Shira Efron
Dr. Efron is the distinguished Israel policy chair and a senior fellow at RAND.
Questions linger about whether the cease-fire between Israel and Hamas will hold, and how — or if — the parties will move on to the far thornier issues in the U.S.-sponsored plan that led to it. Still, it’s clear that this breakthrough signals the beginning of the end.
That is, it is clear to most except the government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, which is minimizing the deal’s scope while selling it as a diplomatic, moral and security triumph: Israel keeps troops in most of Gaza even after freeing the hostages, with no firm timeline for further withdrawal.
The government voted to approve the first phase of the agreement — the hostage and prisoner exchange, the military pullback in Gaza, increased humanitarian aid to the strip, and the cease-fire. It did not address the harder issues: the full withdrawal to the security perimeter, Gaza’s governance and “a credible pathway to Palestinian self-determination and statehood,” as later phases of the deal called for.
Journalists close to Mr. Netanyahu were blunt: “There’s no phase two. That’s clear to everyone, right?” Amit Segal wrote on social media. “What we have now is a hostage deal, and a cease-fire while talks continue in good faith.” The working assumption in Jerusalem, it seems, is that while full-scale combat won’t resume, the Israeli military may keep striking wherever it detects threats.
Yet here’s the uncomfortable truth: This “victory” is actually a defeat — a necessary and blessed defeat — of this government’s messianic vision. In fact, the agreement directly contradicts what the government has sold Israelis for two years: the promise of total victory and the destruction of Hamas.
Mr. Netanyahu repeatedly rejected cease-fires, calling any pause a surrender to Hamas and terrorism, demanding total victory. Ministers vowed to obliterate Hamas’s military and end its governance permanently.
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