Leaders from the Palestinian Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas) visited Syria on Wednesday in a move by Hamas to rebuild relations after it distanced itself from President Bashar al-Assad for years over his violent crackdown on protests.
Normalization of relations with the Assad government may help rejoin Hamas into the so-called “axis of resistance” against Israel, which also includes Iran and the powerful Shiite armed group Hezbollah in Lebanon.
Hamas leaders declared their support for the 2011 street uprising against Assad family rule and vacated their Syrian headquarters in Damascus in 2012 in a move that angered their mutual ally Iran.
Hamas’ relations with Iran later restored, and Hamas officials praised the Islamic Republic for helping build Gaza’s arsenal of long-range missiles, which they used to fight Israel.
Palestinian political analyst Mustafa al-Sawaf said that Hamas’ conciliatory move towards Syria aims to create a new ground for the Islamist faction.
Al-Sawaf told Archyde.com, “I think that most of the areas in which Hamas has a presence are beginning to narrow, including Turkey, and therefore the movement wanted to find new territory for itself from which to operate.”
Two Hamas officials told Archyde.com in June that the group had decided to restore ties with Syria. Hamas proceeded slowly with the process, fearing a backlash from its mostly Sunni funders and other backers, given that most of the victims of Assad’s campaign in Syria were Sunnis.
In response to a question about whether these benefits are worth the criticism directed at Hamas by the Sunnis, Al-Sawaf said, “In the end, it is related to Palestinian interests, which Hamas may have thought could not be achieved if the boycott continued.”
Hazem Qassem, a Hamas spokesman, told Archyde.com that the delegation traveling to Syria would be headed by Khalil al-Haya, head of the Arab and Islamic Relations Office in Hamas, “within a leading delegation from the factions.”