Thinking back to the days when Hamas fairly quickly made the PLO look old and toothless none of the below is especially surprising. Absolutely tonnes of links to sources, way too many for sanity’s sake so I decided to follow none. It’s a pretty good summary I think.
The connections with AlQ, ISIL, ISIS are sketched briefly towards the end.
Got to admit I didn’t read to the end. However I’m suspicious of the whole idea of Hamas being created by Israel. Why? Firstly, I do not believe a friggin word any of the Israeli establishment says.
Secondly, I’m fairly confident that Hezbolla would have outed them had they been an Israeli stooge.
Third, it is clear from Israels own media that the ‘kidnapped’ Israelis were treated respectfully, and many of the dead were killed by the IDF themselves. If Hamas really were an ISIS affiliate and wanted to reap death and destruction they really would not have been so lenient with ‘hostages’.
Finally, with Abbas and the PLO being so bleeding useless and condescending to Israel, why would the Israeli’s even need to ‘split’ the Palestinian political grouping?
But that’s just me.
At the time Hamas first gained some political traction, and working from memory, I believe Yasser Arafat was still the figurehead for PLO. By then he was already moving towards a more conciliatory stance but could not shake off the ‘terrorist’ label the West had plastered him with. Hamas were representing the more fiery and impatient fraction of Palestinian opinion. (Bear in mind I gained that impression from news sources at the time, it doesn’t necessarily follow that those were in any way trustworthy!)
I tend to think that Hamas = ISIS is not quite the full equation. Hamas = ISIS = Mossad works though.