HAMAS DELEGATION MEETS SYRIA’S ASSAD IN DAMASCUS (VIDEO)

Thu 20 October 2022:

Syrian President, Bashar Al-Assad, met Wednesday in Damascus with representatives of Palestinian factions, including Hamas group, Anadolu News Agency reports.

“We are restoring our relations with Syria with the consensus of our leadership,” senior Hamas leader, Khalil Al-Hayya told a press conference.

“We have overcome the past,” he said, terming Wednesday’s meeting with Al-Assad as “historic” and “positive”.

Al-Hayya described the meeting as a “natural response to Israeli schemes against the Palestinian cause.”

“We are a united nation and resistance in the face of Zionist projects,” he said. “Syria is supportive of the cause and the Palestinians, and we assured President Al-Assad that we are with a united Syria.”

He added that the movement’s decision to sever ties with Damascus and its support for the anti-government rebels was a “mistake,” adding the decision to restore relations with Syrian government was unanimously made by Hamas leadership.

Syrian government published a video of Assad and al-Hayya holding hands as they walked with other Palestinian officials.

HAMAS INSISTS ON RENEWING TIES WITH THE REGIME OF BASHAR AL-ASSAD: SYRIAN BROTHERHOOD

Since 1999, Hamas had used Damascus as the headquarters for its leadership abroad, until 2012 when the Palestinian group severed relations with the regime and closed its offices in Syria following the eruption of the Syrian conflict.

Last month, Hamas said it will pursue efforts to normalise relations with the Syrian regime.

Hamas’ origins go back to the Muslim Brotherhood, whose Syrian branch was one of the leading factions in the armed opposition after Syria’s civil war broke out.

Hamas officials have said they broke ties with the Brotherhood in 2017.

Criticism

In July Muslim scholars urged Hamas to reconsider its recent decision to restore relations with Syria’s Assad regime.

Stressing that the move contains major wrongdoings, the International Union of Muslim Scholars (IUMS) said in a statement that “the decision that contradicts principles, values, and Islamic law, needs to be reviewed by taking into consideration the points raised by the Muslim scholars.”

The Syrian Muslim Brotherhood also said that Hamas had turned down a request made by several prominent Muslim scholars to stop its contacts with the Syrian regime.

Sheikh Moutee’ Al-Buteen, official spokesman of the council, accused Hamas of siding with the sectarian Iranian axis, “the enemy of the Muslim Ummah, which exploits the Palestine issue and sheds blood in Syria, Iraq and Yemen.”

HAMAS AS WE REMEMBER IT, AND THE REALITY TODAY

Al-Buteen warned that Hamas would lose the popular support of Muslims should it reestablish its relations with the Syrian regime.

Many experts have argued that restoring relations with the Assad regime of the killer Bashar, in return for little benefit from Damascus, it will lose the support of the Arab masses who sympathised with the movement and the Palestinian cause, and who saw in Hamas hope and a model that adheres to the values and principles of Islam?

The masses are the movement’s popular base. Unfortunately, it may not realise that it is sowing the seeds of its own demise. Article 32 of the movement’s Charter issued in April 2017, says: “Hamas stresses the necessity of maintaining the independence of Palestinian national decision-making. Outside forces should not be allowed to intervene.” I hope that it looks at this clause and takes it into account before making any rash moves that it may come to regret.

He accused Hamas of prioritising its own interests over the interests of the Muslim Ummah and the nations that support it.

Relations between Hamas and the Syrian regime were cut in 2012, following the outbreak of the Syrian revolution and the movement’s departure from the Syrian capital, Damascus.

SOURCE: INDEPENDENT PRESS AND NEWS AGENCIES

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