The call by Ismail Haniyeh, Hamas’ prime minister in Gaza, to different factions and personalities in the territories it controls to join Hamas in sharing the administration and the management of the Gaza Strip came as a great surprise. Hamas, more or less like Fatah, controls the West Bank via the Palestinian National Authority, and holds part of the blame for the lack of any progress toward a Palestinian reconciliation, an issue that has been on the table for years.

Regardless of who is to be blamed, Hamas was reluctant to set a date for legislative elections to form a unity government. It wants the latter but not the former for fear of losing its hold on Gaza. Yet, the sudden call by Haniyeh to share part of the power in Gaza reflects the multifaceted crisis that Hamas is facing.

First, Hamas, as part of the international Muslim Brotherhood movement, has slowly, and after much discussion within its top leadership, shifted to support the Syrian revolution against the regime. Some reports suggest that several Hamas members in Syria or Lebanon are fighting on the side of the opposition. Even if such reports have not been confirmed, the shift in political alliance has been made.

Due to this shift, Hamas has lost key supporters in the military, financial, diplomatic and political domains, namely Iran and Syria, to Hezbollah in Lebanon. Hamas was profiting from the steadfastness of the resistance movement. It was also a major card in the hands of the Syrian-Iranian axis and in the politics of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. Despite some slow, timid contacts with Iran and Hezbollah, relations are far from being normalized or restored to the status they once had. Normalization, if it advances, has its limits due to ideological and interest-based differences over the Syrian crisis.