On Saturday, both NBC News and the New York Times published articles about the hardships experienced by Gazans observing Ramadan during wartime. The Washington Post, for its part, focused on how the war has dampened the festive mood among the Muslim community of Yorba Linda. Before the holy month began, the White House had spoken of efforts to convince the warring parties to agree to a pause in fighting for the holy month. Robert Satloff points out that, historically, Muslim rulers have had no qualms about waging war during Ramadan:
The 1973 Arab-Israeli war may be known to Jews as the Yom Kippur War, but it is widely known in the Arab world as “Harb Ramadan”—the Ramadan War—given that Anwar Sadat dispatched Egyptian forces to cross the Suez Canal during the holy month. But it is only a relatively recent example of Arab or Muslim armies waging war during this month.
The Saudi newspaper Arab News provided a helpful primer on the topic in 2014: “While much literature has been written on Islamic conquests focusing on strategy, many victories occurred during Ramadan due to the focus of the Ummah on Allah Almighty and this removed fear from the hearts of the Muslims.” . . . More recently, take a look at the bloodthirsty Ramadan record of Islamic State.
For Hamas and its fellow travelers, waging war during Ramadan—including sacrificing fellow Muslims as pawns in the fight against Israel, inciting tensions at Jerusalem’s al-Aqsa mosque to trigger violence at that holy site and launching terrorist attacks against civilians—are all acceptable military tactics, as valid during Ramadan as they are the other months of the year.
In fact, Al Jazeera published an article in Arabic in 2021 glorifying the various acts of terror committed by Palestinians during Ramadan, which it described as “the month of jihad and victories in Islamic history,” during which Muslims exhibit “greater readiness for self-sacrifice.”
Read more on The Hill: https://thehill.com/opinion/international/4524779-theres-no-such-thing-as-a-ramadan-truce/