According to Hamas sources, the reconciliation visit of the Hamas delegation to Damascus last week, led by Khalil al-Haya, and the meeting with President Bashar al-Assad was successful.
At the meeting, agreements were reached to start steps to build trust between the two parties.
Syrian officials said that Khalil al-Haya disowned the activities of Hamas operatives in Syria who fought alongside the rebels against the forces of the Syrian regime and said that these were” isolated acts that did not represent the position of the movement”.
The Hamas movement wants to reopen its offices in Damascus, but the Syrians insist that the representative who arrives will be a man from the political wing and not a man from the military arm who has no prejudice against Syria.
Hamas officials have expressed opposition to the fact that the movement’s representatives’ return to Damascus will depend on changes that may occur in the presidential elections in Turkey next year.
They fear increasing Turkish pressure on Hamas following the month-long rapprochement between Turkey and Israel, which could lead to the expulsion of senior Hamas officials from Turkey.
The atmosphere is still tense between the leadership of Hamas and the Syrian regime, which is having trouble erasing the sediments of the past. Israel and the Biden administration expressed outrage at the renewed rapprochement between Hamas and Syria.
State Department spokesman Ned Price said this week that “Bashar Assad’s regime is getting closer to the Hamas movement because of its isolation, and this harms the interests of the Palestinian people and the world’s efforts to fight terrorism in the region and beyond”.
He emphasized that the “US will continue to oppose any support for Bashar Assad’s regime and terrorist organizations such as Hamas”.
Hamas rejected his words and accused that it was the “adoption of the Zionist position” and that “Washington was complicit in Israel’s aggression towards Syria”.
Criticism of the Hamas leadership
The decision of the Hamas leadership to reconcile with the Syrian regime was accepted by the majority of the members of the leadership and with the blessing of the Shura Council, but there is also criticism in the ranks of the movement about the decision.
Issa al-Jabari, a former minister in the Hamas government announced that he disavows the movement’s statement and called on its leaders to take a correct stance towards the “criminal Syrian regime”.
Senior officials in Hamas rejected his position and denied that the movement’s approach to Syria was done under pressure from Iran and said that Hamas acts only in its own interests.
The “Muslim Brotherhood”, which is the parent movement of Hamas, also tried 3 months ago to prevent reconciliation between Hamas and the Syrian regime.
Its representatives met in Turkey with Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh and tried to convince him to avoid the reconciliation process, but he rejected their request.
Khaled Mashal, who was the chairman of the Political Bureau and whose disagreements between him and Syrian President Bashar Assad over the civil war in Syria led in 2012 to the severing of ties between the Hamas movement and the Syrian regime, strongly opposes the renewal of his movement’s ties with the Syrian regime and with him some senior members of the movement
. In Hamas itself, Ismail Haniyeh’s zigzagging towards Syria is seen as behavior that is contrary to the principles of the movement, which reduces trust in it on the Palestinian street and is designed to serve Iran’s interests in the Middle East.
The Palestinian street also finds it difficult to forget the massacres of the Syrian regime against its Sunni people during the civil war starting in 2011.
The approach of the Hamas leadership led by Ismail Haniyeh to the regime of Bashar Assad symbolizes the movement’s further relinquishment of the shackles of the “Muslim Brotherhood” movement, after Ismail Haniyeh won another term in the internal elections the in the movement, and taking an independent position that stems from political considerations and not from a religious position.
The decision of the political bureau of Hamas is also supported by the heads of the military branch of the organization, Saleh al-Aruri, Yahya Sinwar and Muhammad Def, who are close to Iran and Hezbollah, who mediated between the leadership of Hamas and President Bashar Assad to achieve reconciliation.
Ismail Haniyeh’s associates claim that what hastened the decision to re-approach Syria was the process of normalization between Arab countries and Israel and the growing disregard of the Palestinian problem by Arab countries, the Palestinian problem is in a severe crisis without the support of Arab countries and the Hamas leadership sees the Syrian regime as an important factor that can help the movement overcome its isolation and the strategic vacuum caused by Arab countries.
According to these sources, the renewal of relations between the leadership of Hamas and Bashar Assad’s regime does not mean support for the Syrian regime’s brutal oppression of its people in recent years.
