(AP Photo/Hassan Ammar
Over the last few days, Israel has shared a cache of secret Hamas documents that detail Hamas meetings with a member of the Iranian regime in the months leading up to the terror group’s Oct. 7 attack on Israel.
The documents indicate Iran had advance knowledge of Hamas’ plans.
Communications between Hamas and Iran regarding terrorist attacks on Israel should come as no surprise as Hamas and Iran solidified their alliance and commitment to destroy Israel more than 30 years ago.
But what many may not realize is the very first Hamas meetings with Iran were led by a man whose rise within Hamas began on American soil.
College activist
Mousa Abu Marzook, the current deputy chief of the Hamas political bureau, led the first meetings with the Iranian regime while he was a student at Louisiana Tech University in Ruston, La.
Marzook was born in Rafah, in 1951. He was educated in Egypt prior to traveling to the United States on a student visa in the 1980s, where he first attended Colorado State University, then sought his post-graduate degree at Louisiana Tech.
He obtained a green card in 1990, married, had children and moved to Virginia.
Marzook was part of a group that established and oversaw a series of activist groups masquerading as charities in the US, including Holy Land Foundation (HLF), the Islamic Association for Palestine (IAP), and the United Association for Studies and Research (UASR).
His rise to power in Hamas coincided with the group’s battle for power and relevance in the First Intifada (1987-1993).
Hamas was founded as the Palestinian armed wing of the international Muslim Brotherhood in December 1987. The Hamas charter noted its determination to annihilate Israel and oppose all peace negotiations and compromise, choosing the slogan “there is no solution to the Palestinian question except through Jihad.”
Hamas funded social services programs to win the hearts and minds of the Palestinian population — using groups such as Marzook’s Holy Land Foundation — but the terrorists expected loyalty and services from its recipients and their families in return.
Its social services platform included schools and religious centers used to radicalize Palestinian youth, and ensured civilians would provide needed support for Hamas, such as providing homes and schools as cover for weapons and tunnels.
Master strategist
Hamas was designated as a Specially Designated Terrorist (SDT) by the US government and as a Foreign Terrorist Organization in 1997.
Marzook was also designated as an SDT in 1995 and deported from the US in 1997.
In the beginning, Hamas focused as much energy on overtaking Yasser Arafat’s Fatah as the leading party representing the Palestinian people as it did on defeating potential peace agreements with Israel.
Marzook was a master strategist and understood the need to use his resources in the US, along with allies like Iran, to achieve its goals of annihilating Israel.
A hidden document found in a 1994 covert FBI search at a residence in Mississippi revealed the first series of meetings between Marzook and the Iranian regime, where Marzook sought to obtain financial, media and military support from Iran.
The document was introduced in the 2008 federal trial against the Holy Land Foundation, where the government accused the group of falsely raising money for “charity” that really was going to Palestinian terror organizations.
It details the first meeting between Hamas, represented by Marzook, and the director of the religious movements in the foreign ministry, Ali Mohamedi, on Sept. 30, 1990.
At that meeting, Hamas sought to explain its goals to Iran and to determine what Iran wanted out of the relationship.
While residing in the United States, Marzook led another delegation to Tehran from Oct. 13-25, 1991, where he and other Hamas leaders met with the director of the Middle East section of the Iranian foreign ministry, and this was considered the first “official meeting with the Iranian government.”
Axis of Resistance
At this meeting, the foreign minister agreed to allow Hamas to open an office in Tehran. During this series of meetings, Hamas also met with officials from Hezbollah, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, and the Palestine Islamic Jihad, all of whom are now allied with Iran in the Axis of Resistance against Israel and the United States.
Further, the document reported on a series of meetings that had occurred between Hamas and Iran in 1992, leading to Iran’s commitment to financially support Hamas.
In the documents, Hamas recognized the importance of its relationship with Iran because Iran possessed “huge material and human resources.”
Hamas noted that Iran stood to benefit from their relationship because Iran sought to “break the regional and international isolation which was imposed on it due to the Iraq-Iran war” and also noted that Iran opposed American power in the region and sought “to contain it.”
In the summer of 1992, Hamas sent messages to Marzook seeking money for weapons, which Marzook then funneled through his charitable organization here, the HLF, to a Gaza-based charitable organization called the Islamic Relief Association.
But those weapons were not needed to fight Israel. They wanted the weapons so they could “confront the traitors of Fatah.”
Within months, the Oslo Accords were signed between Israel and Yasser Arafat on behalf of the Palestinian people. The Accords paved a road map to potential peace in the region and for Palestinian self-rule in Gaza and the West Bank. Many Palestinians celebrated as there was hope for a better future.
Brutal terror campaign
But Hamas, with Marzook at the helm, did not celebrate. They vowed to derail the Oslo Accords and undermine Arafat.
Iran stood behind Hamas, and so began years of brutal Hamas suicide bombings in Israel that would ultimately lead to a Second Intifada (2000-2005), followed by Hamas gaining control over Gaza in 2007.
It was on the brink of another peace deal, this time between Saudi Arabia and Israel, that Hamas committed the atrocities Oct. 7, 2023.
Marzook now lives in Qatar, and with the death of Yahya Sinwar could be in line to take over leadership of Hamas — or at least be part of the council that runs the group.
Hamas and Iran have always understood the power of their alliance, using one another in various ways.
They have capitalized on their joint ability to sow discord in the Middle East, disrupt attempts at peace, and sabotage potential for compromise, while pursuing the ultimate goal of annihilating Israel and ending what they see as the United States’ influence in the region.
Lorenzo Vidino and Lara Burns are researchers at George Washington University’s Program on Extremism. Their new report is “Propaganda, Procurement and Lethal Operations: Iran’s Activities Inside America.”