Today, we are not celebrating the end of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. We may not even be celebrating the end of the Gaza war — the longest and deadliest in the history of this conflict.
But unless there is yet another reversal, we will at least be able to mark the partial or total halt of one of the worst massacres of the early 21st century.
You can say anything about Donald Trump — and people never held back — but without him, this would not have been possible. The American president did far more than his predecessor, whatever his motives, to stop this war.
He forced Benjamin Netanyahu to back down. And, through Arab countries, he pressured Hamas to yield. The guns should fall silent, Israeli hostages finally freed and Palestinian prisoners released.
Gaza will at last be able to breathe, eat, receive care, dance — amid corpses and rubble. Moving away from death without truly returning to life.
All this for this: a genocidal war for nothing. A genocidal war that ends, assuming it really is ending, with a flimsy agreement that could have been signed at least a year ago, since the Trump plan largely echoes the Biden administration’s proposals.
Hamas claims victory because it “resisted” against all odds. It does not care about the tens of thousands killed, the near-erasure of the Palestinian enclave, or having dragged the entire “axis of resistance” down with it. All that matters is that it did not kneel before the enemy.
In its eyes, the path to the “liberation” of Palestine is worth all the sacrifices. But if only that were true — if only the massacres of Oct. 7 had advanced the Palestinian cause and brought something other than misery and devastation.
One can understand those who still say, after nearly 80 years of Palestinian and Arab failures, that armed struggle is the only way to advance the cause. One can also understand those who believe that Oct. 7 was a logical response to decades of suffering and humiliation. But one cannot understand or forgive those who claim victory today amid the ashes, after dragging an entire population into the abyss.
In a rational world, instead of being celebrated, Hamas would be tried for high treason against its own people. But, like Hezbollah and its Iranian patron, it will always find zealous supporters — or useful idiots — to keep defending it against the absurd, and in defiance of reality.
How do we say all this without playing into Israel’s hands? How do we say it without giving the impression that we have forgotten that, before Oct. 7, Palestinians were already slowly disappearing — at least symbolically?
How do we say it without minimizing all the crimes committed by Israel over the past two years, whose aim is not just to eradicate Hamas, not just to restore deterrence, but above all — through forced displacement and mass killings — to finally eliminate the Palestinian people?
How do we assert the justice of the Palestinian cause without giving in to the morbid escalation led by Hamas and its allies?
On the other side, Netanyahu also celebrates his victory. Israel is isolated and reviled. Antisemitism is surging worldwide. Its army has killed tens of thousands of civilians — at least a third of them children — leveled entire cities and villages, and reshaped the region.
But the prime minister remains in power. The “axis of resistance” is in ruins. And a Palestinian state will never come to be. For him, that’s what matters most. That’s why this war is likely not over.
Israel will not truly declare victory until it has ensured not only Hamas’s destruction but also that Palestinians will never again be able to claim a territory worthy of the name, neither in Gaza nor in the West Bank.
Conversely, the “axis of resistance” will never admit defeat until its dying breath. One side is incapable of winning because that would require compromise. The other is incapable of losing because that would mean questioning its entire project.
Will the Gaza cease-fire resemble the one in Lebanon? That’s one possible scenario — with Hamas, like Hezbollah, refusing to surrender its weapons, playing the long game, rebuilding its strength, and defending its turf in Palestinian politics. And with Israel continuing to bomb the enclave at will and with impunity, as it does here, while occupying and steadily encroaching on land to choke its adversary and impose its own facts on the ground.
It will take an extremely vigilant Trump — and he is not known for patience or attention to detail — to ensure his peace plan doesn’t become just a truce, more or less lasting, before the war resumes in another form. Oct. 7 brought monsters back to life, monsters that are not done haunting us. They will remain, among us and within us, as long as there is no peace. And there will be no peace as long as there is no justice.
We are a long way from that today. But for the first time in two years, there is a faint glimmer of hope.
