 when Israel’s military operations in Lebanon devastated Palestinian resistance forces. In this environment of rising despair and heightened Israeli repression, a social group that had emerged as the Palestinian offshoot of the Muslim Brotherhood seized the opportunity to establish itself as the leading force in a new wave of Islamic resistance movements. This occurred as Israeli brutality was intensifying, and the secular leadership of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) was seen as weakened.
The suggestion that Israel created Hamas by exploiting the Mujamma’s activities in the 1970s and 1980s ignores the broader context of Palestinian resistance. This argument diminishes the group’s significance in the national liberation struggle and oversimplifies its emergence as a major force against Israeli occupation. While Hamas’s role as a political entity has been contested within Palestinian society—especially in Gaza—its armed wing enjoys widespread support for its role in resisting Israeli occupation. This support reflects the broader Palestinian desire for autonomy and the right to resist occupation, even amid internal political differences.
Despite Israeli efforts to build localized Palestinian administrative bodies—part of a broader strategy to ease the administrative burden on the occupation and undermine the influence of the PLO—their stance shifted dramatically once weapons entered the equation. Initially, groups like the Mujamma were encouraged to assist in these efforts, but the moment the group began arming itself, the Israeli authorities recognized the threat and responded accordingly. This shift illustrates how Israel’s support was conditional, aimed at weakening the PLO without anticipating the potential for armed resistance from Palestinian factions.
Israel’s miscalculation of the effects of its 1982 war in Lebanon, coupled with the belief that defeating the PLO would lead to the collapse of armed resistance, underpinned their failure to anticipate the rise of groups like Hezbollah and Hamas. This belief was articulated by then-Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who stated in 1982, “If you take away the Soviet Union and its chief proxy, the PLO, international terrorism would collapse.” However, the Israeli invasion of Lebanon did not lead to the disintegration of resistance but instead created space for groups like Hezbollah in Lebanon and Hamas in Palestine to grow and fill the void left by the PLO’s defeat.
This shift demonstrated that resistance movements adapted to the changing geopolitical landscape, with Islamist groups stepping in where leftist and secular-nationalist organizations had previously led the charge. Israel’s initial support of certain Palestinian factions, like the Mujamma, did not account for the emergence of these Islamist resistance movements, which later became powerful actors in the Palestinian struggle against occupation.
The argument that Israel’s stance on Palestinian resistance has remained consistent—simply swapping out “Iran” for “the Soviet Union” and “Hamas” for “the PLO”—underscores a continuity in Israeli rhetoric against armed resistance. This argument suggests that Hamas, like its predecessors, arose as a response to Israeli occupation and aggression, but it also points to the broader reality that Israel’s actions, particularly in suppressing various forms of Palestinian resistance, have inadvertently shaped the emergence of these groups.
However, the story does not end here. Factors such as the Oslo Accords, the waves of suicide bombings, the internal Palestinian civil war, and Israel’s role in shaping these dynamics must also be considered. Additionally, the flow of Qatari aid money into Gaza has played a significant role in the region’s complex power balance. For a deeper exploration into whether Israel actively helped create and sustain Hamas, stay tuned for parts 2 and 3 of this investigation.
Feature photo | Illustration by MintPress News
Robert Inlakesh is a political analyst, journalist and documentary filmmaker currently based in London, UK. He has reported from and lived in the occupied Palestinian territories and hosts the show ‘Palestine Files’. Director of ‘Steal of the Century: Trump’s Palestine-Israel Catastrophe’. Follow him on Twitter @falasteen47
