What lies behind the wink and hint:

History lesson today kids.

Our topic this evening will be a particular element of Islamic history that remains relevant today. Specifically, the hudna. What is a hudna you ask? The hudna is a temporary cease fire between a Muslim force and a non-muslim force. What seperates a hudna from a truce or a lasting peace agreement is the simple fact that the muslim force, under Islamic tradition, is only tied to this agreement for as long as is necessary for the muslim force to gain enough strength to anihilate the enemy, non-muslim force. In other words, a hudna is nothing more than a temporary settlement that allows the Muslim army to regenerate its strength under the guise of a lasting agreement.

By the way, for documentation of the above explanation, please see here, here, here and here (note that in this last, the relevant portion is that Muhammad established a hudna with Mecca until he had the strength in arms to conquer it, thus establishing the precedent of which I spoke).

So why is the hudna relevant to today's world? Well, I am glad that you asked. Because it has come up in two not so different settings.

Hudna 1:
Al-Qaeda's leaders, bin Laden and zl-Zawahiri have offered truces to the United States and the West, and the latest "offers" were not the first time. I contend that these truces, based on an understanding of the hudna are nothing more than an attempt to lull the West into a sense of security with the intent that it let its guard down and call off the dogs. Give them 10 or fewer years and you will see a revitalized organization with the ability to weild enormous destructive power. No, they don't want peace with us, they don't believe we can coexist.

Hudna 2:
Hamas, Fatah, and the PLO have, in the past, declared a cease fire agreement. Now, often times this is contingent upon Israel's ceasing to exist, but even in those rare situations where that is not a condition for temporary stoppage of violence, it is at best nothing more than a hudna. That's right, they don't really want peace. Hamas and Fatah, the two parties that won nearly all of the seats in the recent Palestinian parlimentary elections, both exhibit the same goal, but have different styles and strategies for achieving it.

So what have we learned? That when dealing with radical Islamist terror, there is no truce that we can accept as legitimate. After all, a hudna by any other name, would still be unacceptable.