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Politics : War -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Thomas M. who wrote (20303)	8/27/2003 3:11:43 PM
From: lorne	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 23908

tom. you said....Short memory, eh?'.... Nope. memory ok. You still have not provided a credible link backing any peace deal that hamas signed with Israel. As for the link you provided talking of a " hudna " or cease fire agreed to by hamas..... well here is a bit of reading for you. Hudna With Hamas The media translate "hudna" as "truce," misrepresenting the term's religious, historical and modern meaning. As U.S. Secretary of State Powell winds up his Mideast trip, Palestinian leaders appear on the verge of announcing a hudna. The Associated Press declared that "the success of peacemaking may well hang on a legal concept dating to the birth of Islam: a hudna, or a truce of a fixed duration." The New York Times added Monday that a hudna would constitute "a major breakthrough... out of 33 months of violence." Would a hudna with Hamas really mark "the success of peacemaking," a "major breakthrough" toward a nonviolent future? The answer lies in the historical meaning of the Muslim expression, Hamas' track record, and the terms of the road map itself. Hudna has a distinct meaning to Islamic fundamentalists, well-versed in their history: The prophet Mohammad struck a legendary, ten-year hudna with the Quraysh tribe that controlled Mecca in the seventh century. Over the following two years, Mohammad rearmed and took advantage of a minor Quraysh infraction to break the hudna and launch the full conquest of Mecca, the holiest city in Islam. When Yassir Arafat infamously invoked Mohammad's hudna in 1994 to describe his own Oslo commitments "on the road to Jerusalem," the implication was clear. As Mideast expert Daniel Pipes explained, Arafat was asserting to his Islamic brethren that he will, "when his circumstances change for the better, take advantage of some technicality to tear up existing accords and launch a military assault on Israel." Indeed, this is precisely what occurred in Sept. 2000 when Arafat & Co. launched a terror assault upon Israeli citizens. As for Hamas, they have proven time and again their commitment to a tactical hudna — replenishing their strength during the quiet periods, then returning with increased deadliness. As recently documented by The Washington Institute, Hamas agreed to no less than ten ceasefires in the past ten years, and after every single one returned freshly armed for terror. Hundreds of Israeli citizens have paid for these hudnas with their lives. Israeli leadership is convinced, therefore, that yet another hudna would jeopardize three years of painstaking IDF anti-terror work that has left Hamas and Islamic Jihad reeling. As IDF Major-General Amos Gilad said on Monday, "For us as a nation, it is forbidden to interest ourselves in this hudna, which is a threat to any kind of peace." Echoing Gilad's words is the road map itself, which calls for the PA to "arrest, disrupt, and restrain" terror leaders — not granting an opportunity for replenishing their strength. Colin Powell reinforced this on Friday when labeling Hamas "an enemy of peace" and stating: "I am anxious to speak to Prime Minister Abbas about efforts they are making to bring violence under control, to end violence, not just through the means of having a cease-fire, but going beyond that ... to end violence and the capacity for violence." * * * Given the religious, historical and diplomatic facts regarding the actual meaning of hudna, it is disturbing to see the media nearly everywhere translate the term to English as "truce": -- Fox News: "Palestinians Say Hamas Discussing Truce" -- Hartford Courant: "Hamas Considers a Pragmatic Truce" -- Anchorage Daily News: "Palestinian Officials See Hamas Truce On Horizon" To a Western audience, "truce" suggests a Hamas commitment to peaceful resolution. This is, as we've seen, simply not the meaning of hudna. Yet on Monday's major wires, Reuters casts Israel as the villain for rejecting a hudna: "Israel Pours Scorn on Truce With Militants." Associated Press falsely presents the hudna as a fulfillment of the road map's demand to uproot terror: "A truce is crucial for implementing a U.S.-backed peace plan, the 'road map' to Palestinian statehood by 2005. In the first stage, the Palestinians must dismantle militant groups, while Israel must gradually withdraw to positions held before the outbreak of fighting 33 months ago." The road map to peace — and the memory of scores of terror victims — demand much more than hudna. HonestReporting encourages members to monitor their local media for accurate description of the term hudna, in its religious, historical and modern contexts. honestreporting.com

To: Thomas M. who wrote (20303)	8/27/2003 3:16:08 PM
From: lorne	Respond to of 23908

tom. a bit more on hudna...you know you moslim guys should better understand your own religious meaning of words used by islam terrorists. Your beginning to sound like your not a credible moslum promoter. :-) Myth and Fact: The Cease-Fire and the Road Map for Peace By Mitchell G. Bard Jewish Virtual Library Myth "Palestinian terrorist groups agreed to a cease-fire to advance the peace process envisioned by the road map for peace." Fact In June 2003, Islamic Jihad and Hamas agreed to a hudna in response to demands from Palestinian Authority prime minister Mahmoud Abbas to stop their attacks on Israel so he could fulfill his obligations under the Middle East road map. The agreement was interpreted in the Western media as the declaration of a cease-fire, which was hailed as a step forward in the peace process. While any cessation of violence against Israeli civilians is to be welcomed, it is important to understand that the meaning of what the terrorist groups agreed to is very different in the Muslim context than the benign way it has been portrayed. The media and some political leaders portray a hudna as a truce or a cease-fire designed to bring peace. Hudna actually refers to a temporary cession of hostilities in order to regroup and to trick an enemy into lowering its guard. When the hudna expires, the party that declared it is stronger and the enemy weaker. The term comes from the story of the Muslim conquest of Mecca. Instead of a rapid victory, Muhammad made a ten-year treaty with the Kuraysh tribe. In 628 AD, after only two years of the ten-year treaty, Muhammad and his forces concluded that the Kuraysh were too weak to resist. The Muslims broke the treaty and took over all of Mecca without opposition (Palestine Chronicle, July 6, 2003; Embassy of Israel [USA], June 27, 2003). A modern-day hudna is not a form of compromise, rather it is a tactical tool to gain a military advantage. Hamas has used it no fewer than 10 times in 10 years (Washington Institute for Near East Policy, (June 2, 2003). The current hudna with Islamic terrorist organizations is no different. The Hamas charter openly rejects the notion of a peaceful solution to the Arab-Israeli conflict, and the group has given no indication it has changed its views. On the contrary, Hamas spokesmen have said they will not give up their weapons, that they will continue to resist "illegal occupation," and that they believe the "violent awakenening from a few weeks or months of quiet" will "reaffirm Palestinians' belief in the intifada as the only option for them" (Jerusalem Post, July 17, 2003; Ha'aretz, July 7 and 14, 2003; Israel Radio, July 10, 2003). Even the hudna declaration itself asserted "the legitimate right to resist the occupation as a strategic option until the end of the Zionist occupation of our homeland and until we achieve all our national rights." Hamas contends that all of Israel is occupied territory (IMRA). This is why Secretary of State Colin Powell called Hamas an "enemy of peace" just before the hudna was declared, and said "the entire international community must speak out strongly against the activities of Hamas" (The State Department, June 20, 2003). Not all of the Palestinian terror groups agreed even to the hudna, and violence continued after the supposed cease-fire. Israeli intelligence already has found evidence the Palestinians are exploiting the cease-fire to reorganize their forces. They are recruiting suicide bombers, increasing the rate of production of Qassam rockets, and seeking to extennd their range. Whether the Palestinian terrorist groups are sincere in their declaration of a cease-fire is not relevant to the fulfillment of their road map obligations. The road map explicitly calls on Abbas to do more than just achieve a cessation of hostilities; he is obligated to disarm and dismantle terrorists and terrorist infrastructure. jewishlondon.ca