Hamas Joins Both Sides of Syrian Civil War

Daniel Greenfield


The Syrian Civil War created a problem for Hamas. Hamas is getting money from Qatar. But it also gets weapons from Iran. Qatar can give Hamas money, but Iran is tops for giving it weapons.

Both Iran and Qatar want Hamas to choose a side. But in the Muslim desert, all alliances are fragile and based on deception and backstabbing. Ideologically Hamas would like to stand by its Muslim Brotherhood brothers, but it also needs weapons that it can only get from Iran. And after enough pressure from Iran and Qatar, Hamas came up with a completely reasonable solution.

Al Quds al Arabi, the London-based pan-Arab newspaper, reports that the “military wing of Hamas, the Qassam Brigades, has decided to re-align itself with Hezbollah and Iran after bitter infighting over the direction the group should take.
The report says that Brigades wrote a letter to the political leadership of Hamas demanding an alliance with Hezbollah. In the letter, the Qassam leadership stated that liberation will come from arms, not money, a reference to the cash that Qatar has been giving Gaza.
The message stressed by the delegation is that the “resistance” and the ability to fire rockets into Tel Aviv in the recent war was thanks to the alliance with Iran and the Lebanese Hezbollah, and not because of Arab money, referring to the financial support of Qatar.

Ignore all the Hawkish and Militant business. Hamas very logically decided to resolve the problem of being pulled in two directions by letting its “political” leaders back the Sunni side which supplies them with money while its “military” wing backs the Shiite side which supplies them with weapons and money.
Since the distinction between Hamas’ “political” and “military” wings is mostly meaningless except from a technical standpoint, Hamas has managed to find a way to be on both sides at the same time.

This is an impressive achievement, but not all that extraordinary for the region. And it’s a reminder of why negotiating with people who think like this is absolutely useless. When it comes to technology, they may be backward, but when it comes to deception, they are far far ahead.