The Day After Has Arrived

The guns are quiet and the hostages are coming home. The question now: Will we seize this fragile chance to create the hope we’ve all been searching for?

This weekend, I’m allowing myself to smile. To feel relief – and even joy – after two years of heartbreak.

Twenty hostages, whose stories I’ve come to know so personally, are coming home at last. Of course, also in my heart are all those who lost family on or since October 7 for whom today is undoubtedly filled with mixed emotions.

And in Gaza, for the first time in ages, families are sleeping without the sound of bombs and drones overhead. Aid will flow again. Life – fragile and tentative – will begin to stir.

After all we’ve witnessed, we’ve earned a moment to exhale.

The images before us these next days will be jarring, but together they will tell the full truth of this moment: Israeli families embracing loved ones they didn’t know if they’d see again.

Palestinians returning to the rubble to dig out what remains of their homes and reckon with unfathomable loss. Prisoners released – seen as terrorists by some, heroes by others – reuniting with their families.

In Egypt, leaders from around the world will gather to commit to building a better future. President Trump will fly to the Cairo summit after addressing the Knesset in Jerusalem, a journey echoing another taken five decades ago, after a bloody war that inaugurated generations of Egyptian-Israeli peace.

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This is the day after. The one we have spoken and dreamed about for two years. What will we do now?

There are two roads ahead. One demands imagination, courage, and empathy. The other, only inertia and rage.

One leads to a future that looks nothing like the past: a future of peace, partnership, and shared prosperity, where states of Israel and Palestine live side by side, secure in their dignity and humanity. A Middle East working together to defeat extremism, nurture opportunity, and give the next generation something to believe in.

The other road – one that is all too familiar – inevitably leads back to bloodshed and tears. Revenge, grievance, fear. Endless arguments over who suffered more, whose God promised what, whose pain justifies another round of killing. That path has brought us nothing but loss.

I am not blind. Danger lurks on all fronts – abroad and at home. I am clear-eyed about the threat Donald Trump poses to American democracy and global stability. I know without doubt that Bibi Netanyahu and his coalition of messianic ethnonationalists will not be the government that reaches long-term agreements and understandings.

I am well aware that Hamas, Islamic Jihad, and other extremists on the Palestinian side will try to sabotage progress. Iran will look for openings to exploit.

But I refuse to focus only on the obstacles. History only rarely opens doors of real opportunity, and we stand before one now.

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What this moment requires is leadership – not just from Israelis and Palestinians, but from the U.S. and Europe and leaders in the Arab and Muslim world – from all who believe that peace is possible.

Israelis go to the polls next year. They must choose leaders who see the opportunity before them: to secure their borders, normalize their place in the region, and reclaim Israel’s moral standing in the world.

There must be an open and honest debate, now that the fighting is done and with the hostages home, about what long-term security requires and about the danger that the far right’s fever-dream fantasies pose to Israel’s survival.

And there must be a reckoning with the core question that cannot be kicked down the road any longer: how to compromise with Palestinians over the land.

Enough with politicians who tell us they can “manage the conflict.”

Palestinians need renewal as well – new leadership, new elections, real reform, and a process of state-building that unites Gaza and the West Bank and permanently rids them of Hamas’s deplorable rule.

I implore Mahmoud Abbas to make way for a new generation of leaders who will build the state that he devoted his life to bringing about.

The time has come for Palestinians to realize their right to – and to step up to the responsibilities of – statehood.

The Arab world must step forward too – not just with declarations of intent or pledges of vast quantities of money, but to create a genuine regional partnership, one that includes both states of Israel and Palestine.

The solution will not be found in endless bilateral talks or through more walls and weapons. It lies in a new regional vision – I call it a “23-state solution” – that is a true partnership of neighbors addressing the challenges ahead.

The international community, too, has a vital role to play in outlining the course ahead. There is much to build on in this summer’s New York Declaration and the wave of global recognition of Palestinian statehood.

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Here at home, we who care about Israel, Palestine, and peace must find a way forward in our politics. Hardliners with zero-sum approaches and a focus on the blame game have poisoned this conversation for too long.

Those of us who recognize that the success of one side depends on the security and dignity of the other must step forward. We must make it clear to our communities: either everyone wins – or everyone loses.

I know people are tired. Disillusioned. Cynical. I’ve read the books and listened to the pundits saying there are no solutions or charging us to fight until “our side” (whichever that may be) gets all we are entitled to.

But on this “day after,” history is giving us one more chance, maybe a last chance, to choose hope over hate, courage over fear, and a commitment to the future rather than the past.

So to all my friends, colleagues, and fellow travelers who have spent decades in this struggle, I say, let’s give this one more try. Let’s not squander this chance.

The fork in the road lies before us, and the path we choose will define not only the future of Israelis and Palestinians there, but the kind of world we all inhabit.