As the United States and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) look to Sudan as possibly the next Arab country to sign a normalization agreement with Israel, Hamas is hoping that Khartoum will stay true to its support for the Palestinians. 

The United States is presently negotiating Sudan’s removal from its designation as a foreign terrorist organization.

Sudan’s designation as a state sponsor of terrorist groups dates back to when Osama bin Laden set up shop there in the late 1990s, leading to US attacks on al-Qaeda assets in 1998. In those days, Sudan also emerged as one of the few friends of the Palestinian Islamic Resistance Movement, or Hamas.

From the outset of its founding in 1987, Hamas’ ideological links to the Muslim Brotherhood gave it access to the widespread organization’s network across both the Arab and Muslim world. Its launching was to many Islamists in the region a dream come true, given the fact that the Palestinian resistance movement had been dominated by leftists and seculars who gave the struggle a nonreligious narrative and posed a barrage of accusations to the Palestinian Islamic movement in regard to its commitment to the cause.