Press TV reports that the Political Leader of Hamas Khalid Meshaal has called on Arab countries to forge stronger ties with the Islamic Republic of Iran.

Arab and Islamic countries should consolidate their unity and distinguish friend from foe, he said while addressing a ceremony held in the Syrian capital, Damascus, to commemorate the demise anniversary of the Founder of Iran’s Islamic Revolution, the late Imam Khomeini.

He stressed the importance of achieving real reconciliation between Islamic countries.

Meshaal envisioned new prospects in the region, which promised the victory of the forces of resistance over enemies.
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Commentary: this is a very interesting and highly significant event as it proves that Hamas has taken a fundamental strategic decision to openly ally itself with Iran. This decision, in turn, indicates that Hamas has reached a number of highly significant conclusions:

1) Syria cannot be trusted by the Resistance
2) the Shia/Sunni divide is not nearly as important as some would like it to be
3) Hamas now is openly defying the Wahabi/Salafi extremists, al-Qaeda included
4) Hamas is distancing itself from its hardline Sunni roots (Muslim Brotherhood)
5) Tehran has now become the center of the Resistance of the entire Middle-East

The USraelians have been making accusations for a while already about Iran supporting (or, as they would say, being “behind”) Hamas. I had seen no evidence of this until Meshaal’s trip to Tehran and his meeting with the Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Frankly, I was dubious that Hamas would have the wisdom to overcome the traditional anti-Shia and anti-Persian prejudices which are so common in the Sunni Arab world (and which are only exacerbated by the situation in Iraq).

Hamas’ strategic “redirection” to an open alliance with Iran is therefore a major seminal event which will, hopefully, lead to a broader anti-Zionist alliance in the Middle-East.

First there was the alliance between the Shia Muslim Hezbollah with the Christian Free Patriotic Movement of General Michel Aoun. Now the Sunnis of Hamas are joining the united anti-Zionist front making it, for the first time, a truly multi-confessional Resistance movement. Hopefully, this will set an example for the Iraqi Sunni and Shia Resistance movements in Lebanon who, sooner or later, will have to forge a common front against the Occupation.

There are also many big loosers here: the Wahabi/Salafis extremists which are now becoming basically irrelevant. Ditto for their Saudi patrons. Then the old, almost prehistoric, secular movements such as the Baathists, the PLO and Fatah, of course, but also the Arab League and the OIC and the rest of the entire structure put in place by the imperialist powers to dominate the Middle-East. All of them are essentially becoming irrelevant: at best they are useless bystanders; mostly they are an integral part of the problem.

Hamas’ strategic decision is very, very good news indeed. To paraphrase Condi’s words, we are witnessing the birth of a new Middle-East, although not quite the one she was hoping for. With an attack on Iran now probably inevitable and imminent, the Resistance has resolved all the issues which could have weakened it and it is as ready as it could ever be to stand up to the Empire’s onslaught.

(Needless to say, the corporate press is not reporting a single word about all this. This is arguably the biggest story in the Middle-East for a long while, and nobody is noticing it. Scary, bizarre, freaky, and pathetic I think, but also predictable)