Osama Hamdan, Hamas’ international relations chief, stated that after the Tehran-affiliated delegation’s visit, he hoped that the visit would mark a new beginning of “cooperation between Hamas and the Islamic Republic of Iran” as tensions between the two have escalated recently when senior Hamas leader, Moussa Abu Marzouk, stated that Iran has not supported the Gaza-based terror group since 2009; a revelation by Marzouk that was revealed in a leaked phone call published in Arab media. Hamdan went on to state that the general atmosphere between Hamas and the Iranian leadership delegation was “very positive,” so much so that Iranian media was on hand to reiterate Hamdan’s high praise of Iran and its leadership delegation: “Iran’s support of the Palestinian resistance did not stop, even during the nuclear negotiations.”
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Hamas has been supporting the Syrian opposition against Bashar Assad for quite some time now and Iran has made it known to Hamas that they were not pleased. The decision by Hamas to support the Syrian opposition led to deteriorated relations between Hamas and Iran, which resulted in Hamas being cut off from Iranian support. However, with this ‘new and improved’ relationship between Hamas and Iran, that may change despite Hamas being a Sunni organization.
This ‘new and improved’ relationship is not without its critics who state that Hamas is, in essence, paying lip-service to Iran whilst it contradicts the “public supporters’ opinion” and is not in “keeping with the ‘Muslim Brotherhood’ ideology which Hamas has been associated with for decades now.” This attempt by Hamas’ Hamdan to fall back in the good graces of Iran was to be expected. Once the Iran deal was made and sanctions lifted, Iran went “shopping” on a global market and as their economy grows exponentially, they’ll be able to reward the “good behavior” of those who share (obey?) their hardliner ideologies, including Hamas, the new and improved Iranian lap-dog.
News of Hamas plotting to kill Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu was cleared for release as this article was being written. Considering the clear hatred Hamas and Iran have for Israel and her people, it doesn’t take much to draw the correlation that this act would have definitely put Hamas back in Iran’s good graces whilst greatly rewarding Hamas had this heinous deed actually taken place.
