Foreign & Public Diplomacy

Middle East and North Africa

An uneasy cease-fire of a kind holds in the Middle East. The United States and Iran have stepped down the volume of hostilities since the cease-fire that began on April 8. In Lebanon, Israel and Hezbollah never really stopped fighting but did significantly reduce the intensity of combat. But how much are these “pauses” worth? Are they likely to last, and will they lead to a more durable and complete peace agreement? In a region where cease-fires often seem to be just smoke and mirrors that precede another round of fighting, it can be easy to dismiss them altogether—but even when they don’t hold, they still have value.

In general, it is difficult to predict what U.S. President Donald Trump will do, but there are lessons to be found in looking at Israel’s position and past cease-fires between Israel and its adversaries in these two and a half years of war—and maybe some hope for more modest benefits.

An uneasy cease-fire of a kind holds in the Middle East. The United States and Iran have stepped down the volume of hostilities since the cease-fire that began on April 8. In Lebanon, Israel and Hezbollah never really stopped fighting but did significantly reduce the intensity of combat. But how much are these “pauses” worth? Are they likely to last, and will they lead to a more durable and complete peace agreement? In a region where cease-fires often seem to be just smoke and mirrors that precede another round of fighting, it can be easy to dismiss them altogether—but even when they don’t hold, they still have value.

In general, it is difficult to predict what U.S. President Donald Trump will do, but there are lessons to be found in looking at Israel’s position and past cease-fires between Israel and its adversaries in these two and a half years of war—and maybe some hope for more modest benefits.

By our count, since Hamas’s Oct. 7, 2023, onslaught ignited a regional war, no fewer than seven cease-fires have been declared between Israel and its neighbors, including three in Gaza (once in 2023 and twice in 2025), two in Lebanon (2024 and 2026), and two in Iran (2025 and 2026). These cease-fires rarely stop the fighting for long—sometimes mere days—and inevitably, once exchanges of fire occur, diplomatic and media debates erupt over who broke them first. Such debates usually track with preexisting narratives about power and responsibility: who started the war, who broke the peace, and which side is responsible for the ongoing violence.

Public observers, especially in the West, often assume that a cease-fire succeeds when it represents a permanent and complete cessation of fighting. By the same token, they believe that cease-fires have failed if fighting resumes. Cynics begin to see cease-fires as jokes from the start, while the naive fall into a cycle of optimism and despair.........

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