Source: Foreign Policy
by Stephen M Walt
“We can all be grateful that the slaughter in Gaza has been suspended, at least temporarily; that Israeli hostages and Palestinian [hostages] are being exchanged; and that relief aid can flow more freely to the suffering Gazan population. Not surprisingly, U.S. President Donald Trump is taking a victory lap and calling the cease-fire agreement the ‘historic dawn of a new Middle East.’ … I hope he’s right, but I wouldn’t bet on it. There are two lingering questions looming in the aftermath of the present agreement. The first question, obviously, is: ‘Will it hold?’ The second question — on which the answer to the first largely depends — is whether Israel’s relations with the rest of the world, and especially its ‘special relationship’ with the United States, are evolving in ways that might make a lasting peace possible at long last.” (10/15/25)