Politics professor praises Saudi Arabia rapprochement with Hamas

A political science professor at Qatar University has praised Saudi Arabia’s renewed relations with the Palestinian resistance movement Hamas in its receiving of a delegation led by the movement’s political bureau chief Khaled Meshaal last week.

Dr Mohammed Al-Musfer said that receiving the Hamas delegation was a step in the right direction and “a correction to the Arab course” in that it showed Saudi Arabia is willing to deal with Hamas as “a Palestinian national liberation movement.”

In an interview with Quds Press, Al-Musfer pointed out that the Saudi move towards Hamas comes at a very delicate and sensitive time, and at a critical moment in the history of the Middle East.

“Since the start of Operation Decisive Storm, Saudi Arabia has been seeking to confront challenges by uniting Arabs’ ranks, including the Hamas movement, which was isolated and besieged by Egypt. Saudi Arabia felt that this stage of siege should be over, and it became convinced that Hamas is not proxy of Iran or others – it is a Palestinian national liberation movement,” Al-Musafer said.

“Saudi Arabia’s turn toward Hamas is a successful step and a correction to the Arab course, and I think that Hamas’s meetings with the Saudi leadership… were business meetings and not courtesy meetings.”

On whether this visit would affect Saudi relations toward Islamists in general, Al-Musfer said: “I think that Saudi Arabia is revaluating its foreign policy in light of the current circumstances. This includes its relations with Hamas and other Palestinian resistance movements.” He expressed his belief that “the Saudi role is efficient and effective, taking into consideration that Saudi Arabia did not put all Islamists on the terror list.”