From: Ryan Mauro
Hamas officials are now making it clear that the terrorist group plans to stay out of any war between Israel and Iran. One unnamed official even said that the group hopes that Israel stops Iran’s nuclear ambitions. When it comes down to it, even Hamas knows that Israel isn’t its greatest threat.
A member of Hamas’ political bureau in Gaza City, Salah Bardawil, said that Hamas would not necessarily attack Israel in response to a strike on Iran. “If there is a war between two powers, Hamas will not be a part of such a war,” he said. He emphasized to the Guardian that Hamas and Iran are from two different branches of Islam and admitted that Iran cut funding to the group two years ago.
The alliance between Iran and Hamas was thought to be nearly ironclad, but the conflict in Syria has changed things. Hamas originally tried to stay neutral as the revolution in Syria escalated, but it eventually broke away from the regime. Iran is fully-backing the secularist Assad regime and Hamas and the Muslim Brotherhood fully-back the opposition.
Iran stopped giving Hamas about $23 million per month, says one expert in Gaza. The terrorist group’s financial woes and poor management are making it lose support among Palestinians. Hamas increased taxes on products brought into Gaza from Israel and the West Bank. Some merchants refused to pay the tax and protested by keeping their 22 trucks at the border for three weeks.
The conflict between Sunni and Shiite Islamists has made the Israeli-Palestinian conflict a sideshow, as I explained in FrontPage Magazine in January. Turkey sees the writing on the wall and is warning that the region faces a “new Cold War.”
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