House Speaker Mike Johnson, a quick study in the art of laying it on thick, announced that he was teaming up with Israel's Knesset speaker to invite parliamentary leaders from around the world to jointly nominate Trump for the Nobel Peace Prize — and for nothing less than inaugurating "a new golden age."

Though refraining from that level of MAGA-fication, Democrats have not stinted on the praise due to Trump for achieving the ceasefire and hostage agreement. Former National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan, Bill and Hillary Clinton, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, Joe Biden and Kamala Harris have all offered kudos.

But the rush to declare a new dawn in the Middle East, as Trump and his claque have done, is premature. Yes, it is an unmixed good that the bombs have stopped falling on Palestinian neighborhoods and that the hostages, imprisoned in dungeons for two years, are at last free. Trump deserves praise for getting us to this moment with whatever combination of promises, threats and inducements he offered. All good.

But let's keep our heads. This is a ceasefire; it is not peace.

Peace requires that both parties to a conflict accept they cannot achieve their objectives through further violence. The attacks of Oct. 7, 2023, shattered what was left of Israeli trust in their Palestinian counterparts. Support for a Palestinian state once commanded majority support in Israel. That optimism took a big hit after the Second Intifada and collapsed after Oct. 7. Today, only 21% of Israeli adults believe they can peacefully coexist with a Palestinian state.

The views of ordinary Palestinians are difficult to determine with accuracy due to the stress of war, Hamas's ruthless repression, and other restrictions, but recent polling has found that fewer than 40% of Palestinians support Hamas (though 90% disbelieved accounts of Hamas atrocities against Israelis on Oct. 7). A 2021 poll found that majorities of Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza rejected the idea of a two-state solution in favor of one Palestinian entity "from the river to the sea."

While one can (just barely) imagine a scenario in which a consortium of nations, including Arab and Muslim countries, unites to restore Gaza's infrastructure, the crystal ball gets cloudy when you try to picture a governance plan for Gaza that excludes Hamas, let alone an independent Palestinian state without Hamas.

Leading up to the ceasefire and hostage release, Hamas and Israel signed onto a 20-point plan that is aspirational but also unspecific, vague and already being violated.

The fourth declaration in the 20-point plan specified that within 72 hours of signing the agreement, all hostages living and dead would be returned to Israel. That has not happened. Only eight of the twenty-eight bodies have been released, and one of those has been determined not to be that of any of the hostages.

No sooner did the bombs cease than Hamas fighters began hunting down members of clans who challenge their supremacy. The ceasefire document states that "Hamas and other factions agree to not have any role in the governance of Gaza, directly, indirectly, or in any form." It's a worthy aspiration, but saying it — even flanked by world leaders at a meeting in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt — doesn't make it so.

The outlines of what the plan calls a "New Gaza" are gauzy. A "technocratic, apolitical Palestinian committee" will run Gaza until such time as a reformed Palestinian Authority can take over. Who will choose these technocrats? And how can "apolitical" technocrats (whatever they are) really run a territory? To whom will they be answerable? Who will police the streets? Who will disarm Hamas?

One can imagine a truly gifted statesman or group of them with huge doses of dedication, time, money and, perhaps, a dash of humility undertaking such a mission on the understanding that this would be the work of years if not decades.

Instead, we have the leadership of Donald Trump, who has inserted himself mostly out of lust for glory (read: Nobel Peace Prize), whose time horizon can usually be measured in nanoseconds and who has been known to claim a win long before the game is over. Recall that after one brief visit with Kim Jong Un during his first term, he declared the nuclear threat from that nation to be over.

It was just a few months ago that Trump was toying with ethnically cleansing the Gaza Strip and turning it into an Arab Riviera under U.S. authority.

Trump did join Israel's bombing of Iran's nuclear sites and insisted that the nuclear program was "obliterated," a finding that intelligence assessments did not support.

Asked the classic, even cliched question about the conflict, Trump's off-the-cuff response was, "We're talking about rebuilding Gaza. I'm not talking about single state or double state. ... At some point, I'll decide what I think is right."

He may do just that, or he may be off on another tear about something else. Character is destiny, and Trump's character is made for division and chaos, not the spadework of diplomacy. The ceasefire and hostage release should be celebrated, but it would be folly to expect much more.

Mona Charen is policy editor of The Bulwark and host of the "Beg to Differ" podcast. Her new book, "Hard Right: The GOP's Drift Toward Extremism," is available now.

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