The three-year old Syrian crisis presents dire dilemmas for Palestinians in the Occupied Palestinian Territories (OPT) and in refugee camps across the Middle East. Given Syria’s traditional role as a sponsor of Palestinian resistance movements and a home to hundreds of thousands of refugees, Palestinian leaders are understandably torn [...]]]>
The three-year old Syrian crisis presents dire dilemmas for Palestinians in the Occupied Palestinian Territories (OPT) and in refugee camps across the Middle East. Given Syria’s traditional role as a sponsor of Palestinian resistance movements and a home to hundreds of thousands of refugees, Palestinian leaders are understandably torn between loyalties to President Bashar al-Assad and his enemies.
Palestinians have fought in Syria on behalf of both the regime and the rebels. The conflict has deepened ideological and political wedges between Palestinians and complicated their patchwork of international alliances. Moreover, as various proxy battles are waged within Palestinian refugee camps in Syria, the Palestinian refugees there are now enduring an underreported humanitarian crisis.
Syria’s Role in the Palestinian Resistance
Historical bonds between Palestinian resistance movements, refugees, and the Syrian government have complicated Palestinian attitudes toward the grinding civil war in Syria. In 1948, 90,000 Palestinians fled to Syria as refugees. Since then, several hundred thousand more have arrived and settled in large refugee camps, such as Yarmouk in Damascus.
Syria has been more than just a host to refugees—it has actively fomented Palestinian resistance to Israel. The Syrian government armed, financed, and protected various left-leaning Palestinian guerilla groups that were established in Yarmouk during the 1960s. Two of these groups included the People’s Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), a Marxist-Leninist group founded in 1967, and the People’s Front for the Liberation of Palestine-General Council (PFLP-GC), established in 1968 as a splinter group from the PFLP.
The Assad regime has also funded Islamist Palestinian movements. After Jordanian authorities kicked Hamas’ leadership out of Amman in 1999, the Palestinian group establishedits political bureau in Damascus and received weaponry, financial assistance, and political support from the Syrian regime.
This partnership was ideologically paradoxical for the rigidly secular Assad regime. Hamas is an offshoot of the Muslim Brotherhood, whose Syrian branch waged an uprising against the Syrian regime from 1976-1982. The uprising ended with a regime-led offensive against rebel-controlled Hama—Syria’s third-largest city—that left tens of thousands of civilians dead and still rallies jihadist rebels against the Assad regime. Despite this bloody history, Bashar al-Assad’s support for groups such as Hamas (and the more radical Palestinian Islamic Jihad) played into Syria’s grander geostrategic strategy of countering Israel’s military dominance in the Levant by arming anti-Israel proxy networks.
A Resistance Divided
The outbreak of violence in Syria complicated Damascus’ relationship with these resistance groups, strengthening its ties with certain secular Palestinian currents but sundering them with most of the Islamists. Assad’s Palestinian backers have generally framed their narratives of the Syrian crisis around a Western-backed conspiracy to overthrow the only Arab regime that remains willing to confront Israel. The Palestinian supporters of the rebellion, however, view Assad as a dictator responsible for killing his own people. Rebel supporters are quick to bring up the massacre of Palestinian refugees at the Lebanese camp of Tel al-Zaatar in 1976, for which Hafez al-Assad’s forces bore responsibility.
The PFLP-GC and the West Bank-based Arab Socialist Ba’ath Party have thrown their weight behind Assad, as have several prominent religious and civil society figures in the West Bank—including Bishop Atallah Hanna (the Greek Orthodox Archbishop of Sebastia), Murad al-Sudani (Secretary-General of the Palestinian Writers’ Union), and Adel Samara (a left-leaning intellectual). Hamas, however, severed ties with the Assad regime and openly declared support for the Free Syrian Army (FSA). Meanwhile, certain Gaza-based Salafist factions, including the Mujahedeen Shura Council in the Environs of Jerusalem, have supported the al-Qaeda-affiliated Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS), even after al-Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahri disavowed the notorious Syrian rebel group this past January. According to Mohammed Hijazi, an expert on Islamist movements in Gaza, “scores of Salafists in Gaza” have traveled to Syria to fight alongside ISIS and other al-Qaeda-linked groups.
Meanwhile, Fatah, the dominant party within the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) and the Palestinian Authority (PA), has been forced to take a neutral stance on the Syria conflict while also trying to stand up for the safety of Palestinians inside Syria. Mahmoud Abbas, the leader of the PA as well as the PLO, is currently preoccupied with peace negotiations with Israel. Abbas does not want to antagonize the Syrian government or the Palestinian groups it supports. Yet he also does not want to invest his already limited political capital in supporting a regime that has committed serious human rights violations. Nor does he want to alienate the Obama administration, which he needs on his side to pressure Israel over sensitive topics like settlements or the right of return. Additionally, both pro- and anti-Assad groups within the Palestinian resistance stand to gain political capital if the PLO’s seemingly moribund peace negotiations with Israel ultimately fail and more Palestinians become convinced that a peaceful solution to the conflict with Israel cannot be found.
As these divisions simmer, Palestinian refugee camps in Syria have become sites of violent clashes between Palestinian and Syrian groups with opposing stakes in the conflict. When many analysts expected the regime to lose control of Damascus, the PFLP-GC militants fought against rebels in the capital, leading anti-Assad forces to target the Yarmouk camp, precipitating a serious humanitarian crisis. Food and medicine supplies were cut as the Syrian Army laid siege to the camp in July 2013. The government was able to negotiate a fragile ceasefire to bring aid into Yarmouk, but on March 2, the al-Qaeda-affiliated rebel group Jabhat al-Nusra moved in and imposed its own siege. Although the PFLP-GC retains significant support and influence among the refugees, the Free Syrian Army has made inroads in the area as the siege continues.
Both sides in the Syrian conflict espouse the Palestinian cause and accuse the other of serving Israel’s interests. Officials in Damascus claim that Israel sponsors the insurgents to destabilize the last Arab state willing to confront Tel Aviv. The Islamist rebels, however, criticize the Assad regime for pacifying Syria’s border with Israel for the last four decades and failing to re-conquer the occupied Golan Heights. Certain elements within the Islamist rebellion havestated their intentions to “liberate” Palestine after they “liberate” Syria by toppling the Ba’athist regime in Damascus, however ill-equipped they are to truly challenge Israel on the battlefield. Thus, both sides play the “Palestinian card” to attack the other while appealing to wider pan-Arab and pan-Islamic trends in the Middle East.
Shifting Geopolitical Winds
As the Syrian crisis enters its fourth year, the evolution of the conflict could have major implications for Palestinians.
Following several Israeli bombings of strategic sites in Syria, Assad has threatened to retaliate against Israel. Ultimately, given that the Syrian Army is bogged down fighting the insurgents, it is doubtful that Damascus would initiate an Arab-Israeli war. However, if Assad does retaliate, the Palestinians—particularly those living in Israel proper—will have much at stake.
Iran is also a factor. When Iran and Hamas’ relationship cooled as a consequence of their opposing stakes in the Syrian crisis, Iran cut its support for Hamas and increased its assistance to the PFLP and Palestinian Islamic Jihad. Although Iran and Hamas achieved a rapprochement in late 2013, ultimately agreeing to disagree on Syria, it appears that Iran’s renewed support for Hamas has not come at the expense of its sponsorship of these other groups, which have been at odds with Hamas for many years due to various political disputes. Since Hamas ended its relationship with the Assad regime and the Egyptian military ousted the Muslim Brotherhood government in Cairo, the Gaza-based group has been hard pressed to find foreign sponsors. Within this context, Hamas has been careful not to antagonize Iran by clamping down on Palestinian Islamic Jihad and other Gaza-based groups that have violated Israel-Hamas ceasefires. Therefore, the Syrian crisis has forced Hamas to recognize other political powers in Gaza as a consequence of Iranian pressure.
The potential for Salafist groups, such as ISIS and Jabhat al-Nusra, to carve out a de factoIslamic emirate in parts of northern Syria could send reverberations through the West Bank and Gaza as well. In both territories, Palestinian Salafist groups have challenged Fatah and Hamas’ authority in several ways, including by launching terrorist attacks. Gaza-based Salafists, meanwhile, have traveled to Syria to fight alongside ISIS. With such currents gaining greater power in the Egyptian Sinai, Lebanon, and western Iraq, al-Qaeda’s dream of establishing a borderless Islamic emirate in the Levant will continue to impact the regional environment. Under such circumstances, Hamas will likely be compelled to strike a balance between leading the jihad against Israel while simultaneously restraining other groups that seek to steal the resistance banner as Hamas engages in ceasefire negotiations with Israeli authorities.
As the Syrian crisis appears to have no easy solution in sight and the Palestinians’ internal divisions are unlikely to resolve in the near-term, the Syrian conflict’s polarizing impact will likely be felt within the Palestinian population for the foreseeable future. Of course, while the stateless Palestinians have less capacity to influence events in Syria compared to major regional powers that are heavily involved in the conflict, nearly all Palestinians understand that their people have high stakes in Syria.
Sam Badger is a graduate teaching associate of philosophy and graduate student at San Francisco State University. Giorgio Cafiero is a Washington, D.C.-based foreign affairs analyst and a regular contributor to the Huffington Post.
*This article was first published by Foreign Policy in Focus and was reprinted here with permission.
Photo: This photo taken in January 2014 shows residents of Yarmouk, a neighborhood of Palestinians in Syria, lining up as far as the eye can see to receive food supplies. The grinding civil war has exacerbated political divisions in the Palestinian resistance and left ordinary Palestinians open to attacks from fighters on both sides of the conflict.
]]>by Robert E. Hunter
With the collapse of the latest round of negotiations over Syria’s future, the tragedy of its people — of all ethnic and religious backgrounds — continues into its third year. Military forces loyal to President Bashar al-Assad are doing better than was expected a few months ago. The [...]]]>
by Robert E. Hunter
With the collapse of the latest round of negotiations over Syria’s future, the tragedy of its people — of all ethnic and religious backgrounds — continues into its third year. Military forces loyal to President Bashar al-Assad are doing better than was expected a few months ago. The opposition, a heterogeneous group directing their disparate energies to the common goal of ending Assad’s rule, is increasingly dominated by Islamist extremists. Meanwhile no outside country has been prepared to act to bring the conflict to a halt and take responsibility for what comes next.
The phrase “outside country” is assumed to mean the United States, ignoring the fact that Europe is far closer and, as hundreds of thousands of refugees flee Syria, many will find their way to that continent rather than America. But the European Union is in dis-union over economics, uncertain of its foreign policy future — though it has now succeeded in Ukraine where the US failed — and still expects Washington to look after shared Western interests in the Middle East.
For the US to take the lead and pursue effective diplomacy, it must decide what final outcome to Syrian fighting will best suit American interests and values — begging the question of whether the US or anyone else can determine results. Washington has still not made this decision. If and when it does, it must also convince its friends and allies in the region to follow suit and, in the case of some of them, to stop poisoning the well. As of now, that course is unlikely, as each regional country pursues its own interests, heedless of the best interests of the Syrian people as a whole.
Much of what has been happening in Syria stems from the political, cultural, economic, and — to a degree — religious earthquake that began in Tunisia in December 2010, and spread to Libya, Egypt, Yemen and Bahrain, sweeping up Syria in the process. But what is happening in Syria has proved to be more complicated and perhaps more consequential than what has been happening in the other “Arab Spring” countries. Unlike Libya, Syria is not remote from the rest of the region; unlike Bahrain, its struggles are already spilling over onto other countries; and Syria’s turmoil is impacting other US foreign policy concerns, including negotiations with Iran and those between Israel and the Palestinians.
To begin with, the Syrian civil war has become part of the age-old struggle between the descendants of the Prophet — Sunni vs. Shia. The latest round began when the 2003 US-led invasion of Iraq toppled a Sunni minority government that had for centuries dominated its Shia majority. For Sunni states, especially Saudi Arabia, Qatar, the UAE, and to a degree Turkey, Syria is payback time. That means doing all they can, both directly and with whatever support they can muster from the US and Europe, to depose Assad and, with his departure, the political dominance of the minority Alawites (a Shia sect).
Syria has also become a surrogate struggle for preeminence in the region, pitting Saudi Arabia and other Gulf Arabs against Iran and perhaps also Turkey. To top it off, rich Sunnis in Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and the UAE have been providing inspiration, cash, and thus access to arms to al-Qaeda and other terrorist organizations to operate in Syria, just as they have been operating in Yemen, Pakistan, and Afghanistan, in the last-named country killing Americans and other troops in the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF). The Saudi government has not been directly involved, but it has not stopped the heinous practice, while the US has turned a blind eye.
Further, at the behest of Saudi Arabia and Israel, the US has blocked Iran’s participation in the Geneva talks on Syria, a sine qua non for success that might give Iran some incentive to reduce its own destructive role in Syria as well as Lebanon, a role motivated in part to show that Iran cannot be excluded from planning over the region’s future.
Unfortunately, by proclaiming two years ago that “Assad must go,” President Barack Obama fell into a trap and made himself and the United States handmaidens to Sunni and Saudi-led political objectives. The premise of diplomacy has thus been “transition” beyond the Assad regime, rather than just searching for an end to the conflict, even if Assad were left in place. But given that he is not likely to negotiate his own demise (figuratively and perhaps also literally); and given that the Alawites have little confidence about their own survival in the chaos that would likely follow Assad’s departure, it is no wonder that diplomacy has led nowhere.
Further, Obama and his team have not been willing to say “we got it wrong” in calling for Assad to step down, rather than viewing that as a possible, if desirable, result down the road. Few leaders have the courage to admit being wrong, and the President would be hammered in the media and on Capitol Hill if he did. Nor has the United States done more than make vague declarations of hope to show the Alawites that they would not risk life and limb if Assad did go — perhaps as the result of a coup d’état by disaffected Alawite military leaders. So, “negotiating the transition” remains the (untenable) premise of diplomacy.
No one has yet done the hard work of fashioning a process whereby all the different sects in Syria would have a reasonable chance of security, equality and fair political representation. “Holding free elections” is a nice slogan; it is not a policy or on its own a serious process for getting from here to there. And if anyone doubts the difficulty, he or she should take a look next door at Lebanon — to an extent Syria in microcosm — which for decades has tried and failed to find a workable recipe for governance.
This throws outsiders back on second best, which is to try providing humanitarian relief in Syria, as well as relief to the millions of refugees who have fled Syria. It means the US, Europeans, and Russia need finally to devise a diplomacy that has a chance to work for all Syrians, including the Alawites, whatever the outcome for Assad. It also ratchets up the need for the US and other Western states to lean heavily on Saudi Arabia and other Gulf Arabs to stop using Syria for their own sectarian and geopolitical ends. This includes bringing Iran into the Syria negotiations and then impressing on Tehran that its future in the outside world requires it to limit its regional ambitions.
The Saudi government recently announced that any Saudi citizen fighting in Syria will go to jail when he gets back home. But this is a “day late and a riyal short” and is no doubt linked to Obama’s scheduled visit to Riyadh next month, ostensibly to reassure the Saudis and other friendly regional states that the US will not compromise their interests in diplomacy regarding Syria or with Iran. Between now and then, however, the Saudis should be required to demonstrate their bona fides. The US president must not go to a country that is just throwing gasoline on the fire.
The point should be made in even broader terms: why is the United States rushing to reassure regional countries that it will not sell out their interests either in Syria or with Iran? For decades, the US has moved heaven and earth in an attempt to make the Middle East safe for all our friends and allies, with little or no thanks for doing so and often uncooperative behavior. But with the radical reduction of US dependence on the region’s oil, the balance of advantage has swung radically: friendly local states across the Middle East now depend a lot more on the US than we do on them.
President Obama should use his trip to Saudi Arabia to make that point clearly, while US diplomats fan out to underscore that our patience has run out with rivalries among countries ostensibly on our side, that we will not tolerate efforts to sabotage the talks with Iran, and that if we are expected to help stop the Syrian conflict, we will do so to advance the cause of humanity in Syria and US interests in a region with a chance for peace — not to be a cat’s paw to others’ ambitions.
The US also needs to finally start seeing everything that happens in the Middle East as related to everything else and design policies based on that fact. That involves filling the senior levels of the administration, the State Department, and the National Security Council Staff with people who truly understand the region and can think strategically. If he does this, President Obama can actually start putting the US on the right track to a viable way out of the Syrian tragedy and to fashioning a coherent approach to the Middle East as a whole.
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