Hudna

A hudna (from the Arabic هدنة meaning "calm" or "quiet") is a truce or armistice. It is sometimes mistranslated as "cease-fire". In his medieval dictionary of classical Arabic, the Lisan al-Arab, Ibn al-Manzur defined it as:

A famous early hudna was the Treaty of Hudaybiyyah between Muhammad and the Quraysh tribe.

In English, the term is most frequently used in reference to a ceasefire agreement in the Israeli–Palestinian conflict, particularly one that would involve organizations such as Hamas. The concept of hudna was first introduced to efforts to reduce violence in the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians by a Queen's University Belfast Professor in the period of 1999–2003 as a result of protracted negotiations with the Hamas leadership in the Gaza Strip, West Bank and abroad in countries like Lebanon and Syria. Some others claim that Israeli businessman Eyal Erlich in 2001, after seeing a hudna being declared in order to calm a feud in Jordan (cf. Haaretz, January 2, 2002); introduced the idea, unsuccessfully, that Israel should suggest a mutual hudna as a prelude to a more lasting peace.

Despite the Israeli government's rejection of the idea, in summer 2003—following many years of negotiation and facilitation from European advisors and diplomats along with pressure from Abu Mazen and Egypt—Hamas and Islamic Jihad unilaterally declared a 45-day ceasefire, or hudna. Its proponents commonly argued that such a cease-fire would allow for important violence reduction and act as a confidence-building measure to make further conflict resolution and peace negotiations possible; its opponents commonly argued that it would be a mere tactical maneuver enabling Palestinian groups to re-group and muster their strength in preparation for further attacks on Israelis, or Israel to continue expanding settlements, blockading Palestinian towns, and arresting members of such groups. The hudna started on June 29, 2003.

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