After rejecting all proposals for a ceasefire-and-hostage deal, the Iran-backed Palestinian terror group Hamas is now trying to incite Arabs to revolt against their own governments under the pretext that the Arab leaders have failed to help the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip.
Recently, senior Hamas official Khalil al-Hayya, who together with his family moved from the Gaza Strip to Qatar before the October 7, 2023 Hamas-led invasion of Israel, called on Arabs to "march toward Palestine by land and sea and besiege the [Israeli embassies in Arab countries, especially Egypt and Jordan]."
Addressing the Egyptian people, al-Hayya said: "O people of Egypt, how can you allow your [Palestinian] brothers near your border to die?" The Hamas official was referring to Egypt's refusal to open the Rafah border crossing between Egypt and the Gaza Strip to allow in humanitarian aid.
Al-Hayya's statements reflect the deep disappointment among Hamas leaders with the Arab countries' failure to help the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip during the war triggered by the terror group's October 7 atrocities, in which Hamas murdered more than 1,200 Israelis and foreign nationals, and wounded of thousands. On that day, another 251 Israelis and foreign nationals were kidnapped to the Gaza Strip, where 50 – alive and dead – are still held captive.
One of the declared goals of Hamas's October 7 massacre was to thwart efforts to achieve normalization between Israel and the Arab countries, especially Saudi Arabia. Another undeclared goal of Hamas was to instigate unrest and instability in Egypt and Jordan, the two neighboring countries that have peace treaties with Israel.
Since the beginning of the war in the Gaza Strip, Hamas officials have been indirectly urging Egyptians and Jordanians to revolt against their governments for not cutting their diplomatic ties with Israel and allegedly failing to help the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip.
Al-Hayya's call on Arabs to "march toward Palestine by land and sea" refers to the two countries that have shared borders with Israel: Egypt and Jordan. Hamas, with its October 7 massacre, has brought death and destruction on the two million Palestinians of the Gaza Strip. According to figures from Gaza's Hamas-controlled ministry of health, tens of thousands of Gazans have been killed and wounded since the beginning of the war. Hundreds of thousands have been displaced.
Now, frustrated Hamas leaders, leading comfortable lives in Qatar, Turkey and other countries, want to sacrifice Egyptians and Jordanians in their jihad (holy war) to murder more Jews and destroy Israel.
Fortunately, most Arab countries have refused to join Hamas's genocidal scheme. Apparently, the Arab leaders understand the dangers of allowing Hamas, an offshoot of the Muslim Brotherhood terrorist organization, to drag their countries into war with Israel.
That is why many Arab countries have banned or outlawed the Muslim Brotherhood, including Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Syria, the United Arab Emirates, and recently, Jordan. These countries view the Muslim Brotherhood as a threat to national security and political stability.
If the Trump administration wants to promote peace and stability in the Middle East and protect its Arab allies, it must follow suit and designate the Muslim Brotherhood a Foreign Terrorist Organization.
The Hamas leader's call on Arabs to use the borders of Egypt and Jordan to attack Israel drew strong condemnations from both countries.
Former Egyptian Assistant Foreign Minister Hussein Haridi said:
"Al-Hayya's statement is part of a systematic campaign orchestrated by the Muslim Brotherhood worldwide with the aim of discrediting Egypt's role and disrupting its political and humanitarian efforts to stop the war and alleviate the suffering of [Palestinian] civilians. It's clear that these statements are intended to cover up the failures of Hamas's leadership and its intransigence during certain stages of the ongoing negotiations [to reach a ceasefire-and-hostage deal]."
The Hamas leader's goals are "completely in line with the main objectives of the Muslim Brotherhood: toppling the Egyptian regime and turning Egypt into a quagmire of chaos," said Saeed Okasha, an Egyptian expert at the Al-Ahram Center for Political and Strategic Studies. According to Okasha, there are a number of reasons that prompted al-Hayya to take a hostile approach to Egypt:
"The major crisis facing Hamas, particularly since it has lost its military power, has been reduced to nothing more than planting mines in the streets of Gaza. Furthermore, Hamas is on the verge of being politically and militarily finished. Al-Hayya's statements are an expression of despair and frustration through which he attempts to create justifications for the failure plaguing his group. The Muslim Brotherhood believes that the current economic situation in Egypt could be an opportunity to pressure the Egyptian people by mixing religious sentiments with economic conditions, thereby destabilizing the country's domestic situation."
Jordanians also expressed outrage over the Hamas leader's call for escalating protests against Israel in the kingdom and using its border to "march toward Palestine."
Mohammed al-Musalha, professor of political science at the University of Jordan, said that Jordanians rejected al-Hayya's "shameful and disgraceful" statements.
"Such hollow speeches alienate the Jordanian people from such [Hamas] leaders who do not feel the extent of the catastrophe befalling the Palestinian people, especially the residents of the Gaza Strip. Therefore, they [Hamas leaders] are in dire need of any assistance from all Arabs. Jordan does not accept being stabbed in the back by people with political agendas that are well-known to all."
Jordanian political analyst Khalaf al-Tahat accused the Hamas leader of issuing a call "that goes buying the limits of political absurdity to the limits of mass suicide." Al-Tahat denounced the Hamas leader's call as being "no less disastrous than the scene of death in the Gaza Strip, especially since he called on the peoples of the countries neighboring Palestine to march toward Palestine, besiege Israeli embassies, and severe diplomatic and trade relations [with Israel], as if these people had the luxury of engaging in adventures that lack the simplest forms of rationally and planning."
Hamas leaders, who claim they were betrayed by their Arab brothers, now seek to export their group's own crisis and place the responsibility for the suffering of the Palestinians on other parties, especially the Arab countries.
They are doing so from their safe villas and luxury hotel suites in Qatar, one of the leading sponsors of Islamist groups, especially the Muslim Brotherhood.
Were it not for Qatar's backing, Hamas leaders would not have had the courage to incite unrest and instability in Egypt and Jordan. It is time for the Trump administration not only to designate the Muslim Brotherhood a Foreign Terrorist Organization, but also finally to call out Qatar and its Al-Jazeera TV network for promoting Islamist terror groups that target Israel and America's Arab allies.
Khaled Abu Toameh is an award-winning journalist based in Jerusalem.
