I think that is likely the case, but I don't know if that is an exclusive thing anymore. A lot of what I read about reminds me of 1970s sponsorship of various terror entities and revolutionaries.
From a nation state actor standpoint it is probably a lot cheaper to pay gobs of money to a half-dozen antisocial young black hat types (that have been messing around with linux since age 12 in their bedroom in belarus), than to fund the PLO.