Sunday, April 27, 2008

Why did Hamas offer a 10-year truce?

The other night on his CNN TV show Glenn Beck had this exchange with the novelist Joel Rosenberg about the Hamas offer of a ten-year truce:

BECK: Nowhere. All right. Yesterday we talked a little bit about Jimmy Carter and, you know, his fun games with Hamas. And we ran out of time. And I want to come back to this, because you see it as significant in end-times prophecy. How?

ROSENBERG: I do potentially and this is why. Because Hamas -- what Carter came home with was a declaration from the Hamas leader, Khaled Meshaal, to say that Hamas, the terrorist organization, would consider a 10-year peace treaty, or a hudna. A truce, as it were, with Israel.

Why is that significant? Because in the Bible, Daniel, Chapter 9, it talks about a seven-year comprehensive peace deal between Israel and the many nations and enemies that surround it. Seven years. Now, up until now, in the modern Arab-Israeli peace process, in the last 60 years, nobody has ever suggested a time frame for a comprehensive deal. You didn`t see that in the Camp David Accords in 1979. You didn`t see it in the peace treaty with Jordan in 1994. You didn`t see it in the Oslo Accords, this idea of a time-limited comprehensive treaty.

But now Hamas, with Jimmy Carter`s help, has just injected a ten-year time-limited treaty. And this is -- I don`t believe Hamas. I don`t believe they really want peace. But that`s not the point. The point is, this is the first time in the Arab-Israeli peace process where someone has said, "Let`s do a deal but for a limited period of time." In this case, only three years off the one the Bible said.

In the first place, it isn't true that "up until now, in the modern Arab-Israeli peace process, in the last 60 years, nobody has ever suggested a time frame for a comprehensive deal." In fact, this isn't even the first time Hamas has done it. We reported here at Jihad Watch on January 27, 2004 that Hamas offered Israel a 10-year truce at that time, in exchange for full withdrawal from West Bank and Gaza Strip.

And why the ten-year time limit? Not because they're getting close to fulfilling Biblical prophecy, but because that is the period stipulated for a truce in Islamic law. One manual of Muslim jurisprudence teaches that "if Muslims are weak, a truce may be made for ten years if necessary, for the Prophet (Allah bless him and give him peace) made a truce with the Quraysh for that long, as is related by Abu Dawud" ('Umdat as-Salik, o9.16).

Note that this can only be done if "Muslims are weak." The same legal manual also quotes this verse of the Qur'an: "So do not be fainthearted and call for peace, when it is you who are the uppermost" (Sura 47:35). So it isn't likely that Hamas would be calling for a truce at all if it felt that it was in a position of strength. "Interests that justify making a truce are such things as Muslim weakness because of lack of numbers or materiel, or the hope of an enemy becoming Muslim . . ." ('Umdat as-Salik, o9.16).

The bottom line: Hamas is feeling the heat and wants a truce in order to regroup and emerge in a stronger position.

And how much simpler and clearer analysis of what they are doing would be if anyone had the guts to look at the content of the Islamic teachings that Hamas follows.
Thanks Jihad Watch

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