In the political world, and elsewhere in showbiz, there are celebrities with cardboard biographies. These are climbs made on embellished origins or completely invented lives. Family novels, as Sigmund Freud called them, often shrouded in mystery and heroism, become tools of seduction and persuasion. They give their authors a veneer of legitimacy and exceptionality, placing them above criticism and suspicion. Rima Hassan is part of this tradition of the reworked myth of origins where lies prevail over reality.
Father: born in Syria, soldier in the Assad air force
First the father. He was born in Syria, in Neirab, a permanent “refugee camp” built in the 1930s. He is the grandfather of Rima Hassan who was born in Palestine and will join Syria with the first wave of refugees from 1848.
Rima Hassan's father was a soldier in Hafez al-Assad's air force, “dealing with mechanics», she nuances without convincing, in a first big lie. While she had initially tried to explain her father's troubling connections with the army by the obligation of military service (24 months), she ended up admitting that he had joined of his own accord. and worked in the Assad army for many years. This army which, let us remember, caused thousands of deaths in the Palestinian refugee camps. Rima Hassan doesn't say a word about it. We will understand why below.
In reality, Palestinian refugees are barred from regular Syrian military service. Instead, they are conscripted, if they wish, into a specific military organization, the Palestine Liberation Army (PLA), which is an armed force affiliated with the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO). but under Syrian supervision. A step that the father would never take, who turned away, during his life, from the Palestinian cause. Without forgetting that to be recruited by the air force, his Palestinian nationality was not enough. Another lever worked in his favor: the family of his Syrian wife.
The mother: a rich bourgeoisie from Aleppo
Rima Hassan's second mystification concerns her mother, who is not Palestinian, but comes from a wealthy Syrian family rooted in Aleppo. This is described as “bourgeois, very bourgeois, owning property, real estate and land to the point of housing 300 refugee families», Reveals the elected official during the interview which begins to make her uncomfortable. Cornered, she reveals that her maternal great-uncle is none other than Ibrahim Hananu (1869-1935), “the leader of Syrian independence against the French, against the presence of the French, he was chased by the French, fought, dedicated part of his life to resistance, including armed resistance, against the occupier».
According to the MEP, her father “a peasant, communist“will one day fall”crazy lover» from his mother «bourgeois, which has nothing to do with her condition“. But she will accept marriage, against all odds, “her family disinherited her, disowned her», thus explaining that she suddenly became poor, and lived all her life in the “refugee camp”. Is this the whole truth? Why did Rima Hassan hide her origins?
His connections with the Assad regime
While Bashar al-Assad's regime has just collapsed, Rima Hassan has demonstrated guilty silence for two weeks. “Syria is a very, very complicated subject for me, because the proximity to my family is very concrete“, she finally admits. She has never criticized the Syrian dictator, nor denounced the horror of Bashar's regime and has never raised awareness about the fate of Syrians, even of Palestinian origin. Rima Hassan was careful not to say a single word about the hundreds of thousands of Syrians murdered by the Assad army, which included, whether she liked it or not, her father, and the millions of displaced Syrians around the world. Until the end of the regime, she had never mentioned Syria in the European Parliament, although she, for example, pleaded the cause of the Uighurs.
She deigned to publish her only comment four days ago, on December 8, 2024, a laconic post closer to demagoguery than real congratulations from the Syrian people: “The fall of the Assad regime marks a new page for the Syrian people whose revolution has been confiscated by regional and Western powers.”
There are these frequent trips that Rima Hassan makes to Aleppo, stronghold of her mother's wealthy family. “In March and a second trip this summer”, she confesses. In the space of five months, the pro-Palestinian activist therefore made at least two trips to Syria. These trips are all the more intriguing as the country is known for its hermetic borders, where obtaining authorization is almost impossible. When asked about the means used to overcome these barriers at his convenience, his response is perplexing, even flirting with the absurd:
«The only reason why I wasn't arrested, etc., is that I'm a woman, and that's it, and they stopped me to search my belongings, look at my papers, etc. . But I was in good standing, etc. My brothers never go there because they are men, and they would be arrested and taken to fight with the Syrian army.» (the “etc.” are from Rima)
There are the media in which Rima Hassan has several times shown herself as Al Mayadeena Hezbollah channel, known to be acquired by the Assad family.
To say nothing about a regime that oppresses its own is totally illogical. There is also another country, an ally of Bashar, where the supposed passionaria of the Palestinian cause likes to go: Algeria. She recently stayed there alone, without an elected mission. This same Algeria which pushed her shortly after to make derogatory remarks about Morocco and the Sahara. Behind the mask, contradictions and gray areas appear.
Rima Hassan established herself on the political scene by presenting herself as a fervent defender of the Palestinian cause. Yet, behind this facade, questions emerge about the real motivations that drive him. His journey thus highlights a worrying trend where collective suffering becomes a lever for personal ascension. His story is a striking example of these manipulated identities that end up cracking one day, under the weight of appearances.
