Be Glad the Hostages Are Home. Be Worried About the Rest.

The second reaction is to hope, however we feel about Netanyahu and Donald Trump, that this peace process succeeds. I still want to believe a two-state solution could be possible. That will require different Israeli leadership. Netanyahu has made clear for many years that he doesn’t believe in peace with the Palestinians. As Israeli analyst and former diplomat Alon Pinkas wrote at TNR last week, there’s a strong chance Netanyahu will bide his time and find an occasion to blow this peace deal up. His speech this morning in the Knesset wasn’t about peace at all; it was a victory lap. According to MSNBC’s David Noriega this morning, Netanyahu’s speech was broadcast briefly on the large video screens above Tel Aviv’s hostage square. He was booed. The screens returned to testimonials from the hostage families.

And it will obviously require different Palestinian leadership. If Hamas is as decimated as Israel says, they’re out of the way for now, and that’s great for the Palestinian people, whose true interests Hamas has never served, to put it mildly. The Palestinian Authority is corrupt and compromised and desperately needs new leadership. We should all be hoping that somehow or other these things happen, and this process stays on track.

The third reaction is tougher to think about than the first two, as it requires us to entertain the possibility that the Trump-Netanyahu worldview got it right this time. Did it? Well, the hostages are home, and a peace process is underway, and these, as noted, are great things. But only time will really tell. Even now, as Trump and Netanyahu bask in the glow of what they tout as unqualified success, we must never concede, for example, that 60,000 civilian deaths were necessary here. And those Gazans still alive are returning to find their homes gone, along with their schools and hospitals.