[bjourne]

One reason for Hamas' rise to popularity was the drug epidemic in Gaza in the late 1980s. The Israeli occupation looked the other way as gangs sold illicit drugs to the Palestinians. People dependent on drugs makes for good collaborators and informants. Hamas made short work of anyone suspected of being a collaborator and of people in "immoral industries", i.e drug dealers, prostitutes, pimps, and sellers of pornography, often via public and brutal executions. It wasn't pretty but it curbed the drug epidemic.

Drug abuse is a good breeding ground for religious extremism. It's not that hard to convince people that "Western influences" are bad if it means that more people become drug addicts. It's not that hard to convince someone that they should fight for God if they spent the last ten years as drug addicts.