How Hamas Won Hearts and Minds on the American Left – WSJ

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.

Let s not hoist a large Islamic flag, and let s not be barbaric-talking, one of the participants said. We will remain a front so that if the [terror designation] happens, we will benefit from the new developments instead of having all of our organizations classified and exposed.

I swear by Allah that war is deception, another said. Deceive, camouflage, pretend that you re leaving while you re walking that way.

Thirty years later, this strategy has proved effective. Widespread support for Hamas s barbaric actions on Oct. 7 didn t come out of thin air. Several things gave life to the phenomenon from the identification of Israel with white privilege to old-fashioned anti-Semitism but the terror group s networks in the U.S. and Europe played a key role.

via www.wsj.com

Sneaky.