Almost six months into the devastating war in Gaza, the rhetoric from Syrian officials concerning the conflict is rather vague. The Syrian leadership hails the resistance to Israel without necessarily referencing Hamas.
Syria’s domestic challenges as well as the Syrian government and Hamas’s checkered past do much to explain why President Bashar al-Assad’s regime is not giving Hamas significant support in this war, which was also the case during a previous but much less bloody Hamas-Israel conflict in 2014.
Syria first became a state sponsor of Hamas in the 1990s. American and Israeli pressure had contributed to Jordan’s decision to evict the Palestinian group’s exiled political leadership from Amman in 1999, resulting in Hamas’s external headquarters moving to Damascus in 2001 following a brief stay in Qatar. Damascus provided Hamas the freedom to train its militants on Syrian soil while the Syrian Ministry of Information became the venue for Hamas’s exiled political leadership to hold press conferences. This support was one major reason why the U.S. State Department has kept Syria on its “state sponsors of terrorism” list for so many years.
But the Syrian government’s relationship with Hamas drastically deteriorated after Hamas sided with Assad’s opponents after the Arab Spring erupted in 2011. By February 2012, the Damascus-Hamas rift resulted in the resistance organization’s politburo leaving Syria and relocating to Egypt and Qatar. At the time, Hamas’s political leader Ismail Haniyah declared, “I salute all people of the Arab Spring, or Islamic winter, and I salute the Syrian people who seek freedom, democracy, and reform.”
The relationship began to be repaired after Lebanon’s Hezbollah restored ties with Hamas in 2017. Qassem Soleimani, the late leader of Iran’s Quds Force, along with Hezbollah, put energy into efforts to reconcile Assad’s government and Hamas. In 2022, Damascus and the Palestinian resistance group formally resumed ties.
As the Gaza war rages on, Assad and other officials in Damascus have condemned Israel’s destruction of the besieged enclave and slaughter of its inhabitants and used powerful rhetoric to evoke the Palestinian cause. But Damascus has not been taking any concrete steps to support Hamas. There are two main reasons:
First, Syria is still shattered by more than a decade of civil war that killed hundreds of thousands of people, displaced millions, and destroyed many cities. Damascus doesn’t yet even control all Syrian land. Hayat Tahrir al-Sham and other jihadist groups rule the northwestern governorate of Idlib while the U.S. and its local partners control land in the northeast amounting to one-third of Syria’s territory. Still strangled by crippling Western sanctions—chiefly the American Caesar Act — Syria’s economy is in horrible shape. Put simply, the state is too weak to project power beyond its borders. It can’t even defend against repeated Israeli military strikes against primarily Iranian targets in Syria as evidenced by Israel’s assassination of an Iranian general in Damascus in December 2023 and air raids targeting the Aleppo and Damascus airports last year. Any Syrian retaliation against Israel for its war on Gaza could result in Damascus paying sky-high costs.
Second, despite resuming ties with Hamas, it would be naïve to assume that the leadership in Damascus no longer harbors any resentment toward the Palestinian group for having sided against Assad at the start of the Syrian crisis. Damascus might not feel obligated to support Hamas because of the bitterness left over from their 2011-12 falling out.
The Wider Geopolitical Context
Syria remains an important part of the Iran-led “axis of resistance” and the Islamic Republic exerts more influence in the country than any other Middle Eastern power. Tehran and Hezbollah would like to bring Damascus and Hamas back to their pre-Arab Spring relationship to tighten the unity of Iran-aligned actors in the region.
But Syria’s government also values its rapprochement with the United Arab Emirates (UAE), which in January dispatched an ambassador to Damascus for the first time since diplomatic relations were severed in 2012. The UAE is at the far end of a spectrum of Arab states that virulently oppose Muslim Brotherhood-linked groups in the region. Abu Dhabi perceives Hamas, which grew out of the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood in the 1980s, as threatening regional peace and security.
Along with other Western-backed Arab states, the UAE wants to try to pull Syria away from Iran’s orbit of influence and get Damascus’s foreign policy to align more closely with the Emirati vision of economic development for the Middle East. So far, U.S.-led economic sanctions are inhibiting Abu Dhabi’s plans, but if sanctions on Syria are lifted or at least eased, the UAE might invest seriously in Syrian reconstruction and redevelopment and possibly gain greater influence over the Assad regime. Other Arab states such as Bahrain, Jordan, and Saudi Arabia, which have also restored diplomatic relations with Damascus, have their own interests in rolling back Iranian influence in the Levant.
It is hard to envision these Sunni-led Arab states pulling Damascus and Hezbollah apart, especially given how much the Lebanese organization did to help Assad’s government survive. Yet, Emirati officials might have reason to be more optimistic about thwarting a full-fledged rapprochement between Damascus and Hamas.
It is unlikely that Syrian grievances over the Palestinian group’s decision to back anti-regime forces will disappear anytime soon. Nonetheless, the Assad government does not have the luxury of picking and choosing its friends in the Middle East. The regime will need to work with both state and non-state actors that are willing to cooperate with Damascus. That includes Hamas.
In this post-October 7, 2023, period, in which the question of Palestine has once again risen to the forefront of the international stage, Syria must approach Palestinian politics pragmatically. This will likely mean that Damascus will pursue some type of working relationship with Hamas and eventually let go of old grudges in the interest of countering Israeli and American clout. Yet, that point of full-fledged Assad-Hamas rapprochement might not come until the end of the current war in Gaza.
Giorgio Cafiero is the CEO of Gulf State Analytics, a Washington, DC-based geopolitical risk consultancy, and an adjunct assistant professor at Georgetown University.
Why Syria is So Silent About Hamas
By Giorgio Cafiero
Middle East & North Africa
Almost six months into the devastating war in Gaza, the rhetoric from Syrian officials concerning the conflict is rather vague. The Syrian leadership hails the resistance to Israel without necessarily referencing Hamas.
Syria’s domestic challenges as well as the Syrian government and Hamas’s checkered past do much to explain why President Bashar al-Assad’s regime is not giving Hamas significant support in this war, which was also the case during a previous but much less bloody Hamas-Israel conflict in 2014.
Syria first became a state sponsor of Hamas in the 1990s. American and Israeli pressure had contributed to Jordan’s decision to evict the Palestinian group’s exiled political leadership from Amman in 1999, resulting in Hamas’s external headquarters moving to Damascus in 2001 following a brief stay in Qatar. Damascus provided Hamas the freedom to train its militants on Syrian soil while the Syrian Ministry of Information became the venue for Hamas’s exiled political leadership to hold press conferences. This support was one major reason why the U.S. State Department has kept Syria on its “state sponsors of terrorism” list for so many years.
But the Syrian government’s relationship with Hamas drastically deteriorated after Hamas sided with Assad’s opponents after the Arab Spring erupted in 2011. By February 2012, the Damascus-Hamas rift resulted in the resistance organization’s politburo leaving Syria and relocating to Egypt and Qatar. At the time, Hamas’s political leader Ismail Haniyah declared, “I salute all people of the Arab Spring, or Islamic winter, and I salute the Syrian people who seek freedom, democracy, and reform.”
The relationship began to be repaired after Lebanon’s Hezbollah restored ties with Hamas in 2017. Qassem Soleimani, the late leader of Iran’s Quds Force, along with Hezbollah, put energy into efforts to reconcile Assad’s government and Hamas. In 2022, Damascus and the Palestinian resistance group formally resumed ties.
As the Gaza war rages on, Assad and other officials in Damascus have condemned Israel’s destruction of the besieged enclave and slaughter of its inhabitants and used powerful rhetoric to evoke the Palestinian cause. But Damascus has not been taking any concrete steps to support Hamas. There are two main reasons:
First, Syria is still shattered by more than a decade of civil war that killed hundreds of thousands of people, displaced millions, and destroyed many cities. Damascus doesn’t yet even control all Syrian land. Hayat Tahrir al-Sham and other jihadist groups rule the northwestern governorate of Idlib while the U.S. and its local partners control land in the northeast amounting to one-third of Syria’s territory. Still strangled by crippling Western sanctions—chiefly the American Caesar Act — Syria’s economy is in horrible shape. Put simply, the state is too weak to project power beyond its borders. It can’t even defend against repeated Israeli military strikes against primarily Iranian targets in Syria as evidenced by Israel’s assassination of an Iranian general in Damascus in December 2023 and air raids targeting the Aleppo and Damascus airports last year. Any Syrian retaliation against Israel for its war on Gaza could result in Damascus paying sky-high costs.
Second, despite resuming ties with Hamas, it would be naïve to assume that the leadership in Damascus no longer harbors any resentment toward the Palestinian group for having sided against Assad at the start of the Syrian crisis. Damascus might not feel obligated to support Hamas because of the bitterness left over from their 2011-12 falling out.
The Wider Geopolitical Context
Syria remains an important part of the Iran-led “axis of resistance” and the Islamic Republic exerts more influence in the country than any other Middle Eastern power. Tehran and Hezbollah would like to bring Damascus and Hamas back to their pre-Arab Spring relationship to tighten the unity of Iran-aligned actors in the region.
But Syria’s government also values its rapprochement with the United Arab Emirates (UAE), which in January dispatched an ambassador to Damascus for the first time since diplomatic relations were severed in 2012. The UAE is at the far end of a spectrum of Arab states that virulently oppose Muslim Brotherhood-linked groups in the region. Abu Dhabi perceives Hamas, which grew out of the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood in the 1980s, as threatening regional peace and security.
Along with other Western-backed Arab states, the UAE wants to try to pull Syria away from Iran’s orbit of influence and get Damascus’s foreign policy to align more closely with the Emirati vision of economic development for the Middle East. So far, U.S.-led economic sanctions are inhibiting Abu Dhabi’s plans, but if sanctions on Syria are lifted or at least eased, the UAE might invest seriously in Syrian reconstruction and redevelopment and possibly gain greater influence over the Assad regime. Other Arab states such as Bahrain, Jordan, and Saudi Arabia, which have also restored diplomatic relations with Damascus, have their own interests in rolling back Iranian influence in the Levant.
It is hard to envision these Sunni-led Arab states pulling Damascus and Hezbollah apart, especially given how much the Lebanese organization did to help Assad’s government survive. Yet, Emirati officials might have reason to be more optimistic about thwarting a full-fledged rapprochement between Damascus and Hamas.
It is unlikely that Syrian grievances over the Palestinian group’s decision to back anti-regime forces will disappear anytime soon. Nonetheless, the Assad government does not have the luxury of picking and choosing its friends in the Middle East. The regime will need to work with both state and non-state actors that are willing to cooperate with Damascus. That includes Hamas.
In this post-October 7, 2023, period, in which the question of Palestine has once again risen to the forefront of the international stage, Syria must approach Palestinian politics pragmatically. This will likely mean that Damascus will pursue some type of working relationship with Hamas and eventually let go of old grudges in the interest of countering Israeli and American clout. Yet, that point of full-fledged Assad-Hamas rapprochement might not come until the end of the current war in Gaza.
Giorgio Cafiero is the CEO of Gulf State Analytics, a Washington, DC-based geopolitical risk consultancy, and an adjunct assistant professor at Georgetown University.
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