BU Today: How much reason is there to celebrate and feel optimistic about this ceasefire deal?

Menchik: In the short term, yes, there is much reason to celebrate. But if you’re asking about the long term, I am not sure there is as much to celebrate. This deal was on the table since last May. It tells us that the Biden administration failed to use the tools of diplomacy to get a deal done almost a year ago. Some colleagues in the Pardee School, including former ambassadors, consider this an instance of diplomatic malpractice.

BU Today: Israel has freed Palestinian prisoners and Hamas has returned some Israeli hostages so far. But if all hostages and prisoners are not released, can the ceasefire still be considered a total success?

Menchik: ​​The ceasefire is a qualified success. We should celebrate every Israeli hostage released, every Palestinian prisoner released, every child that is able to return to school, the return of adequate food and water to Gaza, and every person who will not live under the fear of rocket and bomb attacks.
 
But we should be careful to distinguish between a ceasefire and an end to the war. Under the terms of the negotiation, an end to the war comes at stage two, when all Israeli captives will be released in return for a total Israeli withdrawal from Gaza. There are multiple reasons to worry that Netanyahu and Hamas will be unwilling to move to stage two. Netanyahu faces strong opposition to the deal within his coalition, and he seems to be leveraging the deal on Gaza in order to move toward annexation of the West Bank. Of course, no Palestinian leader can accept Israel’s annexation of the West Bank or the military’s return to Gaza. So the ceasefire is a qualified success, but not an end to war, and certainly not creating the conditions that would lead to peace.

BU Today: Is this a big deal in the history of the Middle East?

Menchik: People celebrating in Tel Aviv and in Gaza tells me this is a big deal. I do think this is a relief, and that’s how we should be thinking about it. For everyone in Gaza as well as the families of the Israeli hostages. We hope this will bring an end to the killing. The scale of this war is almost too big to comprehend.

BU Today: But that said, you still sound like there was missed opportunity?

Menchik: Yes, we can celebrate the moment, but it feels like a failure of US foreign policy because it could have been stopped a long time ago. Historians will not be kind to [former national security advisor Jake Sullivan] and Joe Biden’s record on peace in the Middle East.

BU Today: And what about President Trump?

Menchik: I think President Trump is getting credit for putting the necessary pressure on Benjamin Netanyahu. It’s the pressure that worked. The Biden administration was not putting that kind of pressure on Netanyahu. And Trump effectively made it happen. [Over the weekend, Trump floated the controversial idea that he would like to see Egypt and Jordan take in more Palestinian refugees as part of what he called a plan to “clean out” Gaza.”]

BU Today: So what’s next?

Menchik: Big picture, for a prolonged peace between Israelis and Palestinians, what has to change are the conditions that gave rise to October 7—the prolonged Israeli occupation of Gaza and the West Bank. Unless you address that fundamental problem, the work of normalization will continue. For anyone who wants normalization, you will need a Palestinian state or some other arrangement where all people are free to live under conditions of equality and democracy and freedom.

This is a moment when people are celebrating and bombs will stop dropping. But the larger work to enable peace is very much a work in progress.

BU Today: During the transition from President Jimmy Carter to President Ronald Reagan in 1981, negotiations to release the 52 American hostages who had been held in Iran for 444 days impacted both the incoming and outgoing administrations. Do you see any similarity between that time and what happened here?

Menchik: I think the timing is similar to that period. But my understanding is the negotiations happened under the Carter administration and that Iran held on to the hostages as long as possible. Reagan did not get credit for the hostage release. Trump should.

BU Today: But is it possible, in these negotiations, that Netanyahu prolonged the negotiations to see if Trump was elected?

Menchik: It’s possible Netanyahu wanted to start off on the right foot with the Trump administration and give Trump an early win. And so that might give Netanyahu leverage in other areas, such as a continued Israeli force in Lebanon, Syria, or the annexation of the West Bank. That might be a calculation by the Netanyahu administration for future historians to investigate.