Common interests and divergent goals.. How do we understand the relationship between Hamas and Iran?

Usually the scene begins as follows: One of the leaders of Hamas goes out in a public conference, or a television interview, to thank Iran among a list of countries to which he is grateful.

As soon as Iran is mentioned, a lot of controversy accompanies it about the nature of the relationship between the two parties, as some consider Hamas a unique Sunni ally of the Shiite state at a time when sectarian conflicts in the region intensify on the impact of popular liberation efforts, and struggles for hegemony and international and regional influence, which further complicates the scene. And it raises questions about the nature of the relationship, and how Hamas manages it in light of all these changes and challenges.

However, to better understand the relations between Hamas and Tehran, it may be better for us to return to the roots of the Palestinian-Iranian relations that began at the end of the nineteenth century.

When Iran opened a representative in Palestine to take care of the affairs of its merchants there, its presence continued until the establishment of the Israeli occupation state in 1948, when a distinguished relationship was established between the two parties, based on the Israeli strategy known as "tightening the parties", which requires alliance with the countries surrounding the Arab world , such as Iran, Turkey and Ethiopia, with the aim of besieging it from its outskirts.

Muhammad Reza Pahlavi

Indeed, a nascent alliance took root between Israel and the Shah of Iran, "Mohammed Reza Pahlavi"; who supplied it with oil and imported many goods from it, and sponsored security cooperation between the Iranian state security apparatus “SAVAK” and the Israeli Mossad with the aim of pursuing the Iranian opposition, and also supported the Egyptian-Israeli settlement process, described the armed Palestinian struggle as a “terrorist” act, and fought all manifestations of sympathy With Palestine, in parallel with his fight against his Iranian opponents. But as soon as the Shah’s regime collapsed, and the Islamic Revolution was established in 1979, Ayatollah Khomeini adopted an opposite position on Israel, seeing Zionism as an enemy of Iran and Islam, and a cancerous gland that must be eradicated.

On the political level, the leaders of the Iranian revolution had other aims to ally with the Palestinian revolution. This would make them popular in the Arab and Islamic world, which considers Palestine its first cause, and gave the Islamic Revolution an effective tool to extend its soft influence. Indeed, once the Shah was overthrown, Iran withdrew its recognition of Israel and expelled its diplomatic mission. It replaced the offices of the Israeli diplomatic representation with the offices of the Palestinian embassy, ​​and provided political and financial support to the Palestinian revolution and its representative, the Liberation Organization.

However, the relationship between Tehran and the PLO quickly declined for reasons, foremost of which is the ideological dispute, as the organization’s secularism emerged as an obstacle to Iran’s efforts to Islamize the Palestinian revolution, as ideological factors were very important in determining the policies of the Iranian revolution in its early years, in addition to the clarity of the organization’s tendency to Iraq during The first Gulf War due to pressure exerted by the nationalist forces within the organization.

Signing of the Oslo Accords in 1993

Despite this, the relationship between the two parties held until the signing of the Palestinian-Israeli peace agreement in 1993, known as the Oslo Agreement, which fired a bullet of mercy on the fragile alliance, after Tehran accused the organization of abandoning the resistance and compromising the rights of the Palestinians. In parallel, Iran found a new ally closer to it ideologically on the Palestinian arena, the Islamic Jihad movement, which split from the Muslim Brotherhood in 1980, and saw the Iranian revolution as an inspiring model, but its size and activity did not allow it to play the role of the strong ally that Tehran aspires to.

This possible alternative surfaced after the Muslim Brotherhood in Palestine announced the establishment of the Islamic Resistance Movement, Hamas, in 1987, which quickly rose to prominence due to its leadership of the first Palestinian uprising that erupted at the end of that same year. Three years after its establishment, the relationship between Hamas and Iran began to form in 1990, when delegations from the movement visited Iran, and a diplomatic representative office for the movement was opened there in 1992, which represented Iranian recognition of the central role that Hamas plays in Palestine.

Israel's deportation of hundreds of Hamas leaders to southern Lebanon in 1992 was an important milestone in the relations between the Palestinian movement, the Lebanese Hezbollah, Tehran's ally in Lebanon, and the Iranian Revolutionary Guards.

When the leader and founder of Hamas, Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, was released in 1998, he visited Tehran and met both the Supreme Leader of the revolution, Ayatollah Khamenei, and the Iranian president at the time, Muhammad Khatami.

After the relationship was strengthened, Tehran provided political and financial support, military manufacturing technology, in addition to military training for the movement's fighters.

Hamas increased its importance and centrality in the eyes of Iran after its victory in the legislative elections in 2006, as it moved from being a resistance movement and a political faction in opposition to the Palestinian government, which called on Tehran to double its support for it, and it pledged to provide 50 million dollars per month to this government, and in return it was for the international boycott. And the regionalism of the Hamas government is instrumental in pushing the movement towards closer relations with Iran.

The spring of the relationship between the two parties continued until the Arab Spring came and its winds reached Syria, the residence of the Hamas leadership, and the capital of the most important regional ally of the Iranian leadership. The most important thing in its history is the test of its strategic relationship with Tehran, facing an unprecedented challenge.

When the Arab Spring began in Tunisia and then Egypt, Iran was pleased with what it described as an "Islamic revolution" in those countries, but as soon as this spring arrived in Syria, Tehran quickly viewed it as an "international conspiracy against the resistance."

However, Hamas, with its Sunni and popular heritage, did not accept the official Iranian or Syrian narrative. Rather, it preempted the winds of the Arab Spring by advising the Syrian leadership to carry out proactive reforms. However, this advice fell on deaf ears.

At the beginning of the revolution, Hamas tried to adhere to its traditional policy of not interfering in the internal politics of countries, but this position was not accepted by both parties. The people and the regime, so it moved to a state of positive neutrality by trying to mediate between the two parties during the events of Daraa, taking advantage of its good relations with both of them, but the regime asked the movement to stop its efforts, and this was followed by a request for a statement clarifying its position on the events, and indeed the movement issued a statement that did not satisfy the regime, Who wanted to employ the cause of the resistance and its support for its factions in its struggle with the revolution.

As part of these regular efforts, the "Popular Front - General Command", a Palestinian faction close to the Syrian regime, sought to form a factional force to maintain security in the camps, which Hamas rejected as an attempt to involve the factions in the Syrian battle, but the regime was not tired; He called for a public meeting between the factions and the Syrian president, after which he issued a statement of support, a meeting that the movement that decided to leave Damascus evaded, after it was certain that maintaining mere neutrality had become impossible as long as its leadership resided on Syrian territory.

But the movement was not satisfied with maintaining a policy of non-interference after its departure from Damascus, but its bias towards the Syrian people appeared. The movement’s head in the Gaza Strip at the time, Ismail Haniyeh, expressed his support for the Syrian revolution in a speech from the Al-Azhar pulpit. He taught the Syrian revolution, and stated in a speech at the Jerusalem Conference from Tehran in 2012 that his movement "is with all peoples in their tireless and legitimate quest for freedom, reform, justice, democracy and fighting corruption and tyranny." Some of the movement's members also fought within the factions of the Syrian revolution, in the north of Syria and in the Yarmouk camp. In which they formed the Aknaf Bayt Al-Maqdis faction.

The exit of Hamas from Syria and its support for the revolution later came as a shock to Iran, which reduced its support for the movement, and its media and the media of its agents launched an attack on Hamas that amounted to accusing it of treason. Iran to resume military support for the movement, while trying to distinguish between the military wing in the Gaza Strip and the leadership of the political movement. Indeed, some discrepancies appeared in the discourse and positions between the two parties, as the military’s appreciation of the importance of Iranian military support prompted them to express rapprochement with Iran, While the political leadership residing abroad was more sensitive to any expressions of this kind; Due to the frequent mixing with the Islamic popular forces that suffer from Iranian regional policies.

In the background of the scene, the role of Egypt and the Gulf states, led by Saudi Arabia, cannot be overlooked, which spared no effort to distance Hamas from Iran by encouraging it to leave Syria and conduct Palestinian reconciliation with the aim of including it in a Sunni political alignment in the face of Shiite Iran. What happened in the Cairo Agreement in 2011 and the Doha Agreement in 2012. However, these countries did not provide a political, financial or military alternative that would dispense Hamas with its relationship with Iran, but rather pushed it towards accepting the two-state solution and Abbas’s leadership of the Palestinian political system, and not only that, in conjunction with The military coup against the Brotherhood’s rule in Egypt in mid-2013, these forces began to exert unprecedented pressure on the movement, which weakened the feasibility of betting on the “Sunni camp” to achieve the goal of the movement’s emergence, which is to resist the occupation until it is completely removed from Palestine.

Simultaneously, Donald Trump assumed the presidency of the United States, and Washington withdrew from the nuclear agreement with Iran, and adopted a policy of "maximum pressure" on it, adding additional reasons for the renewed rapprochement between Hamas and Iran. Based on these considerations, the relationship between the two sides gradually improved, at the end of the term of the former head of the movement’s political bureau, Khaled Meshaal, in 2017, and this trend was strengthened with the transfer of the matter to Ismail Haniyeh, who comes from the Gaza Strip, which Tehran considers closer to it than Meshaal.

The features of this rapprochement appeared in the movement’s frequent visits to Tehran, and the emergence of statements regarding the “unity of the fronts,” meaning that the resistance forces would fight the war together if Israel attacked any of them, and the increase in public expressions of the alliance between the two parties, some of which sparked widespread controversy and reactions in Arab public opinion in several stations, most notably Haniyeh’s description of the Quds Force commander in the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, Qassem Soleimani, after his death in an American strike in early 2020, as “the martyr of Jerusalem.”

In the last battle between Hamas and Israel, which Hamas called "the sword of Jerusalem", a symbolic participation appeared across the Lebanese border, represented in the firing of three bursts of primitive missiles, which would not have happened without the approval of Hezbollah, which completely controls southern Lebanon, and its importance lies In sending a warning to Israel that things might escalate into a confrontation on its northern front if its war with the Gaza Strip continues, but the size of this participation fell short of the expectations that were talking about the “consistency of the resistance fronts”, which raises the question about the limits of truth and propaganda in these statements, and the limits of the agreement. And the difference between the parties to the alleged "axis of resistance".

The interests of both Iran and Hamas converge in confronting the Zionist influence in the region, as well as the US rejection of each of them. Tension and hostility have dominated US relations with Iran since the revolution against the Shah’s regime in 1979, and the subsequent hostage-taking crisis in the US embassy. . The United States also classified Hamas as a terrorist movement due to its work resisting the Israeli occupation.

As a result, Iran sees its support for Hamas as a way to enhance its regional influence and justify its expansionist policies known as "exporting the revolution." It needs a Sunni ally that increases its ability to operate in its Arab and Islamic environment, breaks the character of sectarian fanaticism in its regional policies, and guarantees it a foothold. He was hardened in the Palestinian issue because of the political importance it bears, which lies in the ability to antagonize Washington and Tel Aviv. The security dimension in Tehran's view of the Palestine issue also cannot be ignored, as creating an advanced line of defense with the occupation exempts Iran from waging direct wars with Israel or the United States.

On the domestic level, the Iranian regime uses the Palestinian cause to enhance its internal legitimacy, and support for the resistance is a material for political competition and outbidding between conservatives and reformists in the context of competition for power and local resources. On the other hand, through strengthening this relationship, Hamas seeks to form a political and military front to weaken Israel’s hegemony and regional influence, to strengthen the movement’s political legitimacy and its resistance project, and to provide financial and military support such as training, weapons and military industrialization techniques.

In order to control the pace of the relationship and to distance itself from drifting towards Tehran’s sectarian and expansionist project, Hamas places solid determinants of its relationship with Iran, as it seeks to keep it within the limits of military and political cooperation devoted to confronting the occupation. There is no relationship with a cultural dimension, such as educational exchange, for example, nor acceptance of Shiism, nor attribution or support for Iran's policies in the Arab region. In fact, Hamas has reserved for itself - practically - the right to oppose Tehran's regional policies, as happened previously in the Syrian file.

The Biden administration's tendency to restore the nuclear agreement with Iran poses a new challenge to the relationship of the two parties, as it contributes to strengthening the reformist current in it, which adopts a policy less hostile to Israel, but rather tends to "accept what the Palestinians accept", a statement that constitutes an entry point for retreating from the declared historical policy. The Iranian revolution asserted that Israel is a usurper state that has no right to exist. The impact of this trend appeared after the signing of the nuclear agreement in 2015, when the Iranian leadership began to strengthen its relationship with the Palestinian Authority after a long-term chill with it, at the expense of its relationship with Hamas.

Another important challenge is the divergence of the two sides’ priorities and real goals. While their interest in weakening and depleting Israel coincides, they may differ on the priority of the fronts, as Iran is keen to avoid any war on its territory, and rather prefers that confrontations with its opponents be on another land, whether it is Gaza Or Lebanon, or Syria, or Iraq, or Yemen.

This trend carries the risk of Gaza being dragged into a confrontation with the occupation, without a decision from Hamas, which Iran may seek in the event that it feels more threatened.

The impact of this challenge is increased by the difficulty that the movement faces in maintaining the balance of its regional relations by building relations that cross political divisions in the region and the world, due to the tendency of many Arab countries to rapprochement with Israel and the normalization of relations with it, and the limited ceiling of political and financial support for some other countries. , which makes the movement forced to rely on Iran.

Employing the sectarian dimension in Iran’s regional policies also poses an important challenge to the relationship, because of what it creates of a popular atmosphere that does not understand the existence of a relationship between a Sunni resistance movement and a Shiite state with a sectarian agenda, especially in light of Hamas’ pride in its Sunni identity, and its rejection of attempts to spread Shiism in Palestine, which is what It caused friction between the two sides when Iran's support for the "Al-Sabireen" movement emerged, which split from the Islamic Jihad movement and established a "Husseiniyya" in Gaza. Hamas responded harshly. It disbanded the organization, confiscated its weapons, and arrested its members, based on its conviction that creating a sectarian division in Palestine would only serve the occupation project.

On a parallel level, Saudi Arabia’s efforts to employ the sectarian division as a pillar of regional influence, and to export itself as a leader of the Sunni camp in the face of the Shiites, creates climates that make it more difficult to manage the relationship between Hamas and Iran. These efforts, along with Iran’s sectarian policies, have contributed to the spread of a theory in The Arab and Islamic community believes that the number one enemy is Iran, not Israel, not to mention the efforts made by the Kingdom and its allies to isolate Hamas from Iran, but without offering it an alternative that preserves its anti-occupation identity.

In the midst of this environment full of challenges, Hamas and Iran are increasingly aware of the thorns in their relationship, and they are trying to avoid them as much as possible. Rather, they are showing increasing keenness to consolidate this relationship and reap its increasing fruits, but at the same time they realize that the matter between them is nothing more than a convergence of interests. In the face of the occupation and international and regional pressures, and that the relationship was - and will remain - far from the alliance, in its true sense that everyone is talking about.

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Sources:

Amin Mustafa, Iran and Palestine between two eras, Arab Center for Research and Documentation.

 Raed Shnior, The Rapprochement between Iran and Hamas: Between Necessity and Choice, MA thesis, Birzeit University, pp. 33-35.

 Raed Shnior, The Rapprochement between Iran and Hamas: Between Necessity and Choice, MA thesis, Birzeit University.

 Wedad Ghazi, The Iranian Position on the Palestinian Parties (Hamas Movement as a Model), Al-Mustansiriya Journal for Arab and International Studies.