The latest ceasefire between the militant group Hamas and Israel appears to be holding, allowing thousands of Palestinians to return home and Israelis to send children back to school without worrying about rocket fire.
“The odds — and I’m being cautious here — favor traction for this ceasefire unlike all the others, and the reasons I think are very clear. Both sides are exhausted, both politically and from a military point of view,” veteran Middle East negotiator Aaron David Miller told Here & Now’s Robin Young.
But that doesn’t mean that the underlying issues are resolved.
“We should be under no illusion, either on the Israeli or the Hamas side, that this solves the strategic problem that separates either Israel and Hamas, or the other dimension of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, Israel and the Palestinian president,” Miller said. “The truce, if that’s what it is, has accomplished neither of those objectives.”
Guest
- Aaron David Miller, vice president for new initiatives and a distinguished scholar at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars. He was a Middle East negotiator for Republican and Democratic administrations. His new book “The End of Greatness: Why America Can’t Have (and Doesn’t Want) Another Great President” comes out in October. He tweets @aarondmiller2.
Copyright 2020 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org. 9(MDAwMTM1NDgzMDEyMzg2MDcwMzJjODJiYQ004))