Hamas and Iran: Time for Reconciliation?

In late April, after a seven-year period of hostility and sometimes violent rivalry, Hamas and the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO) signed a pact that could mean the establishment of a coalition government within a matter of weeks.

Although Iranian President Hassan Rouhani welcomed the move, it’s clear that Ayatollah Khamenei’s view on the matter is what really counts.

After Hamas won the 2006 Palestinian parliamentary elections, a civil war ensued between the two sides, during which hundreds of people were killed. Though relations improved after a reconciliation agreement in 2011, clashes continued, with Hamas retaining power over the Gaza Strip and the Fatah party, the PLO’s largest faction, governing the West Bank.

But, with the new pact, the situation has changed once again.

“Last summer’s coup d’état in Egypt isolated Hamas,” Bethlehem-based reporter Alex Reza told IranWire. “Gaza was cut off and its residents suffered. On the other hand, the failure of Israeli-Palestinian talks put the Palestinian Authority in a weak position. So the agreement between Hamas and PLO can be advantageous for both sides.”

“This is a part of [Iran’s] grand strategy to establish relations with Hamas and the Islamic Jihad,” the Palestinian Ma’an News Agency reported. According to the agency, there have been widespread rumors that Iran has been "encouraging both sides to come to an agreement.” 

Reza believes that “Iran’s support for the agreement is logical because it wants a united front against Israel.” At the same time, he says, it will “deter Hamas from launching more rocket attacks against Israel,” which would be beneficial to President Rouhani, who “wants the United States to view him as a force for ‘moderation’ among Iran’s allies.”

Hardliners hoped the Israeli-Palestinian talks would end in failure, according to a Middle East analyst in Tehran, who asked not to be named. “Ahmadinejad’s foreign policy was based on talking about the destruction of Israel. [It] welcomed mayhem in Palestine and stronger ties between Iran and Hamas.” The Islamic Republic, he says, now feels that it has an effective partner in Palestine—which could become a “Sunni Hezbollah” in the region.

Iran fully supported the Palestinian Islamic paramilitary forces during the 22-day war between Israel and Hamas in the winter of 2008. At the same time, it prevented any domestic criticism of its own policy: the newspaper Kar Gozaran, supportive of former President Hashemi Rafsanjani, was shut down because it published part of a statement by a pro-democracy student organization that criticized the Iranian position.

“We will help anyone fight the Zionist regime”

"If we intervene somewhere we come forward and say that we did,” said Ayatollah Khamenei during a speech in February 3^rd 2012. “We intervened in the victorious 33-day war [between Israel and the Lebanese Hezbollah in 2006] and the 22-day war. From now on we will help any country or any group that wants to fight the Zionist regime.”

When, in the autumn of 2012, it became clear that the blockade of Gaza would eventually prevent delivery of arms shipments, the Revolutionary Guards decided to help. Commander General Mohammad Ali Jafari said publicly that since Iran could not send in military equipment and arms, it would provide  “expertise” on how to make Fajr-5 rockets. “A large number of them are now being manufactured,” he said. The Fajr-5 rockets, he said, had a range of about 75 kilometers, “more than the 60-kilometer distance between Gaza’s border and Tel Aviv.”

Speaker of the parliament Ali Larijani agreed. Iran is “proud” to support a group that has been deemed a terrorist organization by the United States and the European Union, he said, offering full support to “the Palestinian nation and Hamas.”

Though Hamas has been happy to accept help from Iran, it has been reluctant to boost Iranian interests in the region. Saddam Hussein is one case in point: Hamas mourned the execution of the Iraqi dictator in 2006, declaring three days of national mourning in Gaza and setting up tents for mourners to gather in several towns. Hamas spokesman Ismail Rezvan said he was baffled that the Arab world had remained silent on the event, calling it a symbol of the murderous American policy towards those Arab regimes who dare to say “no” the U.S. But Iran, which saw the death of approximately 300,000 Iranians following Iraq’s invasion of Iran in 1980, undoubtedly felt it was entitled to a certain degree of loyalty, since the Islamic Republic had donated hundreds of millions of dollars to the Hamas cause over the years.

And on Syria, too, Hamas and Iran remain divided, despite Iran’s continuing financial support. Not only has Hamas refused to support President Bashar al-Assad, Iran’s key ally in the region, it has made itself his outright enemy.

Stabbed in the Back

In the beginning, Tehran saw Hamas’s position as an understandable policy to ensure its Sunni allies around the Persian Gulf stayed in place. But when Hamas transferred its headquarters from Damascus to Qatar in protest against the massacre of Syrian civilians by forces loyal to Assad, it was a stab in the back for the Islamic Republic. For Iran’s leaders, the fact that Hamas would transfer operations to a country that, along with Saudi Arabia, supported Syrian insurgents, was unacceptable. A few months later, Gaza hosted a ceremony for members of the Syrian opposition. The Syrian independence flag, which has been widely adopted by the opposition movement, was flown during the event. In July 2013, Hamas called on the Lebanese Hezbollah to evacuate its fighters from Syria.

When the Syrian government stated that Hamas was actively fighting against Assad, this was the final straw for the Iranian government. As the British Daily Telegraph newspaper reported, it soon suspended its financial support for Hamas, estimated to be around 300 million dollars a year.

The Iranian government has not, of course, been alone in its consternation: the Muslim Brotherhood was a great supporter of Hamas, but when Saudi Arabia supported the coup in Egypt against the Muslim Brotherhood, Palestinian Islamists started to doubt that the Saudi monarchy could be a reliable friend. And what did Iran think of Hamas’s decision, in recent years, to move closer to Ankara, encouraged by the policies of Turkish prime minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, especially with regard to Syria?

All of this might well have led Hamas to rethink its policy on Syria—especially now that Assad seems to have the upper hand—not least so it might once again benefit from Iranian generosity. One Hamas official, Hamd Youssef, has said that Hamas is eager to improve its relations with Iran and rebuild their strategic partnership. According to him, Hamas and Iranian officials have agreed to discuss their differences, including those over Syria.

“The Islamic Republic always wants to be a key player in Palestinian domestic politics regarding Israel,” said another Tehran-based analyst who wished to remain anonymous. To a certain extent, he says, “Hamas is the only force that is capable of advancing Iranian policies”.  Iran believes, he says, that a coalition government between Hamas and the PLO would stop any plans for peace in the region “dead in its tracks.” Whatever else comes out of such a coalition remains to be seen. But if Iran sees this as an opportunity to launch a fresh attack against its biggest enemy, Israel, it is likely to seize it.