Iran and Hamas didn’t always get on

In the days after Hamas’s attack on Israel last week, everyone wondered how much Iran knew beforehand. But a focus on the specifics of the 7 October operation misses the point. The attacks just wouldn’t have been possible without Iranian support. It doesn’t matter much if they directed them. 

The kinship between Hamas and Iran began in the nineties. Hamas was founded in 1987 by followers of the Muslim Brotherhood, an Egypt-based Islamist movement, and throughout the 1990s, as the conferences in Madrid and Oslo led to hopes for an Israeli-Palestinian reconciliation, with the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) representing Palestinian interests, Tehran opposed the plans. It bolstered Hamas and other rejectionist groups, pitting them against the PLO’s leadership. In 1992, months after the Madrid peace conference, Iran’s Supreme Leader welcomed Hamas’s Mousa Abu Marzook in Tehran. ‘Muslims should have hopes that a Muslim state can replace Israel,’ he said.