The Times of Israel reported Tuesday that Hamas is being forced to reposition itself in relation to the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood – of which it is an off-shoot – in the wake of Cairo’s recent decision to brand the Brotherhood a terrorist organization, with the shift likely to deepen an emerging consensus that the Palestinian faction is adrift after a series of failed geopolitical gambles.

Egypt’s establishment daily Al-Ahram called the decision to ban the Brotherhood “an earthquake” for Hamas, quoting Hamas official Fawzi Barhoum as saying that his movement is “proud” of belonging to the Muslim Brotherhood school of thought. Fatah rushed to jump on the Egyptian bandwagon. On Sunday, its central committee called on Hamas to “join the national movement and stop intervening in Egypt.” Fatah spokesman Ahmad Assaf said that Hamas’s refusal to cut its ties with the international Muslim Brotherhood proved that “it couldn’t care less about the interests of our people. “This Hamas position proves once again that its priorities were and continue to be realizing the interests of the Muslim Brotherhood and not the interests of the Palestinian people and their just national cause.”

Hamas’s regional influence had enjoyed something of a high-water mark during the year-long tenure of Egypt’s Brotherhood-linked former president Mohammed Morsi, but has all but collapsed since Morsi’s government was removed by the army in the wake of massive anti-government rallies. The army quickly moved against not just the Brotherhood but also Hamas, which it blamed for helping the Brotherhood and for facilitating jihadist attacks in the Egyptian-controlled Sinai Peninsula. An army campaign cut off access between the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip and the outside world, and Cairo explicitly threatened a “harsh response” should the Palestinian organization continue to be implicated in terrorism on Egyptian soil. Egyptian Ambassador to the Palestinian Authority Yasser Othman this week pointedly told Palestinian media that Hamas would be expected to untangle itself from Egyptian affairs, and that – as far as deciding which groups are terror entities – “the criterion for implementing the law on anyone is their behavior toward Egypt and the extent of their intervention in internal Egyptian affairs.” Jonathan Schanzer, vice president of research at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, suggested this summer that Hamas’s weakened position provides Western lawmakers with the opportunity to strike a financial death blow to the group.

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