Mythbusters - Quiz & Hudabaiya Model

The following 'Quiz' was first written and published at Masada2000.org.

Ready To Take a Little Quiz?

If you are so sure that “Palestine, the country, goes back through most of recorded history”, I expect you to be able to answer a few basic questions about that country of "Palestine":

When was it founded and by whom?

What were its borders?

What was its capital?

What were its major cities?

What constituted the basis of its economy?

What was its form of government?

Can you name at least one Palestinian leader before Arafat?

Was Palestine ever recognized by a country whose existence at that time or now, leaves no room for interpretation?

What was the language of the country of Palestine?

What was the prevalent religion of the country of Palestine?

What was the name of its currency? Choose any date in history and try and find the approximate exchange rate of the Palestinian monetary unit against other world currencies on that date.

Have the Palestinians left any artifacts behind?

Do you know of a library where one could find a work of Palestinian literature produced before 1967?

And, finally, since there is no such country today, what caused its demise and when did it occur?

If the people you mistakenly call “Palestinians” are anything but generic Arabs collected from all over the Arab world, if they really have a genuine ethnic identity that gives them right for self-determination, why did they never try to become independent until Arabs suffered their devastating defeat by Israel in the 1967 Six Day War?

[If the "Palestinians" truly have a right to establish themselves IN Israel, can you explain why Arafat first attempted to establish a Palestinian Republic IN Jordan (1970-1), a country which comprises 76% of the territory allocated by the "Mandate for Palestine, a Jewish National Homeland" and whose population is mostly 'Palestinian'?]*

*Question in [ ] added by editor of this website

The truth should be obvious to everyone who wants to know it. Arab countries have never abandoned the dream of destroying Israel; they still cherish it today.

The fact is, Arabs populating Gaza, Judea, and Samaria have no legitimate claim to nationhood. The so-called “Palestinians” have only one motivation... the destruction of Israel. This is not sufficient to consider them a “nation” -- or anything else -- except what they really are: a "non-"People" led by various terrorist organizations.

There is only one way to achieve piece in the Middle East. Arab countries must acknowledge and accept their defeat in their war against Israel and, as the losing aggressors, should pay Israel reparations for the more than 50 years of devastation they have visited upon her. The most appropriate form of such reparations would be the removal of their terrorist organizations from the land of Israel and acceptance of Israel's ancient sovereignty over Gaza, Judea, and Samaria. But don't hold your breath waiting for THAT to happen any time soon!

The notion that the [Arab] "Palestinians" are an ancient people with thousands of years ties to the past is preposterous and they know it. They're banking on the fact that YOU don't know it. Please review the right column at Masada2000.org and the historical page at History of Israel and Palestine so you too can "Tell It Like It Is!"

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The Hudabaiya Treaty

In 638 CE, the Islamic prophet Mohammed attempted to conquer the Jewish Koreish tribe in Arabia. When he failed, he made a 10 year peace treaty with the tribe, known as the Treaty of Hudabaiya. Soon after sealing this treaty, Mohammed began reinforcing his military and two years later he violated that treaty, massacring all the men and selling the women and children into forced conversion and slavery.

The Hudaibiya Treaty is used in Sharia law (Islamic law). According to Muhammed Hamidullah, an Arab scholar of Islam, in The Muslim Conduct of State (7th rev'd. ed. Lahore: 1977, p. 266.), "Muslim jurists conclude that treaties of friendship should not be concluded with non-Muslims in perpetuity. Generally the jurists agree that ten years should be the maximum period." This legal precedent is also noted by Bernard Lewis in The Arabs in History (9th ed. Oxford: 1993, p. 43), and probably innumerable other places.

Arafat, and other Palestinian leaders, have used their esteemed prophet's example to explain in Arabic why they make treaties with 'the infidels'. Whether you agree that Mohammed violated the treaty or had just cause (as some Muslim visitors to this website may believe), it does not change the fact that ARAFAT believes that likening the Oslo Accords (and other agreements with Israel) to the Hudabaiya treaty is akin to acknowledging that the agreements between the PLO/PA and Israel are temporary stepping stones to the destruction of Israel.

Shortly after the Oslo Accords were formalized, Arafat addressed a Johannesburg, South Africa mosque on 10 May 1994, unaware he was being filmed:
"The Jihad will continue, and Jerusalem is not [only] for the Palestinian people, it is for all the Muslim nation... This agreement [Oslo], I am not considering it more than the agreement which had been signed between our prophet Mohammed and the Koraish, and you remember that Caliph Omar had refused this agreement and [considered] it a despicable truce... We are in need of you as Moslems, as warriors of Jihad [Mujaheddin]."

- Ha'aretz, 23 May 1994

In a 15 May 2002 speech to the Palestinian Legislative Council in Ramallah, Arafat professed that peace was the PA's strategic choice. He then went on to say:

"Our national fight will be continued in all forms [read: terrorism].... Let us remember the Hudaibiya Conciliation Accord out of our concern for the national and pan-Arab interest of our people and nation"

In an address to a rally in Ramallah on 15 November 1996 (shortly after the Wye River Accords) broadcast on official Palestinian Television, Arafat declared:

"We chose the peace of the brave out of faith in the prophet, in the Khudaibiya agreement."

Arafat-appointed Palestinian Police Chief Col. Ghazi Jabali made remarks which were broadcast on official Palestinian Authority-controlled television on 30 October 1998, one week after the signing of the Wye River Memorandum between Israel and the PLO:

"We wish to build an independent state and to build our nation - even the Prophet Muhammad, may peace be upon him, accepted the Hudabiya agreement, which contained unjust conditions."

In an interview with Egyptian government-controlled Orbit TV on 18 April 1998, Arafat was asked, "How do you explain that you occasionally ask the Palestinian street not to explode?" Arafat responded:

"When the prophet Muhammad made the Hudabiya agreement, he agreed to remove his title “messenger of Allah” from the agreement. Then, Omar bin Khatib and the others referred to this agreement as the “inferior peace agreement"... The peace agreement which we signed (Oslo, Interim Agreements, Hebron Accords) is an 'inferior peace'."

In an interview with the PA-controlled Al-Quds newspaper on 10 May 1998, Arafat was asked "Do you feel sometimes that you made a mistake in agreeing to Oslo?" Arafat responded:

"No... no. Allah's messenger Mohammad accepted the al-Hudabiya peace treaty and Salah a-Din accepted the peace agreement with Richard the Lion-Hearted [which Saladin violated shortly thereafter]."