Hamas ponders whether to cosy up to Syria’s brutal despot

regime seeks to return to the Arab fold after a decade of civil war that isolated it from most of its counterparts in the region, Hamas, the Palestinians’ Islamist movement, is arguing bitterly with itself. One faction wants to re-engage with President Bashar al-Assad and re-establish Hamas’s former main external base in Damascus, Syria’s capital. The other faction, mindful of Mr Assad’s brutal suppression of Hamas’s local allies during the civil war, wants to keep on steering clear of his regime. This reflects Hamas’s perennial attitude towards Israel. Should it stick to its long-standing official aim of expunging the Jewish state from the region, or explore some form of coexistence, perhaps under a truce of negotiable length?Hamas left Syria in 2012, closing its Damascus office in protest against Mr Assad’s massacres of its fellow Sunni Muslims, particularly members of the Muslim Brotherhood, with which Hamas is closely aligned. The idea of reopening Hamas’s office and re-establishing formal ties has caused uproar in the movement.