Hamas Seeks a New Patron
The emergent winner of the Arab upheavals of 2011 is Sunni Islamism. This is reflected most centrally in the election results in Egypt, where the Muslim Brotherhood and the more extreme Salafi trend have won a landslide victory. Arab Sunni Islamist regimes are set to emerge in the period ahead as factors in the regional contest for power.
The emergence of regimes of this type is bad news for the West, but it also represents a setback for the main enemies of the West in the Mideast — namely, Iran and its allies. The rise of Sunni Islamism has implications in the Palestinian arena.
Hamas is currently seeking to exit the Shia, Iran-led bloc in the direction of Sunni Islamist power. Meanwhile, Iran is focusing on its solid link with the Palestinian Islamic Jihad movement as an alternative to the dying alliance with Hamas.
Over the previous decade, Tehran had hoped to unite Islamist and anti-Western forces in the region behind its banner, and thus to emerge as the main challenger to the U.S. This ambition contained a fairly obvious flaw: the Iranians are Shia Muslims and non-Arabs. They were hoping to lead an area consisting overwhelmingly of Arabic-speaking Sunni Muslims. The rise of Arab Sunni Islamism to prominence and dominance in Egypt, Tunisia, Libya, and perhaps soon Syria casts a spotlight on this contradiction.
This has placed Hamas in a decidedly uncomfortable position from which it is now trying to extricate itself. Hamas is an outgrowth of the Sunni Muslim Brotherhood. Yet over the last decade, it had also become a card-carrying member of the Iran-led regional bloc. The movement’s leadership was domiciled in Syria, the long-term Arab ally of Iran. Iran provided money, weaponry, and training for Hamas’ sovereign Gaza enclave.
But in recent months, Hamas has faced a situation in which its fellow Sunni Muslim brothers in Syria are engaged in an uprising against a non-Sunni regime under whose patronage the Hamas leadership lives. The regime is seeking to suppress this revolt using methods of utmost viciousness and brutality. At the same time, as Sunni Islamism rises to power elsewhere, a number of attractive potential alternative patrons for Hamas seem to be emerging.
So Hamas is now trying to quietly exit the Iranian camp for pastures new. Leadership cadres in Damascus have in recent months moved themselves and their families out of Syria to a variety of regional destinations. Only a small staff remains in the Syrian capital. Hamas in Gaza has staunchly refused to hold demonstrations in support of the beleaguered Assad regime. The furious Iranians have threatened to cut vital funding from the Gaza enclave, to no avail.
Meanwhile, the search has been on for a new home. Among the possible destinations are Qatar, Egypt, and Jordan. The latest reports in Arabic media, however, have pointed to Tunisia as the most likely destination. A Muslim Brotherhood-associated party is already in unambiguous control of the country, unlike in the other countries listed. On the other hand, Tunis is a long way from the area of Hamas’ main interest.
OK, this scenario sounds plausible. The question is: how can we (Israel and the USA) maneuver the situation to our advantage?
The biggest losers of all are the people who are ruled by these jihadi terror dons. Life will get even harder. Tourism will tank completely, along with outside investment (on which so many “little” lives depend). Unemployment, hunger, want, and brutality will rise and rise. Yes, terrorism will likely flare up in Western host societies, but for every American or Westerner killed, hundreds of Arabs will pay the price with their own lives. But I don’t see how any of it can be avoided. They cannot help themselves. They are slaves to their masters. Neither their bodies nor their minds are their own. It is what it is, and the only ones who can change it are the enslaved peoples themselves. And that will most likely require a human disaster of ungodly dimension. We can only defend our own. And we will. Because Western culture, for all its rot and weaknesses, is superior to Arab/Muslim culture. And culture is what it all boils down to (not race, or blood, or any of that silly crap). We are better than they are. We live better lives, by far, than they do. We are a free people with much to lose, they are not. And all they can do in their frustration is to kill (or endorse the killing of) unarmed, unsuspecting “infidel” civilians.
It is what it is, and the only ones who can change it are the enslaved peoples themselves.
Yeah.
I’m really getting tired of the whole Islamic thing and am especially disheartened that apparently Egypt will fall to these morons.
There is little “the west” can do about it, save focus on its own defense and its own energy independence.
“They cannot help themselves. They are slaves to their masters”
I would make that singular, as in “Master”…meaning Mohammad.
They are slaves to the antichrist.
They long ago sold their souls to the whim of a tyrant, meglomaniac, murderer and child rapist.
The most despicable of mans dimension is their “perfect” way of life.
Lies, torture and death.
They cannot help themselves, they are slaves to Mohammad.
With misery and horror perpetually theirs, because of that contemptable choice.
We must destroy Mohammad as a viable “choice”, just as we destroyed Hitler,
and raise the Next Generation in our image, as we did the the Japanese.
Or else we must wall off their side of the planet, and leave them to their disease.
No, I mean it in the plural sense. What you have is a collection of jihadi dons vying for control. These guys are a type of Mafia. They’ve been killing innocents for so long now, they’ve developed a real taste for it. Without terror, their lives have no meaning. At the same time, they seek power & prestige. They want to be venerated by their culture, and they want to be feared. And there are many of them, just as there are many terror groups in Islamic Terror Inc. (Hamas, Hizballah, Islamic Jihad, Muslim Brotherhood, Al Qaeda, etc., etc., etc. Think of them as Mafioso families, each of them seeking to control the whole shebang.
I agree that Islam in itself is a dark religion. Mohammed, the original don, was a war lord, not a Prince of Peace by ANY means. But that said, things are all rather more complex than you seem to understand.
What Hamas, and plenty others, have in mind for those who refuse to say the Muslim confession of faith in Arabic, is as far removed from the following words by Shakespeare (from Act IV, Scene I of the Merchant of Venice), as one end of the universe is from the other:
The quality of mercy is not strain’d,
It droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven
Upon the place beneath: it is twice blest;
It blesseth him that gives and him that takes:
‘Tis mightiest in the mightiest: it becomes
The throned monarch better than his crown;
His sceptre shows the force of temporal power,
The attribute to awe and majesty,
Wherein doth sit the dread and fear of kings;
But mercy is above this sceptred sway;
It is enthroned in the hearts of kings,
It is an attribute to God himself;
And earthly power doth then show likest God’s
When mercy seasons justice.
It is a fight to the finish, and frankly I would rather side with those who expect more from a person than the fevered delusions of those who kill or intimidate in the name of Allah, or Islam.
Jonathan,
Thank you for this post. I have a few questions:
1. What, if any, role have Turkey and KSA played in Hamas’ re-alignment?
2. What is the likelihood of a Hamas vs. PIJ face-off in Gaza?
3. If Hamas is gone from the pro-Iran camp but Iraq is added to it is that an overall plus or minus for Tehran?
4. Are you more or less optimistic than you were 12 mos. ago about the West’s chances of de-fanging w/Iran w/o major hostilities?
Thank you.
P.S. I highly recommend your book, The transforming Fire as a combination IDF memoir and study of the rise of radical Islam (http://www.amazon.com/Transforming-Fire-Rise-Israel-Islamist-Conflict/dp/1441166637/ref=ntt_at_ep_dpt_1)
Looking at the triumphant reception of Ismail Haniyeh and Khaled Mashaal in Cairo, you can see that Hamas doesn’t have far to search for their new patrons. They have only to revert to their natural patron, the Muslim Brotherhood, of which they are but the Palestinian wing.
Musheer Al Masri a Hamas executive is a guest speaker the the University of Geneva. Hamas has plenty of friends in Europe:
http://www.lematin.ch/suisse/standard/Le-porteparole-du-Hamas-invite-a-luniversite-de-Geneve/story/23953067
Le porte-parole du Hamas invité à l’université de Genève
POLÉMIQUE — Une conférence est annoncée mercredi prochain dans une salle de l’Uni Mail. Elle accueillera notamment un leader du parti au pouvoir à Gaza, considéré comme un mouvement terroriste par l’Union Européenne. Malaise.
From the Atlantic to the Persian Gulf, from Mauritania to Barhein,
the Arab world is from now on ruled by the archfanatical, faceless Muslim Brotherhood members, dedicated to the destruction of Israel, even at the price of their own annihilation.
For in so doing they think they are fulfilling their prophet’s goal of establishing Allah’s reign on earth, while they enjoy their heavenly reward
of whatever.
There is no reasoning with such people who are looking forward to death and not to life.
The former militaristic nationalist Arab leaders were Epicurean realists who preferred the good life to martyrdom.
These religion-driven killers despise life and are martyrdom-crazy.
And well they do, for their choice will be their final destination.