A postwar accounting of this long and bloody conflict should also logically be getting underway. And with that accounting may come a change in direction, perhaps away from the illiberal policies of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu or, less likely, a new openness toward an accommodation with the Palestinians.

Now entering its second month and with U.S. President Donald Trump exerting enormous pressure to maintain it, the Israel-Hamas cease-fire looks like it will hold. Tens of thousands of reservists have returned home to their families and jobs, the sirens warning of incoming missiles have gone silent, and the last of the hostages are back. Israel’s postwar era can now begin.

Now entering its second month and with U.S. President Donald Trump exerting enormous pressure to maintain it, the Israel-Hamas cease-fire looks like it will hold. Tens of thousands of reservists have returned home to their families and jobs, the sirens warning of incoming missiles have gone silent, and the last of the hostages are back. Israel’s postwar era can now begin.

A postwar accounting of this long and bloody conflict should also logically be getting underway. And with that accounting may come a change in direction, perhaps away from the illiberal policies of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu or, less likely, a new openness toward an accommodation with the Palestinians.

The most obvious way for that process to begin would be the formation of a state commission of inquiry into the failures that led to the Oct. 7, 2023, massacre and the war that followed.