Iranian support for “Al Sabreen” in Gaza… Motives and objectives (1-2)

Ahmed Samy Abdel Fattah

Since the Islamic revolution in 1979, Iran has adopted the “exporting the revolution” policy by mobilizing the popular protest movements in a number of targeted countries, as well as showing opposition to the Arab regimes as long as this achieves its public interest.

As part of its policy of expansion, Iran has pretended to support the Palestinian cause to attract more positive attention towards it by supporting Sunni armed factions in Gaza Strip.

However, a clash between the two sides emerged during the Iranian intervention in the Syrian revolution in favor of the Syrian regime. Iran demanded that the Syrian factions adopt a political speech in support of their aggressive behavior in the region. However, these factions preferred to align themselves with the demands of the Syrian people.

Realizing the reluctance of Sunni factions to stand up to its aggressive policies in the region, Iran established a pure Shiite militia loyal to it, like the Lebanese Hezbollah, to consolidate its presence in the Gaza Strip. It supported the splitting of a number of members from the Palestinian movement “el-Gehad”, led by Hisham Salem, and then it funded the establishment of a movement under the name Al Sabreen in 2014.

Therefore, this study seeks to address the motives of the Iranian support for Al Sabreen movement, in addition to the stance of the Sunni factions from the movement, and the various mechanisms to counter Iran’s attempts to expand in the region through the movement as well as the Egyptian role in deterring it.

The motives of Iranian support for Al Sabreen movement

 Iran used the Arab aversion of the factions in the Gaza Strip, especially those with Islamic orientation, as a mean for it to impose its presence within the sector by providing the required military support; hoping to influence its sectarianism. Iran’s aim was achieved when a number of members of the Islamic Jihad movement have converted to Shia including Hisham Salem, who founded the movement in 2014

Iran supports the movement with about $10 million annually, in order to achieve a number of goals:

Security Policy

Iran recognizes that the Palestinian cause is the major conflict in the region. Therefore,it seeks to consolidate its presence in the Gaza Strip in order to ensure its active role in any future settlement to use it as a mean to justify its political and military expansion in the region.

Many countries in the world adopt a “proactive security policy” to protect their national security interests by taking the initiative of besieging the home of threat geographically, whether inside or outside the nation’s borders, in order to not allowing this threat to escalate.

For example, the United States has led an international coalition to fight Daesh in Syria and Iraq. It did not wait for the terrorist organization to move the war to its territory. The US also applied this policy in dealing with Iran. It deepened its military presence in Afghanistan and Pakistan to the east, in addition to establishing its military bases in the Arab Gulf from the west, which means that Iran became besieged on both sides.

This is why Iran seeks to respond to these threats by following the same policy with Israel by supporting the militia of the Saraya el-Rasoil el-Azam which is affiliated to Al Sabreen Movement in the Gaza Strip to threaten Israel from its Southern border. This is in addition to threatening Israel’s from the north with Hezbollah in Lebanon or its militias in Syria.

Iran believes that the United States will not make any war against it, as long as it maintains its potential threat to Israel – the first US ally in the Middle East.

At the same time, Iran wants to tighten its threat to the economic interests of Israel in the Mediterranean especially the natural gas wells, such as the field of Mary near Gaza, and the field of el-Shams near Asdod, as well as other fields.

The armed presence of Al Sabreen movement in the Gaza Strip gives Iran a privileged negotiating position in any future bilateral dialogue with the West in order to reduce the threats imposed by each side on the other.

Balancing the influence of Sunni militias

Iran does not want the armed Sunni factions to monopolize the conflict with Israel in order to liberate the occupied territory. Rather, it wants to involve itself in the conflict as it is fully aware of the Arab’s support for any anti-Israel movements. This will make it easier for Iran to attract more individuals and influence their religious beliefs in order to make them Shiites.

In order to achieve this, Iran provides significant financial support to the movement of Al Sabreen through which it aims at influencing the political views of Sunni factions.

Therefore, Iran is in dire need of a more powerful means to influence Sunni groups in the sector. That’s why it is important for Iran to support “Al Sabreen” movement.

Although “Al Sabreen” can not match Hezbollah in its destructive role, even if its strength increases, because the Hezbollah has secure corridors that enable it to obtain its military needs from weapons and missiles in abundance – via Syria.

But it remains a strong influencer on the political decisions of the Sunni factions. This movement can ignite a war at any moment with Israel by targeting its patrols along the Gaza Strip border. It can also break any truce in an attempt to pretend as the defender of the Strip in order to increase its popularity.

It is important to note that Iran wants to prolong the Arab-Israeli conflict, as well as its desire to maintain the military supremacy of Israel in the region, because this enables it to promote itself as the military force capable of confronting Israel. This is clearly shown through Iran’s comments about developing its missile systems, which is able to target Israel despite the geographical dimension.

Regional threat

Reports indicate that Iran supports extremist movements on the Gaza border, including organizations that have declared their belonging to “Daesh”. It also wants “Al Sabreen” to play a cross-border role by supporting the terrorist organisations on the borders near Palestine.

In order to deepen its influence in the Middle East, Iran seeks to replicate its past experience with al-Qaeda during the US invasion of Iraq, when it supported it in order to prolong the war, to drain the US. On the other side, the continuation of war and poor economic conditions in Afghanistan enabled Iran to attract some Afghan to the Shiite sect.

We can not forget the “armed triangle” that Iran seeks to form in the region. One side of the triangle is the movement of Al Sabreen in the Gaza Strip, the other side is the extremist groups on the border with Gaza, while the third is a number of extremist elements that Iran is trying to smuggle to the Israeli south.

Restoring its soft power

Iran, through Al Sabreen, seeks to regain its strength in the region, which it lost in the war against the Syrian regime, in addition to its military support for the Popular Mobalization forces in Iraq and its incitement to the Houthis to defeat the legitimacy in Yemen in 2014.

Iran has been able to regain its soft power through its political speeches that reject negotiations with Israel and its support for the armed option as a means of liberating the occupied Palestinian territories.

In addition, it has exploited Arab alliances with the West and depended on that in securing its security needs – through large arms deals and foreign military bases.

The results of these policies were clearly evident in the Lebanese Hezbollah war against Israel in 2006, in which Hezbollah consolidated its image as the defender of Lebanon against Israeli aggressions, taking advantage of the neutrality of the Lebanese army in deepening its image as a resistance to Israel.

In parallel, we can say that Iran has always represented the greatest threat to the Arab Gulf countries – as the main actor in the Arab system, in order to force them to resort to Western powers. It aimed at damaging the credibility of any Arab speech supporting the Palestinian cause.

This made Iran succeed in attracting the political tendencies of the Arab citizens, who support Palestine, after putting in his mind its image as a state that is hostile to the Western imperialism represented by Israel and the United States, which the Arab system is unable to confront.

Iran has adapted its military capabilities to serve its political discourse. Each ballistic missile it launched, carried two messages, one to the West and its ally Israel showing the ability of Iran to respond to any aggression on its territory. The other message targeted the Arab citizen through the theory of “common enemy” that means that Iran stands on the same side with the countries of the region in case of any external aggression.

However, practice on the ground proves otherwise. Iran supported the US invasion of Iraq in order to overthrow its then rival, Saddam Hussein, with whom it fought an eight-year war in the 1980s. However, Iran’s violent political views against the West succeeded in portraying its image as a resistant state.

Iran has been disturbed by the loss of its soft power in the region, which took place after its foreign policy sectarianism revealed.

Iran has not found a better cause that can help it regain its soft power rather than the Palestinian cause, which is a compass for all Arabs of all directions. So, it tried to engage in military activity to regain its lost power.

Therefore, Iran aims through the Shiite movement “Al Sabreen” at redrawing a positive image in the Arab region again, especially that Hezbollah is no longer able to perform this role because of its crimes in Syria, and interventions in a number of other Arab countries.