What the ‘Hudna' is not: Neither a truce nor cease fire

David Bedein..
The Times of Israel..
22 June '12..





As a torrent of Gaza aerial attacks hit southern Israel, the Gaza regime offers an occasional hudna to stop firing, a term which is too often misconstrued to mean a “truce” or a “cease fire.”

However, a hudna connotes no more than a temporary respite and does not remotely resemble either a “truce” nor a “cease fire.”

Here, then, are the four terms now in use:

• Hudna: a tactical pause intended only for rearmament,

• Tahida: a temporary halt in hostile activity which can be violated at any time

• Hudaybiyyah: No fighting for 10 years: invoking after the “treaty of Hudaybiyyah” in 628 AD

• Sulch: a total cessation of hostile activity

The reality is that a hudna, tahida or hudaybiyyah do not compare to the mu’ahada treaty of peace that Egypt signed with Israel in 1979, or the mu’ahada treaty of peace that Jordan signed with Israel in 1994.

Kushner - Really Missing the Point on 'Hudna'

Arlene Kushner..
American Thinker..
22 May '12..

Abu Marzouk, a key figure of the Hamas politburo, had never spoken with a representa­tive of a Jewish publication before he responded positively in April to a request for an interview by the left-leaning American Jewish daily the Forward.

For the five-and a-half-hour interview, conducted in English over a period of two days, Cohler-Esses traveled to a suburb of Cairo, where Marzouk has made his home since Hamas vacated its Damascus headquarters. There were no preconditions set on the interview, and a well-prepared Cohler-Esses asked hard-hitting questions. In the end, the Forward, in an editorial, expressed serious doubts about Hamas readiness to be "a partner for peace."

With this said, however, there is one major point made by Marzouk that requires a closer examination:

Hamas, he said, would not agree to a final peace treaty with Israel. "When we reach the agreement, our point of view is, it's a hudna. Let's establish a relationship between the two states in the historic Palestinian land as a hudna between both sides.

"It's better than war and better than the continuous resistance against the occupation. And better than Israel occupying the West Bank and Gaza, making all these difficulties and problems on both sides."

What he's talking about, then, is an Israeli withdrawal to the '67 lines that culminates, from Hamas's perspective, not in a final peace treaty, but with a hudna.

Hudna is routinely translated as "truce." Thus the casual Western reader might conclude from Marzouk's words that Hamas is tired of fighting, weary of launching terrorist attacks, and might be on its way to evolving a more peaceful stance. Perhaps in time, it could be reasoned, a temporary truce negotiated by Hamas might even become permanent.

Such a conclusion, however, would reflect a very serious and dangerous misreading of the situation. For a hudna is not a "truce" in the Western sense of that word. As Dr. Denis MacEoin, writing in the Middle East Quarterly has observed, there are more than seven other Arabic words for truce or cease-fire in Arabic. A better understanding of the full cultural baggage attached to hudna is necessary in order to grasp what Marzouk has really said:

A hudna is always temporary, and not for a duration of more than ten years. As a concept, it does not carry within it the potential to develop into a full peace. Rather, it is arrived at during times of Muslim weakness, when it is perceived as desirable to seek a respite from open hostilities.

It’s Not About Settlements

Jennifer Rubin
Contentions/Commentary
16 September '10

Giora Eiland isn’t impressed with the happy talk coming from the Obama team. George Mitchell may coo all he wants about getting down to “substantive issues,” but the Palestinians show no sign they are willing to accept the most basic element of a peace deal: recognition of Israel as a Jewish state. Eiland explains why this is an essential component of any accord:

The Palestinians make a distinction between recognizing the fact that the State of Israel exists and the recognition that it has the right to exist. The camp that supports Mahmoud Abbas has no qualms with the first definition: “Israel exists, and it’s apparently worthwhile to recognize it diplomatically; this is the way to guarantee for the Palestinians what only Israel can give. This agreement is fit for the present, but as to the future – who knows.” …

The entire concept of “Hudna” (long-term ceasefire) is based on an approach that espouses compromise in an effort to elicit what can be achieved now, without abandoning the intention to fight and get much more in the future. The way to curb future demands, especially in respect to the refugee issue, is to create a Palestinian obligation to accept Israel’s right to exist as a Jewish state.

The Obami, like the rest of the cottage industry of peace processors, operate on a myth: that both sides want peace and the issue is where to draw lines and how to halt and then uproot those darn settlements.

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Arab League Rejects Israel's Right To Survive

Dr. Aaron Lerner
IMRA
Weekly Commentary
01 April '10

The most generous interpretation of the position of the Arab League is that if Israel meets all Arab demands that the member states would recognize Israel's existence at that point in time but not its right to survive.

There is a critical difference between recognizing Israel's temporary existence and its right to survive.

The former is no more than a form of the traditional "hudna". A temporary ceasefire until such time that conditions make possible the defeat of the enemy

The 28 March Arab League Sirte Declaration rejecting the recognition of Israel as a Jewish state is a rejection of Israel's right to survive.

The Arab states should have no problem with the idea that a country is associated with a religion. After all, the constitutions of the member states in the Arab League all explicitly state that Islam is their official state religion - as is also the case with the draft Palestinian constitution.

But when the Arabs - including the Israeli Arabs - oppose Israel's designation as being a "Jewish State" the issue goes far beyond Judaism being reflected in Israel's national calendar and other facets of the State. The core feature of Israel as a Jewish State that they find unacceptable is that Jews around the world have the right to immigrate to Israeli and become citizens.

If the Arabs recognized Israel's right to survive then it would not be so critical to them to want to stop Jewish immigration.

Instead they press for an end to Jewish immigration along with the right of Arabs with family ties to Israel to flood the country.
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