Feb 24
(Reuters) - Leaders of the Palestinian Islamist movement Hamas turned publicly
against their long-time ally President Bashar al-Assad of Syria on Friday,
endorsing the revolt aimed at overthrowing his dynastic rule.
The policy
shift deprives Assad of one of his few remaining Sunni Muslim supporters in the
Arab world and deepens his international isolation. It was announced in Hamas
speeches at Friday prayers in Cairo and a rally in the Gaza Strip.
Hamas went
public after nearly a year of equivocating as Assad's army, largely led by
fellow members of the president's Alawite sect, has crushed mainly Sunni
protesters and rebels.
In a Middle
East split along sectarian lines between Shi'ite and Sunni Islam, the public
abandonment of Assad casts immediate questions over Hamas's future ties with
its principal backer Iran, which has stuck by its ally Assad, as well as with
Iran's fellow Shi'ite allies in Lebanon's Hezbollah movement.
"I
salute all the nations of the Arab Spring and I salute the heroic people of
Syria who are striving for freedom, democracy and reform," Hamas leader
Ismail Haniyeh, visiting Egypt from the Gaza Strip, told thousands of Friday
worshippers at Cairo's al-Azhar mosque.
"We
are marching towards Syria, with millions of martyrs," chanted worshippers
at al-Azhar, home to one of the Sunni world's highest seats of learning.
"No Hezbollah and no Iran.
"The
Syrian revolution is an Arab revolution."
Contemporary
political rivalries have exacerbated tensions that date back centuries between
Sunnis - the vast majority of Arabs - and Shi'ites, who form substantial Arab
populations, notably in Lebanon and Iraq, and who dominate in non-Arab Iran.
Hamas and
Hezbollah, confronting Israel on its southwestern and northern borders, have
long had a strategic alliance against the Jewish state, despite opposing
positions on the sectarian divide. Both have fought wars with Israel in the
past six years.
But as the
Sunni-Shi'ite split in the Middle East deepens, Hamas appears to have cast its
lot with the powerful, Egypt-based Sunni Islamists of the Muslim Brotherhood,
whose star has been in the ascendant since the Arab Spring revolts last year.
HAMAS MAKES
ITS CHOICE
"This
is considered a big step in the direction of cutting ties with Syria,"
said Hany al-Masri, a Palestinian political commentator. Damascus might now opt
to formally expel Hamas's exile headquarters from Syria, he told Reuters.
Banned by
deposed Egyptian leader Hosni Mubarak, the Muslim Brotherhood has moved to the
centre of public life. It is the ideological parent of Hamas, which was founded
25 years ago among the Palestinians, the majority of whom are Sunni Muslims.
Shi'ite
Hezbollah still supports the Assad family, from the minority Alawite sect, an
offshoot of Shi'ite Islam, which has maintained authoritarian rule over Syria's
Sunni majority for four decades but now may have its back to the wall.
Hamas,
however, has been deeply embarrassed among Palestinians by its association with
Assad, as the death toll in his crackdown on opponents has risen into the
thousands.
In Gaza,
senior Hamas member Salah al-Bardaweel addressed thousands of supporters at a
rally in Khan Younis refugee camp, sending "a message to the peoples who
have not been liberated yet, those free peoples who are still bleeding every
day."
"The
hearts of the Palestinian people bleed with every drop of bloodshed in
Syria," Bardaweel said. "No political considerations will make us
turn a blind eye to what is happening on the soil of Syria."
ANTI-ISRAEL
AXIS WEAKENED
The divorce
between Hamas and Damascus had been coming for months. The Palestinian group
had angered Assad last year when it refused a request to hold public rallies in
Palestinian refugee camps in Syria in support of his government.
Hamas's
exile political leader Khaled Meshaal and his associates quietly quit their
headquarters in Damascus and have stayed away from Syria for months now,
although Hamas tried to deny their absence had anything to do with the revolt.
Haniyeh
visited Iran earlier this month on a mission to shore up ties with the power
that has provided Hamas with money and weapons to fight Israel. It is not clear
what the outcome of his visit has been, though the tone of the latest Hamas
comments is hardly compatible with continued warm relations with Tehran.
Rallies in
favor of Syria's Sunni majority have been rare in the coastal enclave but on
Friday it seemed the Islamist rulers of the territory had decided to break the
silence.
"Nations
do not get defeated. They do not retreat and they do not get broken. We are on
your side and on the side of all free peoples," said Bardaweel.
"God
is Greatest," the crowd chanted. "Victory to the people of
Syria."
Hamas-Hezbollah
relations have been good in the past. But Hamas did not attack Israel when it
was fighting Hezbollah in 2006 and Hezbollah did not join in when Israel
mounted a major offensive against Hamas in Gaza in the winter of 2008-2009.
Anything
that divides Hamas and Hezbollah is likely to be welcomed by Israel, which has
been watching warily recent moves by Hamas to reconcile differences with its
Palestinian rivals in Fatah, the movement of President Mahmoud Abbas.
There was
no immediate Israeli comment on Friday's speeches.
(Additional
reporting by Tom Perry in Cairo; Writing by Douglas Hamilton; Editing by
Alastair Macdonald)
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