Regarding ten-year truce, who is Hamas trying to fool?

Submitted by Prashant, Sep 16, 2017 at 13:20

Dear Dr Pipes,

Your reader Robert from the United States is right when he warns people about the ten year truce proposed by Hamas to Israel. Some times we forget the obvious. We all know that no process of peace can be guaranteed to last for ever. Still when we agree for peace --be it between brothers in a family or nations in the world-- the good among us hope and believe that the peace will last for ever. Any one who offers a peace for ten years is plainly and simply lying.

In Islamic politico-religious thought truce also means a temporary ceasefire in which Muslims regroup and solidify. The ten-year truce proposed by Hamas to Israel comes with ten conditions. It will not take a very brainy person to figure out that those conditions are deceptive and are consistent with the duplicitous the Islamic doctrine to the last dot. If those ten conditions as reported by various sources on the Internet have to be believed, General/Prophet Muhammad would be proud of Hamas' proposal; even Muhammad could not have written a thing more selfish and one sided. Hamas effectively asked Israel to give away the farm for a temporary promise of peace.

We should have a different ten-year plan for the Islamic societies. We, the freedom loving people of the world, should relentlessly preach the virtues of freethinking, pluralistic democracy, golden rule, separation of church and state and unselfish thinking to Muslim people. We should tell them that whether it is between the genders or nations or the people of different faiths, "different but equal" just does not work and the golden rule is the only way to live. If Quran or any other religious book is in conflict with the golden rule, the golden rule trumps. If Quran or any other scripture conflicts with separation of church and state, the latter trumps. End of discussion!

In every forum where people speak and exchange ideas, these simple ideas must be presented to Muslims in every corner of the world until every Muslim high school kid and every Islamic apologist and every Islamic politician starts quoting them by heart.

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