Wednesday, December 17, 2008

War and Peace? What is a Hudna and why it is thought to be the beginning of the end?

***(This is an ongoing post. We have no illusion that we can speak to this term anymore than anybody else. We are discussing this possibility in context of what it means to the Arabs and what they plan to "actually" do in the event Israel agrees to such a truce.)
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Do the Arabs want peace? Have they switched from a people that want Islam as a global religion with tolerance as its central meaning or have they embraced such Nazi ideology as extermination (genocide)and only plan to regroup and strike with 10 years of resources and training?

Is the 2 state solution really being discussed in context of a Hudna (temporary truce)? Or wil this be the end of the line in (or beginning) preparing for final battle? Let's discuss history of such actions. Can you make peace with enemies that are sworn to your destruction or do you just hold a truce and wait for your destiny?

Denis MacEoin of the Middle East Quarterly puts it like this ...

"However, this acquired anti-Semitism creates numerous problems for Arab anti-Zionists. Western anti-Semitism is racist; not even a Jew who had abandoned his faith or converted to Christianity was spared by Hitler's racist doctrine of the Jew as üntermensch. Whereas a Jew under Islam had the options of conversion or life as a dhimmi, a Jew in German-occupied Europe had no choice at all. Once Israel was established, Arabs became anti-Semites and called not only for the extermination of Israel but also for the annihilation of all Jews living there. This has made the possibility of a truce even more remote since it has an all-or-nothing quality similar to Hitler's "Final Solution."

and this ...

" ... Should a Muslim victory seem remote, the caliph could declare a truce in the interests of the umma. Rudolph Peters, Islamic law professor at the University of Amsterdam states, "According to some schools of law, a truce must be concluded for a specified period of time, no longer than ten years."[11] Hanafi law, however, permits the Muslims to terminate a truce arbitrarily: The "imam may denounce the armistice whenever the continuation of warfare is more favorable for the Moslems than the continuation of peace," he continues.[12] Such a truce is necessary when the Muslims are weak relative to their enemies. It can also occur when there is fitna within an Islamic state.[13] These truces serve as protection against further violence to enable Muslims to regroup and gather their strength, whereupon they can issue a fresh declaration of jihad. Such a treaty is a hudna, distinct from sulh where the non-Muslim state pays tribute to a more powerful Muslim one, or an ‘ahd, a covenant of security, in which protection for Muslims is reciprocated.[14] ..."


[11] Rudolph Peters, in Esposito, ed., The Oxford Encyclopaedia of the Modern Islamic World, vol. 2, p. 371, s.v. "Jihad."
[12] Peters, Islam and Colonialism, p. 35.
[13] Ibid., p. 33.
[14] See Daniel Pipes, "British ‘Covenant of Security' with Islamists Ends," The New York Sun, July 8, 2005.


Ref:
http://www.mefta.org/page1.htm
http://conflictblotter.com/
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1042960.html



ongoing.