The agreement being celebrated in an extraordinary and moving festival at the Israeli Knesset is not a peace agreement.
It is an agreement to end the Gaza war, return the hostages (living and dead), release Palestinian prisoners, and for Israel’s phased withdrawal from the Gaza Strip. It includes the establishment of a joint security force of Palestinian, Egyptian and Jordanian soldiers, perhaps also Emiratis and Saudis, who will impose military control over the Gaza Strip and prevent any attempt by Hamas to restore its military capabilities.
It also establishes a committee of technocrats to manage the government in Gaza instead of Hamas, under international supervision involving Turkey, Qatar, Egypt, former British prime minister Tony Blair, and the president of the United States himself.
This is an impressive arrangement that seemed unexpected until a few weeks ago.
The Israeli government agreed to give up on the resolute positions represented by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Hamas was not completely eliminated, but it suffered a very severe blow. The Gaza Strip has been almost completely shattered; most of the buildings in this small piece of land no longer exist, and it is possible that many Gazans are still buried under the rubble of the buildings. Above them, it is known there are over 65,000 dead, a significant portion of whom were not involved in terrorism at all but were an almost inevitable casualty of the Israeli military campaign that began following Hamas’s brutal attack on Israel on October 7, 2023.
Israel has buried over 2,000 dead, civilians and soldiers. More than half of them on October 7 alone. Many others during the military campaign that lasted about two years. The living Israeli hostages have all been returned. The dead will surely be returned in the coming days.
This is the summary of recent events. Had Donald Trump not decided to force Netanyahu to apologise to the prime minister of Qatar, dictated a humiliating text to him, and placed a Qatari representative next to him who checked every word Netanyahu said, we might still be in the midst of a war.
No other leader could have made this sequence of events happen, except for Donald Trump. The efforts invested by President Macron, Prime Minister Starmer, Canada’s Prime Minister Carney, and many others in the international community helped the process that ended with the agreement to end the war. They deserve thanks and appreciation. However, only one leader made a dramatic difference.
Trump deserves appreciation and gratitude from Israel, especially for forcing its prime minister to do what he had refused to do for over a year. This agreement was possible a year ago – but only when Donald Trump decided did it become possible.
It is not a peace agreement. The title Trump suggested for the conference now taking place in Sharm el-Sheikh – “Peace 2025” – has nothing to do with what has happened so far.
The crucial question now is whether the temporary cessation of the war, Israel’s partial withdrawal from Gaza, and the continued minor activity of Hamas will be a starting point for a bold political move that will change the entire Middle East and bring about an Israeli-Palestinian peace based on two states.
A Palestinian state alongside the State of Israel, based on the 1967 borders, with the Arab part of Jerusalem as its capital, and with the Old City of Jerusalem not under Israeli or Palestinian sovereignty but managed by a trust of five countries: Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Palestine, Israel and the United States. A demilitarised Palestinian state with no army of its own, adjacent to the State of Israel.
Or, God forbid, will the status quo that led to the events of October 7 continue into the future?
The American president, carried on waves of international support, has summoned dozens of leaders to Egypt. They will not give up the right to pat him on the back, to deliver flattering words in the style that has already become the model for conferences in which Trump participates. But these celebrations – the amusing carnival atmosphere, the hugs, the words of thanks – and Trump’s strange speeches, as was the case in the Israeli Knesset, his need to mock his predecessors Obama and Biden, are not yet a political plan.
Not a few in Israel still dream of the full annexation of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip into the State of Israel and the expulsion of their inhabitants to nearby Arab countries or to distant countries that will agree to accept them. Not a few Palestinians dream of rehabilitating the military capabilities of Hamas, the Islamic Jihad, and other terror organizations, hoping to succeed in renewing the military conflict at some point in the near future.
Those from Palestine and those from Israel are still captive to delusional dreams that are also driven by ruin and destruction. They will not bring peace. Only a two-state solution, Israel and Palestine alongside it, is the basis for such a solution.
These days, both sides are still captive to the blood-soaked trauma of the last two years and the painful memories of decades of bloody conflict. However, there is no alternative but a peace settlement based on two states that will recognise the mutual rights of both sides.
In the absence of forward momentum, if the status quo that has prevailed until now continues, we will return to fighting.
Only President Trump could bring about this turning point. If he focuses on the substance, if he avoids boastful and sometimes childish statements full of endless self-love, and initiates a move that the whole world knows is indispensable: two states for two peoples.
If not, the carnival-like session of the Israeli Knesset today, in such a moving ceremony, will be remembered as a theatrical burlesque – nothing more.
Ehud Olmert is a former prime minister of Israel (2006 to 2009)