How Hamas Won Hearts and Minds on the American Left

Support for Hamas on college campuses and in city streets has shocked Americans. But we shouldn’t be surprised. It’s the fruit of an influence campaign dating back at least 30 years.

In October 1993, the Federal Bureau of Investigation wiretapped a Philadelphia hotel room where a dozen senior Hamas members—some of them U.S.-based—had gathered. The men had called the meeting weeks after the signing of the Oslo Peace Accords between Israel and the Palestinian Authority. For days they debated how to sabotage the agreement and generate support for Hamas among American Muslims, the political class and wider society. They correctly foresaw that the U.S. government would designate Hamas a terrorist organization and agreed on a strategy to frame the conflict in religious terms for Muslims while using more-palatable frames for non-Muslim Americans. They plotted to create an array of mainstream organizations to conduct this dual-track work.