History is rarely kind to peace agreements between Israelis and Palestinians.
Over the past three decades, agreements have been signed with great optimism, hailed as diplomatic breakthroughs and celebrated as turning points, only to collapse before their most consequential commitments were fulfilled.
Permanent status negotiations stalled after Oslo. Redeployments promised under later agreements were delayed or abandoned.
Ceasefires repeatedly unravelled before they reached the political endgame they were meant to deliver.
That history is precisely why the latest agreement between Hamas and the Gaza Board of Peace should be approached with cautious realism rather than celebration.
Hamas has, at least in principle, agreed to one of Israel’s longstanding demands: to relinquish its weapons as part of a broader political settlement.
In return, the proposed agreement envisages a complete Israeli withdrawal from Gaza, the establishment of a new Palestinian governing authority and the beginning of reconstruction after nearly three years of a war that many international legal experts, human rights organisations and an increasing number of governments have described as genocide.
For much of this period, Israeli officials and many Western governments insisted that peace was impossible as long as Hamas remained armed and in power.
Hamas’ willingness to relinquish both governing authority and, ultimately, its weapons fundamentally changes the political equation.
Whether one believes Hamas will ultimately follow through is almost beside the point. Politically, the movement has crossed a threshold that few expected it would.
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Will Israel ever change?
The question now is no longer what Hamas is prepared to concede. It is whether Israel is prepared to honour its own side of the bargain.
History offers compelling reasons for caution. The Oslo Accords, signed in 1993, envisaged a phased process leading to a permanent settlement within five years.
More than thirty years later, that settlement has never materialised. Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank expanded significantly during and after the Oslo process, while successive negotiations failed to resolve the core issues of borders, sovereignty and Palestinian statehood.
The Wye River Memorandum, negotiated during Benjamin Netanyahu’s first premiership, also suffered from incomplete implementation after domestic political opposition within his own coalition slowed agreed Israeli redeployments.
Subsequent initiatives, including the internationally-backed Road Map for Peace, similarly failed to produce the political outcomes they promised.
Violence and political fragmentation undoubtedly complicated successive peace efforts.
But they should not obscure the central reality of the conflict: this has never been a negotiation between equals.
Israel, as the occupying power, has exercised overwhelming military superiority and political and economic control over the territory and therefore possessed far greater ability to determine whether agreements moved from paper to reality.
If there had been genuine political commitment to ending the occupation and establishing a Palestinian state, Israel had the means to make that outcome possible.
Instead, commitments to withdrawal, Palestinian sovereignty and a final political settlement were repeatedly delayed, qualified or abandoned, while the occupation became ever more entrenched.
It is this history—not rhetoric—that makes scepticism about today’s agreement entirely understandable.
Those questions become even sharper when viewed through the political record of Benjamin Netanyahu himself.
Throughout much of his career, Netanyahu has consistently opposed the creation of a fully sovereign Palestinian state.
He has overseen significant settlement expansion in the occupied West Bank, repeatedly argued that Israel must retain overriding security control west of the Jordan River and, throughout the war on Gaza, has insisted that Israel must preserve indefinite security freedom inside the Palestinian enclave.
These positions sit uneasily alongside an agreement that requires a complete Israeli military withdrawal.
Yet reducing the issue to Netanyahu alone risks overlooking a much deeper political reality.
The current governing coalition is undoubtedly the most hardline in Israel’s history, with several ministers openly advocating the permanent reoccupation of Gaza and the re-establishment of Israeli settlements there.
