Iran’s disingenuous idea of us all coming together for Palestine

These calls were only heightened after the assassination of Ismail Haniyeh, the head of the political bureau of Hamas, while visiting Tehran. There is even a growing call to set aside sectarian differences between Sunnis and Shiites.

A newspaper loyal to Hezbollah and funded by Tehran recently made similar noises, saying: "In the Arab countries today, the Sunni-Shiite fault-line has disappeared".

However, it said this had been "replaced by the painful reality of some Sunni Arab regimes' crushing submission, their concessions in favour of Israel, and their alignment with it against the Sunnis of Palestine".

It was never sectarian

This reflects a concern that many have about the demonisation of Arab states to benefit religious groups, Iran, and its axis of influence. Disagreement with Tehran's policy in the region was never rooted in sectarianism, even though Iran sought to frame it as such.

Was it not Hezbollah that entered Syria under the banner: "Zainab will not be taken captive twice"? Did Hezbollah not occupy the city of Qusayr, displace its people, and subsequently raise sectarian slogans over the city's mosques?

Every Sunni Arab states asserted that the feud was not sectarian, they were met with accusations of treason from Islamists on both sides, who thrive on such conflicts. Few things stir emotions more effectively than sectarian rhetoric.

Sectarian rhetoric served Iran's narrative during its filtration into Arab countries and continues to benefit Israel by reinforcing its narrative as the "Jewish state".

It is ironic that the very people who fuelled this rhetoric and transformed the Syrian revolution into a sectarian war now call for the abandonment of sectarian differences, once again using the pretext of liberating Palestine.

Bygones being bygones

In truth, Iran and its allies have killed just as Israel kills; displaced just as Israel displaces; brutalised populations just as Israel does.

Whether Iran is Shiite, Sunni, or otherwise, this does not change its expansionist ambitions, its reach towards the Mediterranean, and its desire to control the region.

The differences between sects and religious schools of thought are matters of jurisprudence, best left to scholars and specialists. But the homeland belongs to everyone.

Those who turned the conflicts and battles of the recent into sectarian and confessional wars are now trying to exploit the situation in Gaza and Israel's crimes against the Palestinians to say "let bygones be bygones".

Yet this is not an effort to achieve sectarian unity. It is a strategy to bring the two factions back into coordination, further dismantling what remains of the concept of the state and citizenship.