"Arab Spring" Creating Tensions Among Radical Muslim Alliances

Everyone has their favorite theory of what the so-called "Arab Spring" means--whether it heralds a new wave of democracy throughout the Middle East or gives a new opportunity for radical Islamists to seize control.

But there is another theory says that the revolutions rocking the Middle East are no picnic for radical groups like the Muslim Brotherhood either.


According to an article in Bloomberg News, traditional anti-US groups that originally supported the revolutions in Tunisia, Egypt, Bahrain and Yemen, are now coming into conflict with the Muslim Brotherhood. Hezbollah and the Muslim Brotherhood have had a common interest for close to 30 years--Hezbollah opposed Israel and the West while the Brotherhood attempted to seize power from ruling regimes.

But with the fall of some key pro-Western dictators, the Sunni Muslim Brotherhood’s antagonism towards non-Arab, Shiite Iran and its primary patron, Shiite Hezbollah, has grown more pronounced. So has the Brotherhood's criticism of the Syrian regime, which is dominated by the Alawite religious minority. The unrest in Syria has taken on an increasingly sectarian tone.

Unexpected alliances are being formed. We see the Muslim Brotherhood's Palestinian offshoot, Hamas found it tactically advantageous to join with he more secular Fatah, while further east, Sunni states Turkey and Saudi Arabia appear ready ally themselves with each other--while Saudi Arabia attempts a 'benign' end to the conflict in Yemen and Turkey publicly admonishes Syria.

And of course, there is the question of how a Saudi-Turkish alliances might counter the aspirations of Iran, Syria's main ally.

Speaking of Syria, Bloomberg notes:

When it came to an issue unambiguously involving Israel -- the killing of Palestinian and Syrian protestors along the border of the occupied Golan Heights by Israeli forces -- several commentators in the Arabic media focused their attention on the Syrian regime’s culpability. They were angry over the apparent inability of the Syrian army to protect the protestors even as they allowed them to approach Israeli military lines.[emphasis added]

As I noted yesterday, the Arab League has condemned events in Syria for the first time.

Likewise, Syria also plays a role in the rising tensions within Hamas itself. Jonathan D. Halevi writes about the Power Dynamics Inside Hamas: The Increasing Weight of the Gaza Leadership

• The recent overt confrontation between Mahmoud al-Zahar, the Minister of Foreign Affairs in Gaza, and Damascus-based Hamas political bureau leader Khaled Mashaal reflects underground currents feeding the tension within the Hamas leadership in Gaza and Syria.

• Al-Zahar is demanding that Hamas-Gaza be given more weight in decision-making, while the Hamas leadership abroad contends that the center of power should remain outside of Palestine.

• Since the Israeli disengagement from Gaza in 2005, Hamas' decisive victory in the parliamentary elections of 2006, and Hamas' military takeover of Gaza in June 2007, the Hamas government has gained significant political and economic power. It conducts foreign relations and imposes taxes on imports from Israel and from Egypt which have become remarkable revenue sources. This has weakened the dependence of Hamas-Gaza on the Hamas leadership abroad.

• In addition, the consolidation of the Hamas regime in Gaza, where the main military forces of the al-Qassam Brigades are stationed, has gradually changed the balance of power inside Hamas. Al-Zahar challenged Mashaal's authority to lead the movement, arguing that the center of power should move from abroad to "inside" Palestine. Fatah underwent a similar process after the establishment of the Palestinian Authority in 1994, which lead eventually to a majority of the leadership living in the Palestinian territories.

• Mashaal intentionally refrained from directly referring to the challenge posed by al-Zahar, probably to avoid granting him status as an equal contender for the leadership. The current main interest of Mashaal and his colleagues is to promote reconciliation with Fatah in order to pave the way for Hamas to join the PLO and take over the organization that is recognized internationally as the sole representative of the Palestinian people.

The bottom line is that while the "Arab Spring" is not going to usher in a broad new wave of democracy across the face of the Middle East--neither is it about to enable the radical islamists to just waltz right into power.

After all, those radical Islamists are no more united than the Arab world in general.

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