The Truth is, - there is no Truce!

When Islam is involved, a truce not a truce as we Westerners understand it. I tried to explain this concept in an earlier blog: http://lilo97423.wordpress.com/2008/06/20/truce-or-hudna .

The Arabic word “hudna”, is often translated as "cease-fire”, and has a distinct meaning to Islamic fundamentalists, well-versed in their history. 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 Quraysh tribe. In 628 AD, after only two years of the ten-year treaty, Muhammad and his forces concluded that the Quraysh were too weak to resist. The Muslims broke the treaty and took over all of Mecca without opposition.

Hamas uses a “truce” as a tactic aimed at allowing the party declaring the hudna to regroup while tricking an enemy into lowering its guard. When the hudna expires, the party that declared it is stronger and the enemy weaker. Whenever Hamas has acquired enough weapons, they use them again against Israel. – So, you see, in truth, - there is no truce!

The “hudna” began to unravel last Tuesday. Who started it? The Palestinians had used the time during the cease fire to build another one of their militant tunnels. When IDF troops discovered it, they entered Gaza to destroy it. That set off battles in which seven Palestinian gunmen were killed. The fighting sparked a wave of rocket attacks from Gaza at Israeli border towns.

It seems to happen every time Condolezza Rice travels to Israel trying to create “peace” according to the Saudi peace-plan. Hamas is either celebrating her arrival with rockets or trying to say: “That’s what we think of you!” - But she doesn’t seem to listen either way.

Gaza’s 10-day missile blitz has damaged homes and parked vehicles, forcing tens of thousands of inhabitants in the towns and villages around the Gaza Strip to spend hours in shelters or under cover.

Israel National News reported on Friday that Gaza terrorists aimed a barrage of Kassam rockets at the coastal city of Ashkelon, just a few hours after attacking Jewish communities in the Gaza Belt. They were not certain if the rockets were Kassams or the longer-range Katyusha rockets. One 70-year-old woman suffered shrapnel wounds in the attack and was taken to Barzilai Hospital in Ashkelon. A number of people in the city – including children -- were treated for emotional trauma and shock. Earlier in the day, Hamas terrorist launched ten Kassam rockets at Jewish communities in the western Negev. Seven of the homemade missiles exploded in the rocket-battered city of Sderot. Two slammed into areas close to Ashkelon, further to the north.

An eyewitness reported: “Here in Ashkelon we had today a barrage of missiles or rockets falling. I was shopping downtown for Shabbat when the siren start sounding, the store was with a lot of people and there was no place for shelter anywhere. We heard the bombs falling behind us, and I decide to go home right away, when I go out again the siren sound and people where running all over, crying it was awful then the bomb fell about a block of where I was standing, just midst to a huge school with thousand of kids there. Kids were let out and they were crying and running home. The traffic was stacked and crazy and everybody was shouting or crying. Finally I got home with a headache and the blood pressure very high. All the rockets fallen down near my home for I live in the center of the city. What else can I say it is hard to see all the people out of control and suffering. So far the economy here has been sustained but people had lost the jobs in the region and stores have no customers. Now it is 4 PM, they stop the Kassams, Baruch Hashem and we hope to have a peace full Shabbat….”

Yet, Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, defense Minister Ehud Barak, and chief of staff Lt. Gen. Gaby Ashkenazi decided at a special conference Friday evening, Nov. 14, to refrain from responding to the Palestinians’ 10-day missile blitz from Gaza.

Sderot Mayor David Buskila told reporters: “It is sad to be a citizen of a country that cannot deploy its army to give an immediate response to this phenomenon.”

How many more rockets will it take until Israel responds and defends its citizens?