Now, Mr. Nasrallah has reason to worry. In one speech, he defensively denied that his troops partake in repressing Syrian protesters. In another, he ignored the Syrian uprising altogether.

Syrians, in Mr. Nasrallah’s eyes, apparently, do not deserve democracy because that would mean the downfall of Hezbollah’s patron in Damascus, not to mention the destruction of the “axis of resistance” that reaches from southern Beirut to Syria and Iran.

Hezbollah’s fellow “resistance” movement, Hamas, has been more politically savvy. It has adapted to the new political landscape, navigating the uncharted territory of the Syrian uprising by impressing onlookers by what it didn’t do and say rather than what it did or said.

Historically, the biggest threat to the Palestinian national movement has been getting bogged down in other countries’ internal conflicts — from Jordan in the 1970s to Lebanon in the 1980s — and Hamas is mindful of that history.

When the former Syrian president Hafez al-Assad brutally crushed an earlier rebellion by the Syrian Muslim Brotherhood in the city of Hama in 1982, Hamas did not even exist. But today, the group cannot afford to be seen as complicit in the face of Syria’s new killing fields.

While Hezbollah’s pro-Assad rhetoric and deeds scream “united we stand,” Hamas’s position on the Syrian uprising has been eloquent in its quiet dissidence. The former frets over supply lines for weapons from Iran if the Assad regime falls. The latter, buoyed by the recent success of fellow Sunni Islamist movements — from Tunisia to Egypt — sees a horizon beyond the Assads.

The Hamas leader Khaled Meshal’s cameos in Damascus are becoming increasingly rare and the skeleton staff left at Hamas’s Syrian politburo is simply to keep up appearances. Although it hasn’t severed ties with the Syrian regime, it has downsized its presence in the country, and many of its middle-ranking officials have left Damascus for good, opting to move to Gaza or even to Egypt, Jordan and Qatar — Sunni states where they are likely to find support.