[_shadi]

I would say the trend started before the 90s but it became apparent in the 90s.

It started in the 70s, before that all the islamist political groups were heavily repressed by Nasser and different nationalist leaders in the region, Sadat realignment, the Islamic revolution in Iran, and the commercialization of oil in the gulf countries opened the Pandora box for the different(and sometimes warring) groups inspired by different interpretations of Islam.

[Apocryphon]

And didn't the House of Saud invest heavily in Islamist groups as a counterweight to the Arab Nationalists and to Iranian-style Islamic revolutionary influence?

[rougka]

Palestinian Islamism is mostly rooted in the Muslim Brotherhood, a movement originating in the 1920's Cairo