HUDNA: THE SUPREME DISSIMULATION

WHY ISRAEL REFUSES A TRUCE - AND IS RIGHT!

HEITOR DE PAOLA 06/02/2003 Originally published in Portuguese in Midia Sem Máscara, a Brazilian online journal (STILL UPDATE IN TODAY SITUATION)

When referring to the Road Map to Peace, the current pacifist panacea for the conflict between the State of Israel and Palestinian terrorist groups, our masked media has avoided using the term hudna, the Palestinian side of the pantomime. What is hudna? It is an Arabic word to designate what any general, since Antiquity, knows and which every prepared opponent does not accept and takes advantage of to attack. But as it was a term used by the Prophet Muhammad, it acquires a kind of respectful aura that increases misdirection.

It is generally translated, in the Western press, as a truce of pre-determined temporary duration to enter into negotiations aimed at peace. But this translation leaves aside the religious, historical meaning and even the current meaning given to the term by the leaders of guerrilla and terrorist gangs.

The Prophet Muhammad, then exiled in Medina, was constantly threatened by members of his Quraysh tribe who did not recognize his spiritual leadership nor accept his monotheism, and who controlled Mecca, the most sacred city for the pre-Islamic Arabs, as it contained the Kaaba where was the sacred black stone fallen from the heavens (probably a meteorite). After several skirmishes, in the year 628, he offered them peace, promising the safety of their caravans in exchange for permission to perform the annual pilgrimage rites to the Kaaba. The Quraysh responded that a year of peace should precede the agreement. Muhammad then declared a 10-year truce – which he called hudna – known as the Hodaibiah agreement. To console his warriors, the Prophet attacked and plundered the Khaibar Jews in their colony northeast of Medina: ninety-three were slaughtered and the rest, to survive, handed over their properties and half of their future harvests.

During the next two years, Muhammad reinforced his army and – like the master of misdirection that he was – used the excuse of some minor infraction committed by the Quraysh to launch a devastating attack, with 10,000 men, and retook Mecca.

This is the true meaning of hudna: falsely waving a truce that serves not the express purpose – preparing peace – but the secret purpose of resting, reinforcing and expanding one's forces when the situation is desperate and defeat is near.

Historically, this has always been the direction given by the fighting Arab forces: to accumulate forces for the next round. It is nothing more than a trick, “honey-coated poison”, as Gideon Meir, Israel's Deputy Foreign Minister, said a while ago.

THE ROLE OF HUDNA IN THE CURRENT CONFLICT

In an interview on Palestine TV, Abd Al-Malek, Arab Member of the Knesset (Israeli Parliament) – yes, there is this in the “territory occupied by the Zionists”! – when responding to a statement from a spectator that “our problem with Israel is not a problem of borders, but of existence...”, he replied: “Yes, we exaggerate when we talk about 'peace'.... when what we really mean is hudna.” And here comes the “cat leap” that anyone who understands Arabic has already noticed a long time ago. When Palestinian authorities speak in their language to their own people but not in English interviews at international forums, they use hudna and make it clear that there is no peace in sight, but only a temporary ceasefire that, in addition to the traditional purpose already exposed, there is another: to deceive the so-called “international community” – even some Israelis such as those from the “Peace Now” movement – that the Palestinians want true peace. But what if the “Zionist occupiers” treacherously attack them? And in this regard, terrorist groups are in full agreement with the “Palestinian Authority” itself.

All the agreements signed by them are a pure farce in English and manage to completely deceive the muggles who believe in them, with the right to even win the Nobel Peace Prize. This was the case in 1994, when Yasser Arafat explained, in Arabic, to the Palestinians that the Oslo were a hudna on the way to Jerusalem. Then, in 2000, following the Prophet himself, his master of misdirection, using as a pretext Ariel Sharon's visit to the Temple Mount, he created the so-called "small enemy infraction", breaking the hudna and launching a new war, known as the Intifada Al Aqsa.

Mainly in educational messages for young people and in textbooks published just this past month, Israel is seen as a colonizing power that stole the land of the Palestinian people and expelled the residents – therefore Israel has no right to exist. The Hodaibiah agreement is always mentioned as a model for any and all ceasefire acts signed by the authorities, understood as simply part of a final strategic process: the liberation of Palestine and the expulsion of the Jews to the sea. These agreements are Always when the balance of power at the moment is unfavorable to its hosts, like now that President Bush, who has already shown that he is not to be trifled with – see Afghanistan and Iraq – did not believe in the announced truce and demanded the dismantling of Hamas.

SOME EXAMPLES OF PALESTINE “SINCERITY” – IN ARABIC, OF COURSE

Palestinian Authority (PA) Supply Minister Abd El-Aziz Shahian: “Oslo is just the first step in the destruction of Israel, not a permanent agreement.”

Preacher Dr Ahmed Yousuf Abu Halbiah, from AP: “The Palestinian Nation is Allah's vanguard against the Jews, until the resurrection of the dead (...) until Allah's destiny is fulfilled.”

Othman Abu Arbiah, Political and Educational Advisor to Arafat: “The Palestinian State with its capital in Al Quds (Jerusalem, in Arabic) is only the first stage (...) in the destruction of the Zionist colonizers”.

Sheikh Yousuf Abi Snina, preacher at Al Aqsa Mosque: “Palestinian land is Waqf land that has belonged to the believers of Islam since the beginning of time and no one has the right to (...) make concessions or abandon it. (...) All those who accept the existence of Israel, which includes giving up Haifa, Lod, Nazareth and Ashkelon, are traitors and criminals who deserve Hell.” In the same sermon he grants Arafat a Shariatic Seal of Approval (Islamic Law) to establish a hudna!

Salim Alwadia Abu Salem, AP Political Affairs Supervisor: “When we took up arms in 1965 and the modern Palestinian revolution began, we had a single objective, which has not changed and will never change: the liberation of Palestine (from the Zionist occupation)”.

The thousands of examples are all ad nauseam repetition of the same chant.

CONCLUSIONS

The messages of peace from Israeli and Palestinian leaders to their respective peoples are exactly the opposite of each other.

Israeli leaders are saying: the permanent agreement will be painful, but we must accept it because it will mark the end of the conflict.

Palestinian leaders, in turn, say: the permanent agreement will be painful, but we must accept it because it does not mean the end of the conflict, but is just a phase of it.

Can you believe in Peace, with or without a Road Map?

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NOTE: what is described here is in accordance with what is written in the chapter THE AFFAIR OF AL-HUSAYBYIA, A.H. 6, THE WILIING HOMAGE AND THE PEACE BETWEEN THE APOSTLE AND SUHAYL B. 'AMR and THE EXPEDITION TO KHAYBAR, from the book Sirat Rasul Allah (The Life of Muhammad) by Ibn Ishaq, trans by A. Guillaume, Oxford Univ. Press, pp. 499 et seq.