Hamas hedging its bets in region
Hamas appears to have adopted a new regional policy of avoiding taking sides and nurturing good relations with anyone willing to accept the group.
Senior Hamas official Mousa Abu Marzouk met in mid-June in Beirut with Hezbollah Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah. Abu Marzouk arrived in Beirut following the expulsion from Qatar of several other top Hamas officials, most of whom had settled in the Gulf state after being freed from Israeli jails in the 2011 prisoner exchange for the Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit. Qatar had recently ordered them to leave, under pressure from Sunni Muslim states that regard the emirate as supporting terror.
Before traveling to Lebanon, Abu Marzouk met in Cairo with Egyptian intelligence chief Khaled Fawzy. In a certain sense, there seems to be a contradiction in these talks: How can senior Hamas officials, who have been assiduously courting Egypt in a bid for improved relations, be meeting with Nasrallah, a Cairo enemy and Iran ally? Moreover, is it possible that Hamas has found a way to extricate itself from the Catch-22 in which it is entangled without having to take sides?
