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Whatever becomes of Trump's twenty-point peace plan, it marks an important turning point in the conflict in Gaza.
It's been two long years since Hamas fighters crashed through the borders into Israel, attacking attendees at a music festival and local kibbutzim and towns. This was not a spontaneous act of desperate individuals who had given up hope. Instead, it was a planned raid that was disastrous not just for their victims but for the organisation itself. Not only has Hamas itself been virtually destroyed as a fighting force, but its main allies and backers in Lebanon and Iran have also suffered serious blows. And as for the Palestinian people in whose name Hamas attacked Israel on 7 October 2023, the price they have paid for Hamas' miscalculation is almost unimaginably terrible.
From the very beginning, there was a way out. Calls for a ceasefire and the return of hostages were made within the first few weeks of the fighting. There were some early hostage releases, with Israel releasing Palestinian prisoners in exchange. There were brief ceasefires. Both sides almost certainly knew what the eventual deal would be to end this chapter of the longer war between Israel and the Palestinians. Many countries, including nearly all the Arab countries, were keen to help negotiate an exchange of hostages. But until this week, there was little hope that this would happen anytime soon.
This is, on the face of it, quite strange. The vast majority of Israelis have been demanding that their Government make a deal to bring the hostages home. Enormous street demonstrations are held on a regular basis in Tel Aviv and elsewhere. The slogans the demonstrators adopted were not about calling on Hamas to do anything. The demand of the tens of thousands of Israelis in the streets was always that their government do what it takes to bring the hostages home. Increasingly, that demand was accompanied by a call on Netanyahu to end the war as well.
And despite the fact that the overwhelming majority of Israelis now support the 'end the war' demand, Netanyahu still did not budge. The war went on, week after week, with no end in sight. Why? Probably because as soon as the war ends, Netanyahu will likely face elections in which his coalition will be defeated - as nearly all the polls show. He's being challenged not only by the usual crowd of centre-leftists and centre-rightists, but also by a resurgent Israeli Left. The two historic parties of that Left, Labour and Meretz, were on the cusp of disappearing from the scene, but have united and grown much stronger during the last couple of years.
And Netanyahu will also face the Israeli criminal justice system, which he distrusts and detests. He risks winding up, like at least one former prime minister and one former president before him, spending some time in a prison cell. This is something he is keen to prevent - at almost all costs.
There is a historical precedent for what might happen next.
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Hamas timed their attack - almost certainly intentionally - to coincide with the fiftieth anniversary of what Israelis call the "Yom Kippur War". Back in October 1973, the Egyptian and Syrian Governments, still stinging from their defeat in the 1967 Six Day War, launched surprise attacks on Israel's southern and northern borders.
Like the Hamas raids, those armies crashed through Israeli defence lines that seem, in retrospect, to...
