Editing Islamism (section)

====Western support of Islamism during the Cold War====
{{further|CIA activities in Afghanistan|Operation Cyclone|Afghan mujahideen}}
[[File:Reagan sitting with people from the Afghanistan-Pakistan region in February 1983.jpg|thumb|Afghan mujahideen representatives with [[List of Presidents of the United States|President]] [[Ronald Reagan]] at the [[White House]] in 1983.]]

During the [[Cold War]], particularly during the 1950s, during the 1960s, and during most of the 1970s, the U.S. and other countries in the [[Western Bloc]] occasionally attempted to take advantage of the rise of Islamic religiousity by directing it against secular [[Left-wing politics|leftist]]/[[Communism|communist]]/[[Nationalism|nationalist]] insurgents/adversaries, particularly against the [[Soviet Union]] and [[Eastern Bloc]] states, whose ideology was not just secular but anti-religious.

In 1957, U.S. President [[Dwight D. Eisenhower|Eisenhower]] and senior U.S. foreign policy officials, agreed on a policy of using the communists' lack of religion against them: "We should do everything possible to stress the '[[Jihad|holy war]]' aspect" that has currency in the Middle East.<ref>Annie Jacobsen, "Surprise, Kill, Vanish: The Secret History of CIA Paramilitary Armies, Operators, and Assassins", (New York: Little, Brown and Company, 2019), p. 88</ref>

During the 1970s and sometimes later, this aid sometimes went to fledgling Islamists and Islamist groups that later came to be seen as dangerous enemies.<ref name=Berman/> The US spent billions of dollars to aid the [[Soviet–Afghan War#Foreign involvement|mujahideen]] Muslim Afghanistan enemies of the Soviet Union, and non-Afghan [[Afghan Arabs#Attitude to the West|veterans]] of the war (such as [[Osama bin Laden]]) returned home with their prestige, "experience, ideology, and weapons", and had considerable impact.<ref name=ForeignAffairsNovember2005>{{cite news|url=http://www.foreignaffairs.org/20051101facomment84601/peter-bergen-alec-reynolds/blowback-revisited.html |title=Blowback Revisited |magazine=[[Foreign Affairs]] |author=[[Peter Bergen]], Alec Reynolds |date=November–December 2005 |access-date=9 November 2007 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20071129203155/http://www.foreignaffairs.org/20051101facomment84601/peter-bergen-alec-reynolds/blowback-revisited.html |archive-date=29 November 2007 }}</ref>

Although it is a strong opponent of Israel's existence, [[Hamas]], officially founded in 1987, traces its origins back to institutions and clerics which were supported by Israel in the 1970s and 1980s. Israel tolerated and supported Islamist movements in Gaza, with figures like [[Sheikh Ahmed Yassin|Ahmed Yassin]], as Israel perceived them preferable to the secular and then more powerful [[al-Fatah]] with the [[PLO]].<ref name=wsj-24-1-09>{{cite news |url=https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB123275572295011847 |title=How Israel Helped to Spawn Hamas |first=Andrew |last=Higgins |date=24 January 2009 |work=The Wall Street Journal |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130115044159/http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123275572295011847.html|archive-date=15 January 2013|access-date=15 January 2017}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.democracynow.org/2006/1/26/how_israel_and_the_united_states |title=How Israel and the United States Helped to Bolster Hamas |date=26 January 2006 |publisher=Democracynow.org |access-date=18 August 2011 |archive-date=17 August 2011 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110817150529/http://www.democracynow.org/2006/1/26/how_israel_and_the_united_states |url-status=live }}</ref>

Egyptian President [[Anwar Sadat]]{{spaced ndash}}whose policies included opening Egypt to Western investment (''[[infitah]]''); transferring Egypt's allegiance from the Soviet Union to the United States; and [[Egypt–Israel peace treaty|making peace with Israel]]—released Islamists from prison and welcomed home exiles in tacit exchange for political support in his struggle against leftists. His "encouraging of the emergence of the Islamist movement" was said to have been "imitated by many other Muslim leaders in the years that followed."<ref>{{cite book |title=Jihad: the trail of political Islam |first=Gilles |last=Kepel |page=83}}</ref><ref>Kepel, Gilles, ''Muslim Extremism in Egypt'', chapter 5, "Vanguard of the Umma"</ref> This "gentlemen's agreement" between Sadat and Islamists broke down in 1975 but not before Islamists came to completely dominate university student unions. Sadat was later assassinated and a [[Terrorism in Egypt|formidable insurgency]] was formed in Egypt in the 1990s. The French government has also been reported to have promoted Islamist preachers "in the hope of channeling Muslim energies into zones of piety and charity."<ref name=Berman>''Terror and Liberalism'' by Paul Berman, W.W. Norton and Company, 2003, p. 101.</ref>