Opinion: Could a long-term truce be in the offing?

In his latest column for Middle East Eye, academic and activist Azzam Tamimi says that a short-term prisoner exchange deal could be the precursor to a broader truce agreement. 

He writes: "The idea of a long-term hudna (truce) between Israel and the Palestinians originated in the early 1990s. It was referenced in February 1994 by Musa Abu Marzuq, who then headed the Hamas political bureau, in a statement published by the Amman weekly Al-Sabeel, the organ of the Jordanian Islamic movement. 

A similar reference to this concept inside Palestine was made around the same time by Hamas founder Sheikh Ahmed Yassin from his prison cell. He proposed a hudna as an interim solution to the Israel-Palestine conflict. 

Hamas repeated the offer on several occasions thereafter, but it failed to interest the Israelis. In recent days, the notion of a hudna has again been referenced by various Hamas spokespersons.

A hudna is recognised in Islamic jurisprudence as a legitimate and binding contract whose objective is to cease fighting with the enemy for an agreed period of time. It may be short or long, depending on mutual needs and interests."

You can read the full column below. 

Opinion: Could a long-term truce be in the offing?