Is the market price of Hudna going down?

Yeah... hudna... now I see that I'll have to explain stuff. OK, back to an old post of mine for some quick copy and paste:

HUDNA - Arabic word often translated as "cease-fire.- Historically used 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. 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.

Notice that the initially agreed upon ten year treaty was reduced by Muhammad to only two - for convenience. Interestingly, the various versions of hudna, offered by Hamas to Israel, are also of 10 years duration - is it a coincidence, a nod to tradition or some secret instruction in Qur'an that enforces the 10 years standard?

Whatever, but looking into this old post brought up an interesting comparison. You see, the post was written a bit more than 8 years ago, and it  mentions an even older (10 years) hudna proposal by Hamas:

In January 2004, senior Hamas leader Abdel Aziz al-Rantissi offered a 10-year hudna in return for complete withdrawal from all territories captured in the Six Day War, and the establishment of a Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza. Rantissi said the hudna was limited to ten years and represented a decision by the movement because it was "difficult to liberate all our land at this stage; the hudna would however not signal a recognition of the state of Israel."

Aside of a (trivial) observation that only a suicidal idiot would sign such a proposal, I couldn't miss another point. Compare the above offer with the list of current demands voiced by Hamas delegation in Cairo:

• Immediate ceasefire and Israel withdrawal from the Gaza Strip
• End to blockade and opening of crossings for people and merchandise
• Extending the freedom of movement for sailors to 12 nautical miles
• Cancelling the 'safety strip' around the Gaza border
• Establishment of an airport and a seaport in Gaza
• Rehabilitation of the Strip and a promise of emergency aid with the help of an international committee of donors to be convened by the Palestinian unity government
• The release of the fourth wave of Palestinian security detainees originally promised by Israel to PA
• Release of Shalit deal prisoners who were rearrested during IDF Operation Brother's Keeper and the release of Palestinian Legislative Council members also arrested in the op

All in all, the hudna of today looks much cheaper than the one grudgingly offered 10 years ago. Interesting, ain't it?

The only reasonable conclusion from that trend could be: if we pound Hamas a bit more, they might yet offer to jump into the Med and spend there these ten years submerged. Be a good deal for everyone, methinks.

P.S. And since that old post was mentioned, and I have already used much of it, here is the rest:

And in simple words for our friends who don't like long sentences. Hudna is akin to a following situation: you have a fight with a fellow (in a pub, say). Then the fellow offers you his hand and adds that he is going for an hour of R&R and then will come back (he intends to do it in ten minutes, of course) with a stone to bash your head in - that is precisely an offer of Hudna.

If you are stupid enough to take this offer, at least make sure you have a bigger and better stone prepared in advance...

 Yup. the old text above was amended a bit, since I have missed the point of 10 years becoming 2 in the Wiki story...