At the San Francisco Chronicle of all places, an article by Dore Gold on the ideological ties between Al Qaeda and Hamas.

In 2003, an Israeli ground unit in Gaza, seeking Hamas suspects, went into a school established by the founder of Hamas, Sheikh Ahmad Yassin. Written materials that Israeli soldiers collected revealed the writings of a famous Saudi Wahhabi religious authority, Sheikh Sulaiman al-Ulwan. His ideological entry into the world of Hamas immediately raised eyebrows. After all, his name was featured in a famous Osama bin Laden video clip from December 2001, when the al Qaeda leader entertained his entourage on camera by re-enacting with his hands the hijacked aircraft slamming into the World Trade Center on Sept. 11.

In that video, one Saudi messenger entered the scene at the end, telling bin Laden that he brought with him a “beautiful fatwa” from al-Ulwan, who had justified the mass murder of Americans. Now his ideas have penetrated the Palestinians as well. And his Islamic religious ruling justifying suicide bombing attacks appeared on the Hamas Web site along with those of other al Qaeda clerics.

Also, in 2003 and 2004, Israeli forces found Hamas posters that were distributed in West Bank cities that extolled the war being waged by Islamic militants in the Balkans, Chechnya and Kashmir. At the top was the portrait of Hamas leader Yassin alongside the portraits of bin Laden and Chechen militant leaders like Shamil Besayev, who took credit for the bloody attack on a Russian school in Beslan.

That Hamas and al Qaeda share some common ideological roots should not have come as any surprise. Hamas is an Arabic acronym for the Islamic Resistance Movement. Article Two of the Hamas Covenant reads, “The Islamic Resistance Movement is one of the wings of Muslim Brotherhood in Palestine.”

Throughout the Arab world, the Muslim Brotherhood is regarded as the common wellspring of all modern jihadi terrorism.