Political Memes

A professor of Islamic studies at UMass Dartmouth literally wrote an article on how Hamas has recently adopted ISIS tactics and intermingled with them growing much closer, and primarily only highlighted the religious and ideological goals as the differences.

Some excerpts:

My long study of Islamic State fighting tactics, including field research in Iraq, leads me to believe Hamas has recently undergone a radical ISIS-inspired transformation that has not yet gotten widespread public attention. Prior to its Oct. 7 blitz, Hamas’ actions were limited to lobbing imprecise rockets and digging tunnels into Israel to kidnap or kill small numbers of Israelis.

But as University of Miami professor and expert in the study of jihadism Nathan S. French has noted in El Pais, “Hamas operatives – like other Islamist and jihadist groups – borrow, steal and appropriate tactics and strategies from other similar political, guerrilla, or militant movements.” And it seems that Hamas has borrowed tactics from ISIS.

It’s likely that Hamas learned from the hundreds of Palestinians who joined both the core ISIS caliphate in Syria and Iraq and the ISIS affiliate in the Sinai.

And despite their differences, Hamas officials have in the past met directly with leaders of the Islamic State in the Sinai. Those meetings were likely linked to collaboration between the two groups for specific actions that benefited their respective goals, such as weapons smuggling, undermining Egyptian government influence in the Sinai and transporting injured Islamic State fighters to Gaza for medical treatment.

In October 2023, an article in the U.K. newspaper The Times cited an intelligence official who said, “It’s clear that the two movements have worked together close enough over the past few years to copy each other’s methods, learn tactics and train on weapons they have procured together.”

This part is especially hilarious given your protestations:

On Oct. 7, Hamas fighters reportedly left black ISIS war banners at the scene of several attacks. There were also videos posted online that appeared to show Hamas fighters singing popular ISIS war songs as they stormed into Israel.