Hudna: An Islamic Strategy in the Offing?

by Dr. Robert D. Crane

  The fatwa issued on July 29th by the Islamists’ most authoritative leader, Yusuf al Qaradawi, challenges Osama bin Laden’s rejection earlier this week of the Shi’a as Muslims.  This takfir was implied in the call by his long-time deputy, Zawahiri, for the establishment of a Dar al Islam from Morocco to Iraq. 

  The example of the Hisbullah in challenging Israeli military might is bound to shake up the entire Muslim world in both predictable and unpredictable ways.  If Hamas and Hisbullah can unite in favor of a hudna based on addressing the real issues, which were avoided at Oslo, they might be able to claim the moral high road, which extremists and terrorists have always avoided in their persistent perversion of the Qur’anic message.

  The Israeli extremists started the current Middle East war by dismissing what they considered to be the “threat” of peace.  This has been revealed in the article, published in The American Muslim under the title “Hudna Sabotaged: Israeli Invasion Torpedoes Hamas Breakthrough Strategy to Build a New Middle East Based on Justice.”  The fate of this effort, like all the other efforts by the Palestinians for peace, would seem to suggest that the most highly committed participants, those who are motivated by justice not by mere survival, should take the initiative and not wait for the war party in Israel to join in.

  The peace plan advanced by Secretary Rice yesterday on July 28th is a non-starter because it is farcical.  It ignores not only all the real issues but even the immediate issue of releasing the thousands of political prisoners held for so many years in Israeli prisons.  A hudna should be initiated by Hamas and Hisbullah together by unilaterally releasing the Israeli prisoners of war, but the release of Palestinian and Lebanese political prisoners must follow within a specified time frame. 

  If this deadline is not met, then the war should resume in earnest, this time perhaps with the support of Russia and all the Arab governments which thus far have stood de facto on the sidelines.  Russia may be an economic midget, but everyone listens to even midgets with guns, especially a midget who was once a giant and shows every sign now of a growing determination to project past glory into the future.