section_path: Policies towards Israel and Palestine/Truce proposals
section_name: Truce proposals
paragraph_text: Truce proposals
  
  The founder of Hamas, sheikh Ahmed Yassin, has offered Israel a ten-year hudna (armistice) in return for complete Israeli withdrawal from the territories captured in the 1967 war and establishing a Palestinian state in West Bank and Gaza. Later, Yassin has stated that this hudna could be renewed for 30, 40 or even 100 years.: 238 Hamas's spokesperson, Ahmed Yousef, has said that a "hudna" is more than a ceasefire and it "obliges parties to use the period to seek a permanent, non-violent resolution to their differences." Under Islamic international law, a hudna is a binding and the Qur'an prohibits its violation.
  
  Hamas first proposed a hudna in 1999. In exchange Israel would have to end the occupation of West Bank and Gaza Strip and release all Palestinian prisoners. The 1999 proposal did not mention the issues of the return of the Palestinian refugees or Hamas's recognition of Israel, but interviewed Hamas leaders in 2010 added that the right of return should be accepted in principle by Israel (without direct actual implementation). Israel and Hamas should use the period of calm (armistice) for negotiating these two issues; if they would also be settled the temporary peace would convert into a permanent peace agreement.
  
  In 2006, Ismail Haniyeh, shortly after being elected as Prime Minister, sent messages both to US President George W. Bush and to Israel's leaders, offering a long-term truce. Neither Israel nor the United States responded. Haniyeh's proposal reportedly was a fifty-year armistice with Israel, if a Palestinian state is created along the 1967 borders with East Jerusalem as its capital. A Hamas official added that the armistice would renew automatically each time. In mid-2006, University of Maryland 's Jerome Segal suggested that a Palestinian state within the 1967 borders and a truce for many years could be considered Hamas's de facto recognition of Israel. A similar proposal was once again offered by Hamas to Israel in November 2006.
  
  In November 2008, in a meeting, on Gaza Strip soil, with 11 European members of parliaments, Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh re-stated that Hamas was willing to accept a Palestinian state "in the territories of 1967 " (Gaza Strip and West Bank), and offered Israel a long-term truce if Israel recognized the Palestinians' national rights; and stated that Israel rejected this proposal. A Hamas finance minister around 2018 contended that such a "long-term ceasefire as understood by Hamas and a two-state settlement are the same".
  
  According to Leila Seurat, the movement's leaders consider that a traditional peace treaty like those in the Western tradition would be tantamount to surrender, while a truce would provide an alternative allowing them to wait for an inversion in the regional balance of power to the Palestinians' advantage. Mkhaimer Abusada, a political scientist at Al Azhar University, wrote in 2008 that Hamas talks "of hudna, not of peace or reconciliation with Israel. They believe over time they will be strong enough to liberate all historic Palestine." Some scholars have noted that alongside offering a long-term truce, Hamas retains its objective of establishing one state in former Mandatory Palestine.: 837, 839 Hamas originally proposed a 10-year truce, or hudna, to Israel, contingent on the creation of a Palestinian state based on the 1967 borders. Sheikh Ahmed Yassin indicated that such truce could be extended for 30, 40, or even 100 years, but it would never signal a recognition of Israel. A Hamas official said that having an indefinite truce with Israel doesn't contradict Hamas's lack of recognition of Israel, comparing it to the Irish Republican Army 's willingness to accept a permanent armistice with the United Kingdom without recognizing the UK's sovereignty over Northern Ireland.: 221–246