Winning the release of the surviving Israeli hostages from Hamas captivity and bringing even a temporary end to the fighting in Gaza is an achievement worth celebrating. If it were easy, it would have happened sooner. All who have been involved in the complex and contentious negotiations—including President Trump and his team, led by Stephen Witkoff, who are credited by all involved as key players—that have brought us to this point deserve recognition.
To the extent that what has been revealed about the agreement comes to pass—most notably that the remaining living 20 Israeli hostages are finally freed after over two years, that a process for returning the bodies of those who died in confinement is undertaken and that the Israelis withdraw their army from a substantial portion of Gaza—it should be acknowledged that it represents substantial and meaningful steps. They will end the suffering of many and reduce, at least for a moment, the peril to many more.
This is a real diplomatic accomplishment for the Trump Administration. There should be no partisan sniping about that.
But all such developments in the Middle East come with caveats and we should be aware of them. While this may be a step that could lead to a more lasting peace deal, it is as of now, many further steps remain ahead. It is, even as defined by the negotiators involved, a fragile, as-yet incomplete effort at concluding the first phase of a multi-phase plan. It is a ceasefire and an exchange of hostages for Palestinian prisoners in Israeli custody.
The swooning, self-congratulatory social media post via which Trump announced the deal leaned into future outcomes that remain in doubt. Trump wrote in the post that what was achieved were, “the first steps toward a Strong, Durable, and Everlasting Peace.” He then stated, “This is a GREAT Day for the Arab and Muslim World, Israel, all surrounding Nations, and the United States of America, and we thank the mediators from Qatar, Egypt, and Turkey, who worked with us to make this Historic and Unprecedented Event happen. BLESSED ARE THE PEACEMAKERS!”
“I think that you will see some tremendous things happen next week,” the president told The New York Post in a brief interview. He then added, “It’s been an amazing period of time. The whole world has come together, but the Middle East has come together for the first time in 3,000 years.”
While Trump may be forgiven his enthusiasm, substantial caution is warranted. We have seen ceasefires and hostage-prisoner exchanges before in this war. They did not produce “strong, durable and everlasting peace.” The parties do not trust one another. The parties often lie to one another.
Hamas is a weak, dysfunctional organization that has been battered by war and has never effectively represented the interests of the Palestinian people in the first place. Israel’s government is also embattled politically, faces an election next year, and includes many with extreme views that are diametrically opposed to anything like the kind of peace sought by Palestinians, many Israelis and countries throughout the region. Netanyahu and those closest to him remain adamantly opposed to the existence of an independent, self-sufficient Palestinian state, an absolute pre-requisite to what might actually be a real long-term resolution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Even the Trump Administration, active as they have been in pursuing this deal, has views of what might happen in the future that range from unrealistic (their hopes that an imposed international entity can effectively and fairly form a transitional government that would protect the interests of Palestinians and the region at large) to the offensively fanciful (the fantasy of a glittering, Vegas-like, Gaza Riviera). Trump has remained zeroed in on the Israeli argument that the big dividing issue in this conflict has been the hostages; he has been largely unsympathetic to the devastation to Gaza, the nearly 70,000 dead as a result of the conflict, the complete destruction within the war zone and the long-term right of self-determination of the Palestinian people.
But in order for this deal to become more than a temporary respite from a hideous conflict, many of these factors will have to change. A real path toward effective Palestinian self-governance must be clear and effectively undertaken. Absent it, the kind of regional financial and technical support that will be required to rebuild will not be forthcoming. Israeli efforts to further fragment and delegitimize Palestinian aspirations to a sovereign state must also end, not just in Gaza but in the West Bank. And in the interim, the Israelis and Palestinians will have to honor the ceasefire and, frankly, break the pattern of regular conflict that has inflamed their relationship for many decades.
Such steps are a lot to expect. Some thoughtful experts with whom I have spoken go further and flatly state that they are unrealistic. We should heed their concerns that are based in decades of painful experience.
Still, on the other hand, the fact that peace seems elusive or even nearly impossible to achieve is no reason not to seek it. The alternative has proven to be so disastrous for all involved and, it should be added, so abhorrent to virtually all the people of the world.
What is more, some things are changing. The politics of the region have been altered. Iranian proxies have been defeated. Neighbors once committed to war have stepped up to be stabilizing forces, and Israel’s conviction that it could always expect the blind allegiance of the US has been shaken as its actions in Gaza have profoundly shifted American attitudes.
So perhaps, in a moment like this, while we should avoid overstatement and misrepresenting what has happened, we can appreciate a small step forward. We can accept that in enduring conflicts that seem impossibly difficult, the only path to resolution, however precarious and unlikely, begins with a glimmer of hope. For now, that will have to be enough.
And for many of those involved, hostage families, the battered people of Palestine, it is not nothing.
The post Opinion: It’s Not Yet a Nobel Moment, But Trump’s Gaza Ceasefire Deal Is a Glimmer of Hope appeared first on The Daily Beast.
