On September 15, 2022, the Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas) issued a statement in which it resolved its decision to restore the relationship with the Assad regime. The stated argument here is "to serve our nation and its just causes, at the heart of which is the question of Palestine, especially in light of the rapid regional and international developments that surround our cause and our nation."
The observer of the movements of the new leadership of Hamas is aware of the resumption of its relations with its axis that preceded the revolutions, represented in Iran and its satellites (the Assad regime, Hezbollah, and the Houthi movement), in addition to the relationship with Russia, which was recently resumed in an attempt to expand the sphere of political and military support for the movement.
However, Hamas' moves put it in conflict with its popular incubator on the one hand, and with its Islamic ideology on the other hand.
Because serving its cause - according to its perspective - is not compatible with the "just causes of the nation" as stated in the statement;
Because it comes at the expense of the issues of Syrians, Iraqis and Yemenis together, if we do not talk about the clash between the alliance of a national liberation movement with Russia, which, from the perspective of Ukrainians and Europeans, at least, constitutes a country that has been seeking to occupy Ukraine for months.
The statement was titled “A Collection of Palestinian Scholars,” but the reader discovers at the end of the statement that it is only a Ghazzawi statement, and bears the signature of 30 names, all of them from the Gaza Strip, which is ruled by Hamas, which raises a legitimate question about the rest of the lands of Palestine and its scholars, especially since we are talking about the liberation of the holy sites and the issue of Palestine as a whole that cannot be reduced to Gaza, in addition to the freedom of opinion enjoyed by those in the Gaza Strip.
The aforementioned double clash was revealed by the discussions that took place last July, when contacts were underway between Hamas and the Iranian alliance to facilitate the resumption of the relationship with the Assad regime, and then it was renewed with Hamas’ recent statement, which issued several statements condemning and condemning it, including 3 statements:
The first statement: the statement of the Palestine Relief and Development Authority
It is an activist organization among the Palestinian refugees in Syria, which issued a statement on September 16 in which it rejects and strongly condemns what it described as "the slither of a jihadist movement away from the banks of the nation and the advice of its scholars", a slip that it considered that these movements would pay "the price for it from the balance of its popular incubator." .
The statement repudiated “any decision that is printed with the [Syrian] regime or the occupation,” and considered that “aligning with the nation means listening to the conscience of its people and the advice of its scholars, not returning to a system that the entire nation has uttered,” and that “calling to end manifestations of conflict in the nation is A call that equates the executioner with the victim, and the first thing was to denounce the massacres of the regime against its people.
The same body had issued a similar statement last July, in which it clarified that the criterion that determines the relationship with other parties “is what we believe in principles, not what we seek of interests,” and that “the liberation of Palestine is not in alliance with criminal regimes,” and that the regime’s Al-Assad destroyed the Palestinian camps, and he is still imprisoning 2,400 Palestinian detainees, including 110 women.
The second statement: The statement of the Association of Muslim Scholars in Iraq
It is the statement issued on September 16, 2022, and its authors presented their statement as both a legal and political duty, to the effect that Hamas’ move is “a deviation from the compass of the resistance in Palestine, and that it will not achieve anything of importance to the Palestinian cause and the Palestinian people, not to mention its conflict with the interests of the nation, And its lack of any legitimate legitimate aspect in justifying dealing with the regime in Damascus at the expense of the oppressed, displaced and persecuted of the persevering Syrian people.
The statement considered that the interests that Hamas seeks from this rapprochement with Assad are "illusory interests";
Because it "will help the peoples eager to get rid of what they suffer, and it will open a great door of dangers and corruptions for the Palestinian cause and the region together, and it will contribute to enhancing the chances of normalization projects in the region with its enemies."
The third statement: The statement of the Syrian Islamic Council
It was issued on September 17, 2022, and strongly condemned Hamas' decision, considering it a "deviation from Jerusalem and Palestine", and "a betrayal of the sons of the nation, especially in Levant, Iraq and Yemen," as the people of those countries suffered the scourge of "the mullahs of Iran and its sectarian gangs of corruption, murder and destruction."
The statement stressed that “the issue of Palestine is a major issue of the nation’s issues, no less than the issues of Damascus, Baghdad, Sana’a and Beirut, which are occupied by Iran’s sectarian militias,” and that “disregarding these issues for the sake of one cause is a form of betrayal, denial and division of the nation,” stressing that the Council He will remain with all the nation's issues, including the issue of Palestine.
The statements prior to condemning the Hamas decision are collected and issued by three parties: Palestinian, Iraqi and Syrian working in the field and suffering from the consequences of Iranian interference and its affiliates in these countries. The data included specific points:
Hamas' deviation from the Palestinian cause;
The rapprochement with Assad currently does not serve the Palestinian cause in anything.
clashing with the nation’s interest and failing its issues;
Because it means differentiating issues.
Hamas' lack of any legitimacy in its decision;
So far, no legal statement has been issued that establishes Hamas' legal position away from the vague and general interest statements.
Reconciliation with Assad does not constitute any political interest for the movement, but rather opens the door to corruption.
It was remarkable in the statement of the Syrian Islamic Council to insist on the unity of the nation's issues and equality between them, and that the issue of Palestine is like other issues;
It is not permissible to differentiate between them on the pretext of the priority of the Palestine issue, which is a response to Hamas' claim that its return to the Assad regime serves the "nation's causes."
These scholarly statements were corroborated by video comments made by Sheikh Muhammad Al-Hassan Ould Al-Dado last July, the preacher Wajdi Ghoneim in September, and others, all of which condemn what Hamas did and even forbid it according to Sharia.
And an observer of the reactions on social media and the questionnaires conducted by some media professionals (such as Ahmed Mansour and others) via Twitter, finds that the majority rejects Hamas’ decision, which means that there is an opposing public opinion.
In the face of this denouncing public opinion, a pro-Hamas statement was issued on September 20, 2022, titled: “A statement issued by a group of Palestinian scholars,” and that they “discussed” the issue of “Hamas’ direction to restore relations with Syria and its legitimate rule,” and then reached a conclusion: That "this approach is subject to the principles of legitimate politics based on a balance between conflicting interests and evils, and the movement has the right to do what it deems appropriate within this rule when the interest outweighs the interest of the Palestinian people and their resistance. Its support is obligatory for its Muslim brothers, because it defends the sanctities of the nation and seeks to liberate it."
The following brief statement is noted:
First:
It comes as an indirect response to the previous statements, apparently in an attempt by Hamas to legitimize its position and confront the previous statements that embarrassed it - legally - in front of its audience, especially since it tried to meet the Syrian Islamic Council in Istanbul more than once, but it refused.
Second:
The statement bore the title “A Collection of Palestinian Scholars,” but the reader discovers at the end of the statement that it is only a Ghazzawi statement, and bears the signature of 30 names, all of them from the Gaza Strip, which is ruled by Hamas, which raises a legitimate question about the rest of the lands of Palestine and its scholars, especially that we are talking about The liberation of holy sites and the question of Palestine as a whole, which cannot be reduced to Gaza, in addition to the freedom of opinion enjoyed by those in the Gaza Strip.
Third:
The statement suffices with general principles of legitimate policy based on balancing interests and evils without any statement of these evils and interests first, then how to evaluate them and weigh each aspect of them secondly, but it is sufficient - only - to entrust the matter to the decision of Hamas itself, which decides what it wants;
As the guardian of the Gaza Strip, which constitutes a return to the usual argument from the jurists of the authority.
Fourth:
The statements denying Hamas insist on the concept of the nation and the unity and interdependence of its issues, while the statement in support of Hamas turns to the borders of the Gaza Strip only and the interests of the “Palestinian people” from the perspective of the Gaza Strip and Hamas’ management of the Strip, as if the signatories see that the only legitimate mandate of the Palestinian people is the leadership Hamas is in Gaza, and therefore it is competent to decide (as the legal guardian) what it deems best for the “Palestinian people” as a whole, and they are not satisfied with that, but rather they oblige its “Muslim brothers” to support it in that and leave their issues for it.
These different statements bring us back to issues that we have already discussed in previous articles, and they can be summarized as:
-
The organizational frameworks and movements of the Islamic movements extended the idea of “legal interest” to legitimize their partisan political assessments, bypassing the basics of the idea of interest among the jurists, which is that the interest considered here is the one that was taken into account by the legislator itself, not in view of the political interests that are estimated by political actors are interests, and that the interests considered here They are the five necessary interests, and that public interests were assessed in pre-state jurisprudence by the guardian in the light of the unity of the authority or the ruling political system, but under the state, its estimation has come to be seized by several parties. Currently, the Gaza Strip group that believes that Gaza is first, and is leading the process of normalization with Assad and the restoration of the Iran alliance, especially that the head of the Hamas political office in the Gaza Strip, Yahya Al-Sinwar, has stated - since taking office in 2017 - that the movement sees no problem in restoring the relationship with the regime. the lion.
As I pointed out in a previous article, the classical jurisprudential discussion of “legal politics” was taking place in the presence of a state - in the historical sense - while the discussions of Islamists today have two new things:
First
: It was transferred from the field of jurisprudential and fundamental discipline to political fluidity with the Harkis.
And that it shifted from being a sultan or frontal policy in the eras before the national state to the political practice of the activists under the national state and its systems, and then the leadership of the Gaza Strip decided the interest of the Palestinian people as a whole, and the whole nation had to support it in its political choices, and here the Hamas mandate collided with statements Many scholars are morally and religiously exposed to their political choices, so they resorted to the brief statement that was signed only by a group of people from the Gaza Strip, and then it clearly reflects the horizon and thinking of the influential in the current Hamas leadership, which made the decision.
Second:
Hamas’ decision and the statement supporting it brings us back to the issue of the exceptionality of the Palestinian cause and its isolation from its Islamic and moral environment, and even derogation from the issues of Islamic peoples with which it shares the same moral principle. I have previously discussed in a previous article the danger of an exceptional idea for the Palestinian cause;
Because it means isolating the issue from the major moral principles from which it derives its legitimacy (such as truth, justice, and freedom);
Hence, the Palestinian issue turns into a special logic that is inconsistent with its likenesses and counterparts, while the Palestine issue is supposed to intersect with issues of national liberation and that liberation from occupation intersects with liberation from tyranny;
united by the same moral principle.
A purely pragmatic approach here would - if it were generalized - prejudice the support of the Palestinian cause and incite normalization as well.
On the scale of interests and corruptions, liquid and limited from the perspective of a movement or a state.
Also, considering the financial and military support as the only criterion for whom the resistance is allied with, and the only criterion for legitimizing the act, would harm the Palestinian cause itself.
It will lead to the fact that the end justifies the means, while the means remain a means and may be multiple, and it must in itself be legitimate and not that the end grants all means to it legitimacy.
Submission to the logic of a fluid necessity would - if we generalize it - lead to justifying normalization as well or to parallel necessities for the peoples of the region and their resistance movements to tyranny, and this would mean the disintegration of the concept of one nation on the impact of conflicting necessities.
The necessities of the Palestinians do not take precedence over the necessities of others.
The previous statements show that the conflict, with data and counter-data, has become a means used within the same camp, after it was taking place - in light of the Arab revolutions - between the camp of the revolutionaries on the one hand, and the camp of authoritarian regimes on the other, a remarkable decline in the concept of the unity of issues and principles, and a retreat On partial and minor interests.