Questions linger about whether the ceasefire in Gaza will hold and how all parties might approach the next phase of the U.S.-sponsored plan. But the deal nonetheless marks a potential turning point in ending the devastating war between Israel and Hamas.
Writing in the New York Times, RAND's Shira Efron says that it’s understandable why Israel's government would celebrate the agreement while suggesting that the ceasefire may be temporary and a strategic achievement.
Admitting otherwise, she says, means acknowledging an uncomfortable truth—that the longest major war in Israeli history led not to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s promise of total victory and the destruction of Hamas but to a negotiated settlement resurrecting the very ideas Netanyahu has long opposed.
Under the U.S.-sponsored plan, Hamas will disarm but not disappear. And the organization will maintain some control even as it theoretically surrenders power. Further, the ideas of Israeli settlements in Gaza and annexation in the West Bank seem to be off the table.
In other words, this “victory” is really a defeat of Netanyahu’s vision, Efron says. But that defeat is a win “for Israelis, Palestinians and others in the region who seek an alternative to prolonged bloodshed.”