A ceasefire is just about holding, but the second phase of President Donald Trump‘s peace plan between Israel and Hamas is fraying under two pressure points.

The first and most preeminent problem is Hamas’s refusal to surrender its heavy weapons in Gaza. The expanding influence of far-right Israeli settler interests in the West Bank poses the second challenge. If Trump cannot resolve these issues, violence will recommence, and his peace plan will implode. That would be a disaster for Israeli and Palestinian civilians, Israel’s diplomatic standing, and both Trump and the U.S.’s credibility with foreign allies.

The first problem is an unsurprising one. An Islamist terrorist group devoted to purifying the entirety of Israel of all Israelis and Jews, Hamas was always unlikely to live up to its word in agreeing to lay down its arms. Hamas knows that once its anti-tank weapons, mortars, rockets, and other heavy weapons are gone, it will lose the means of politically dominating Gaza and attacking Israel. Of course, that’s why Trump’s peace deal put such a priority on Hamas’s disarmament. After Hamas’s Oct. 7, 2023, atrocity, attacks which took more than 1,200 innocent lives and saw 251 others kidnapped into Gazan dungeons, it became morally and strategically impossible for Israel to allow Hamas to continue existing in its previous form.

Still, the Trump........

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