When discussing the origins of Hamas, the most enduring myth is that Israel “created” or “funded” Hamas as a way to divide the Palestinians. That notion is often repeated in polemics, but it does not survive serious historical scrutiny. Below, we present a concise, historically grounded account of Hamas’s founding, and then address the weaknesses of the “Israel founded Hamas” thesis.
Historical Context: Muslim Brotherhood in Gaza (pre-1987)1, 2, 3
- The roots of Hamas lie in the Palestinian branch of the Muslim Brotherhood (Ikhwan), which had been active in Gaza since at least the 1940s.
- Over the decades, the Gaza Brotherhood engaged in social, religious, and charitable activity (schools, welfare, mosques) and occasionally activism. But before 1987 it did not manifest itself openly as a militant resistance movement.
- In the 1970s and early 1980s, the Brotherhood in Gaza was not regularly engaged in terror. At certain times, it took a more cautious posture in relation to authorities.
- The Brotherhood’s Gaza network did, however, supply a reservoir of religious legitimacy, social infrastructure, and committed cadres from which more radical groups could draw when conditions changed.
Thus, by the mid-1980s, there was a latent Islamist movement in Gaza with religious, educational, social, and organizational foundations — but no unified militant movement called “Hamas.”
The Intifada and the Founding of Hamas (1987)1,3,4,5
- The spark for Hamas’s emergence was the First Intifada, which broke out in December 1987, a mass uprising of Palestinians in the Gaza Strip and Judea and Samaria (the so-called “West Bank”) against Israeli military occupation.
- During the first four years of the uprising, more than 3,600 Molotov cocktail attacks, 100 hand grenade attacks and 600 assaults with guns or explosives were reported by the Israel Defense Forces. The violence was directed at soldiers and civilians alike.
- It was in that climate that Hamas formally appeared.
- The founding date commonly given is December 14, 1987, when, according to many accounts, Colonel David Hacham of the IDF in Gaza was informed of a handout circulating in Gaza announcing a new Palestinian movement (Hamas, short for Ḥarakat al-Muqāwamah al-Islāmiyyah).
- Sheikh Ahmed Yassin is universally recognized as the spiritual-political founder. He had earlier (1973) founded a Mujama (Islamic social association) in Gaza which provided education and welfare services — and from which charismatic Islamist activists emerged.
- The Hamas Charter (published in 1988) laid out its ideological framework: combining Palestinian nationalism with Islamist goals, a commitment to jihad (armed struggle) against Israel, the rejection of negotiated compromises with ‘the Zionist project’, and an Islamist state in historic Palestine.
- From early on, Hamas also sought to embed itself in society — through mosques, religious education, charitable work — even while preparing for military resistance.
Thus, Hamas should be seen not as a sudden invention, but as the crystallisation of Islamist elements already present in Gaza, reshaped by the political opportunity presented by the Intifada.
The “Israel Founded Hamas” Thesis — What It Gets Wrong
What the claim asserts
The “Israel founded Hamas” (or “Israel supported Hamas”) theory generally holds that Israeli authorities tolerated — or subtly encouraged — Islamist activism in Gaza so as to weaken the secular, nationalist PLO (Fatah) influence, divide Palestinian politics, and fragment resistance. Versions of this thesis argue that Israel saw Islamists as a “counterweight” or a political “spoiler” to secular nationalist leadership.
A Nuanced Middle Claim: The “Israel Tolerated Hamas” Argument
A related argument — often blurred into the more conspiratorial “Israel created Hamas” claim — is that Israel allegedly supported or encouraged Islamist organisations in Gaza during the 1970s and early 1980s as a counterweight to the secular-nationalist PLO.
Here, there is an important distinction to make. Researchers such as Jean-Pierre Filiu3, Beverley Milton-Edwards6, and Jeroen Gunning7 note that Israeli civil and military authorities did at times “tolerate” or even view the Muslim Brotherhood’s charitable activities as less threatening than PLO activism. Some Brotherhood-linked organisations, such as Yassin’s Mujama al-Islamiya, secured registration as charitable associations during the Israeli administration of Gaza.
But toleration is not the same as assistance, and assistance is not the same as creation. None of the credible historical scholarship — nor any declassified documentation — indicates that Israel funded, armed, directed, or ideologically cultivated the Muslim Brotherhood networks that later became Hamas1,3. Nor is there evidence that Israeli policymakers foresaw, let alone intended, the emergence of an armed Islamist movement.
Most importantly, Mujama al-Islamiya’s growth in the 1970s occurred within an existing, decades-old Muslim Brotherhood ecosystem that pre-dated Israel’s presence in Gaza. Its charitable and religious functions expanded because Palestinian society itself was responding to economic hardship, urbanisation, and the decline of traditional family networks — not because Israel “built” it.
In other words, the limited Israeli “toleration” of certain social organisations in Gaza is neither proof of origin nor proof of sponsorship. It reflects a common counterinsurgency dilemma: authorities may prefer social actors they perceive as less hostile — but that preference cannot be retroactively reinterpreted as the founding of a militant movement that later attacked them.
Points of critique
- No clear documentary evidence verifying the claim3
While the narrative is politically useful for some, historians have found no credible archival proof that Israeli military or intelligence agencies established Hamas. In the most careful academic study of the early foundations, Jean-Pierre Filiu rejects both extremes (purely independent militant lineage vs. an Israeli “golem”) and argues that neither fits the facts. - The gap between tolerance and active founding3,4
It is true that Israel, like many occupying powers, sometimes favored weak or less radical Palestinian actors over strong nationalists. But tolerating Islamist social activity is not the same as building or directing a militant organisation. The fact that the Brotherhood’s social work was allowed (or even tolerated) under “occupation” does not imply that Israel created Hamas. Responsible scholarship treats this as background context, not causal agency. - Intentionality and control missing3,4
The “Israel founded Hamas” trope implies intentional Israeli strategy and control over Hamas’s trajectory. Yet once Hamas emerged, it often clashed with Israeli authorities violently, and developed independently, evolving its own strategy, leadership, and direction. That kind of autonomous behavior is not consistent with the “puppet” logic. - Temporal mismatch and political dynamics1,3
The timing matters: Hamas was founded during the violent upheaval of the Intifada, not as a premeditated creation in a calm period. Islamist elements had been building over decades, but the decisive step into militant politics occurred in a moment of mass protest, repression, and escalation — not in an Israeli boardroom. - Scholarly consensus rejects the simplified narrative1
Most serious analysts treat the “Israel-founded-Hamas” thesis as a rhetorical or conspiratorial claim, not a defensible historical conclusion. For example, the Council on Foreign Relations notes that Hamas “spun off” from the Brotherhood in the late 1980s — not that it was created by Israel.
In short, the assertion that “Israel founded Hamas” is a political myth lacking credible supporting documentation or logical coherence.
Why the Origins Matter Today
Understanding how Hamas was founded is not just an academic exercise. The causative narrative people believe informs how they see the current war, how they assign guilt and responsibility, and how they conceive of possible solutions. If one genuinely believed Israel “created” Hamas, then the responsibility for Hamas’s actions might be diffused — but that is a flawed way of thinking, because Hamas, over nearly four decades, became a self-governing actor with its own internal logic, strategy, and agency.
Moreover, if Hamas is perceived merely as an Israeli creation, one underestimates its popular base, ideological resilience, and roots in Islamist activism. That risks misdiagnosing the nature of its appeal — and thus misjudging how to counter it politically, socially, or militarily.
A sound understanding of Hamas’s origin helps clarify that:
- The Israeli state bears no moral credit or operational authorship over Hamas’s formation.
- Hamas’s trajectory has been shaped primarily by internal Palestinian dynamics, ideological commitments, and the pressures of “occupation”.
- Any “lessons” drawn for counterterrorism, political strategy, or conflict policy must be grounded in how Islamist movements actually evolve — not in conspiratorial oversimplifications.
References
- Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) Backgrounder, “What Is Hamas?” (2024). https://www.cfr.org/backgrounder/what-hamas
- https://repository.digital.georgetown.edu/downloads/e5d5de2b-0ef3-44ef-ab0f-f8256e5ba82d
- Jean‑Pierre Filiu, “The Origins of Hamas: Militant Legacy or Israeli Tool?”, Journal of Palestine Studies, Vol. 41, No. 3 (2012). https://ciaotest.cc.columbia.edu/journals/jps/v41i3/f_0025591_20939.pdf
- Clingendael Institute Security Paper: F. Janssen, “Hamas and Its Positions Towards Israel” (2009). https://www.clingendael.org/sites/default/files/pdfs/20090200_cscp_security_paper_jansen.pdf
- https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2024/08/12/yahya-sinwar-profile-hamas-gaza-war-israel
- Beverley Milton‑Edwards, “Political Islam in Palestine in an Environment of Peace?”, Middle East Report, No. 201 (Autumn 1996). https://www.jstor.org/stable/3993089
- Jeroen Gunning, Re-thinking Western Constructs of Islamism: Pluralism, Democracy and the Theory and Praxis of the Islamic Movement in the Gaza Strip (Durham University PhD thesis, 2001). https://etheses.dur.ac.uk/1586/1/1586.pdf
