PEACE

Hopefully...

What can I say about today’s announcement of what appears to be a deal to end the war?

It is a moment of huge relief and joy. We need to remain cautious — implementation of these deals is always hard and often touch-and-go. We’re already seeing public posturing from both sides and threats to renege because the other side isn’t living up to its obligations. But this feels real. It feels like the end of the war. It also happened remarkably quickly — less than two weeks after the plan was announced — much faster than I expected. And yet it also took far too long. If you had told me on October 7, 2023, that this war would go on for two years, I would never have believed you. Here are some initial thoughts and reactions.

The Trump team did the right thing by going for a limited deal.

One of my biggest concerns when the 20-point plan was announced 10 days ago was that negotiating all the details would take too long and could drag on for months. The right move was to focus first on implementing the immediate deal to end the war, then work on the other elements later. You didn’t need an agreement on the details of an international force in Gaza, for example, to stop the fighting. The deal appears to have done that by focusing on the hostage release, Palestinian prisoners, Israeli withdrawal lines, and aid into Gaza. Importantly, a detailed plan for disarming Hamas does not appear to be part of the initial deal — that will take months or years to work out, and including it could have given Netanyahu a way to stall or kill the negotiations. It also appears that Turkey, Qatar, and Egypt got Hamas to cave on some of its demands for a withdrawal timeline, which had been another major sticking point. But we’ll have to see the details.

Israel, Hamas, the United States, the Arab world, and the international community now need to follow through.

In every Gaza conflict since 2007, each round of fighting was followed by a deal to stop the violence, along with promises of next steps to break the cycle. Those steps were never carried out — Israel and Hamas lacked incentives, and mediators got distracted once the shooting stopped. That can’t happen this time. There is a plan on the table: to stabilize Gaza, bring in an international force and technocratic government, reform the PA and have it take over Gaza, and ultimately move toward what we at J Street call the “23-state solution.” It will take years, hard work, and tough negotiations. Were the elements of the day-after plan just window dressing to get to a ceasefire, or will the catastrophe of the past two years finally push everyone to make sure this doesn’t happen again? Time will tell.

Could this have happened earlier if Trump had applied more pressure?

It’s genuinely remarkable how fast this all came together in just two weeks. Despite objections from Netanyahu and Hamas, Trump bullied everyone forward. When he presented the plan to Arab leaders in New York and the Israelis raised concerns, he pressed ahead. When Bibi got the Americans to add potential poison pills and the Arabs complained, Trump told them to keep pushing and make Hamas take it. When Hamas “accepted” the deal with what was essentially a “yes, but,” and Netanyahu tried to get Trump to declare it a “no,” Trump refused — and publicly said it was a yes. Which makes one wonder: how much earlier could this have ended?

Given his support among the Israeli public — especially Netanyahu’s base — Trump could have ended it much sooner. His March decision to let the ceasefire expire and give Israel a green light to cut off all aid to Gaza was a tragic and inexplicable mistake. He could have stopped the war then.

Could Biden have ended it earlier?

That’s a more complicated question. Biden had overwhelming support from the Israeli public early in the war and real leverage — before Netanyahu systematically undermined him by highlighting and exaggerating public daylight between Israel and the U.S. It was also earlier in the conflict, when Hamas was still under Sinwar’s control and Hezbollah and Iran were stronger and more disruptive. And we can’t forget that Gideon Sa’ar’s entrance into the government in the fall of 2024 gave Netanyahu more wiggle room to cut a deal and not lose his coalition and by then Biden was a lame duck.

At the same time, the Trump plan isn’t that different from the ideas we were developing in October and November 2023. As I’ve written before, if Biden had gone public and jammed Bibi — which I was advocating at the time — might it have ended the war? I don’t know. But it’s something all of us who served in the Biden administration, and those who might serve in the future, need to consider.

I’m haunted by what a former senior IDF official told me after I left government: “Our initial plans for Gaza were to fight for three months and then stop. We assumed you — the Americans — would make us stop. But you never did.”

How will this play in Israeli politics?

Will it collapse the coalition and trigger new elections? Maybe. But based on initial reactions, Smotrich and Ben Gvir don’t sound like two men preparing to walk away. Ben Gvir might go — which wouldn’t collapse the government — and his poll numbers in the event of a new election are solid. So, he is probably fine risking a new election. Smotrich’s numbers are terrible, and he still wields major power in the West Bank in the current government. He has no incentive to leave. It was a bluff all along. Once Gideon Sa’ar entered the government in September 2024, Ben Gvir could no longer trigger elections on his own, and the far right’s leverage dropped sharply. The U.S. never pressed enough, and Netanyahu was never forced to call Smotrich’s bluff.

The other big question is how this affects Bibi’s support. Elections are coming in the fall of 2026, probably sooner. Does this deal give him a boost? I doubt it. For two years, his coalition has polled around 50 out of 120 seats, versus 70 for the opposition. The Israeli public will never forgive Netanyahu for October 7th or his refusal to take responsibility and launch a proper inquiry. But he doesn’t need 60 seats — just enough to make it hard for the opposition to form a government. That could lead to paralysis and multiple elections, with Netanyahu staying on as caretaker prime minister. Will this deal give him that boost? I hope not.

A historic turning point — or the road to entrenchment.

The coming years could mark either a historic opportunity to end the Israeli-Palestinian conflict or a shift toward permanent occupation and entrenched apartheid. This moment reminds me of the aftermath of the 1973 Yom Kippur War. Then, Israelis felt secure after 1967 — until the shock of 1973 changed everything, traumatizing the public and forcing leaders to rethink their assumptions. It also refocused the Egyptians, who realized they couldn’t keep fighting. The U.S. and international community, reeling from the oil crisis and a near-miss with nuclear escalation between the US and USSR, recognized this conflict could not be allowed to continue to fester. The stakes for all were too high. And so immediately after the war, Kissinger started a diplomatic push; five years later, Carter finished it.

We could be at a similar inflection point now. Israelis and Palestinians are exhausted. Polling shows a paradox: rising support for peace initiatives (when framed properly) and for extreme options like forced displacement and armed resistance — two societies searching for direction.

The “conflict management” paradigm, born after the Second Intifada, is dead. Netanyahu’s strategy of empowering Hamas — letting it receive Qatari cash through Ben Gurion Airport while strangling the PA — is discredited. The U.S. and Gulf states, which in recent years had begun dismissing the Israeli-Palestinian conflict as a sideshow, now understand there’s no stability in the Middle East without resolving it.

If implemented, the Trump plan could channel this moment toward progress: bringing the world — especially Arab states — into Gaza, reforming and revitalizing the PA, and building toward a comprehensive regional peace with a Palestinian state.

Whether we go down that path depends on Israel’s next election. I don’t expect major movement before then. If Netanyahu wins, Israel will go down a dark path — de facto apartheid, continued settlement expansion and violence in the West Bank, and no progress in Gaza. Israeli society will harden, and a new generation of Palestinians, radicalized by the war, will keep fighting.

But a new Israeli government — even a centrist coalition with Bennett and Lieberman alongside Eisenkot, Lapid and Golan — could choose a different path. After all, no one expected Menachem Begin - the first Likud prime minister and one of the leaders of the Irgun - to make peace with Egypt. Perhaps today marks not only the end of the war, but the beginning of a new future for Israelis and Palestinians. We can only hope.