‘The War Is Over’

“The war is over,” President Trump said repeatedly today as the hostages started returning from Gaza, when all of those being held as of this morning eventually released. “You won.” It is certainly a moment for joyful celebration. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu made the most of the moment — and spoke for millions — when he welcomed Mr. Trump in the Knesset and spoke of how the rejectionist leaders among Israel’s neighbors are “all gone.”One of the things of which we’ve been thinking at this moment is the first dispatch our editor ever filed to a newspaper from overseas. It was in 1967, just after the end of the Six Day War. We were escorted by a military officer into Gaza, where in a sandy lot we met with two dozen Arabs who spoke of how they would never give up their claims to Gaza, nor could they imagine making peace with Israel. They warned that Israel did not rule ruthlesslessly enough.It has been more than 50 years since then, and the story of Gaza is still unfolding. In the half century we’ve learned to be parsimonious with our optimism. It has been, though, half a century in which the opposition to a peaceful settlement was never coming from the Jewish state. And in which it’s hard to remember a moment quite like this, when the peace commission, chaired by Mr. Trump, will be convened to manage the quest for a permanent peace.Mr. Netanyahu, in welcoming Mr. Trump, spoke of how things changed with his accession to American leadership. He mentioned America’s recognition of Israeli sovereignty over the Golan Heights, of its withdrawal of the articles of appeasement that were struck by President Obama, via the United Nations, with the Iranian camarilla. He also spoke of the Abraham Accords that provide a framework for the effort to widen the formal peace in the region.The prime minister laid much of this to Mr. Trump’s direct efforts in the various negotiations. It is praise much deserved. In our view, Mr. Trump’s greatest contribution to the advances being marked today is his decision not to try to micromanage the Israel Defense Forces as they took the war against Hamas into the strongholds of Gaza itself. Mr. Trump trusted Israel’s judgement and pointedly warned that he would do so.One way to see the moment is as a vindication of what Vladimir Jabotinsky, hero of Mr. Netanyahu’s political faction, called “the Iron Wall.” That famous essay was sketched in the 1920s. It warned that Israel would have to maintain a long and committed defense and understand that there could never be a voluntary agreement with the Arabs, who would have to come to terms with Israel’s commitment. We are seeing the wisdom of that today.Israel’s grit is what brought today’s glory. The Jewish state’s determination in the face of not only a depraved enemy in Hamas but also fickle friends in Europe and ferocious forces of resurgent antisemitism around the globe was required to bring home its hostages. It may yet be that building a durable peace is the hard part, though the war was plenty hard. Let’s hope it doesn’t take another 50 years.

‘The War Is Over’

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