The winds of war suddenly disappeared on Monday. Perhaps too quickly, given that about 120 missiles were fired on Israel that day.

Israelis and Gazans ran back and forth between their homes and the bomb shelters. But many could be heard talking about the Gaza operation in the past tense, as if it was all but over. Even the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange rallied on Monday after investors became convinced a cease-fire was a done deal.

Everyone wanted an agreement to end the hostilities, but the feeling that a deal was already in place was all too dangerous. The government and the Israel Defense Forces appeared to be working overtime in search of some lull. The top brass did not want to jeopardize the gains made by Israel during the campaign, and the politicians’ minds were elsewhere: the coming party primaries in which they will compete for slots on their Knesset party lists.

Normalcy was just around the corner, but that feeling of business as usual was premature.

The yearning for calm is understandable. Israel was dragged into this campaign unwillingly, although some cynical pundits said this was nothing but election season gimmickry. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Ehud Barak have been praised for being humble and showing a sense of purpose and determination as they wage this campaign. In 2008-9, during Operation Cast Lead, the whole world was united against us and Israel was faced with a problematic outcome. The results of Operation Pillar of Defense are more promising, although only time will tell whether they suffice. This time around, the international community has been largely on our side.

The surgical strikes orchestrated by IDF Chief of General Staff Lt. Gen. Benny Gantz allowed Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman to adopt levelheaded rhetoric in his conversations with counterparts in the enlightened world. The decision to call up reserve forces was a wise decision. Even if those troops are spared a ground campaign inside the Gaza Strip, this will have happened because of the decision to deploy them along the border in the first place.

Former Defense Minister MK Amir Peretz (Labor) should also be credited for the progress the IDF has made so far. He overruled former IDF Chief of General Staff Lt. Gen. Gabi Ashkenazi when the latter wanted to scrap the Iron Dome interceptor project. Defense Minister Ehud Barak (Independence), Peretz’s successor, also refused to heed Ashkenazi’s pleas, despite the fact that Peretz and Barak were political adversaries. Bingo.

It is too early to tell whether Operation Pillar of Defense will go down as a success story. This is a classic case of “time will tell.” Such “time” should be measured, above all, by how many days of calm Israelis get to enjoy as a result of this campaign.

The message Barak and Netanyahu sounded during their press conference on the first day of the campaign was designed to generate only modest expectations. But the de facto goal is to reach the longest possible truce. While Operation Pillar of Defense may very well achieve its goals, the goals could (and perhaps should) have been more ambitious had Israel’s leadership not been so reluctant to pursue more.

Should Israel try to topple the Hamas regime? Perhaps one of the lessons from Operation Pillar of Defense is that if another campaign has to be waged in a year or two — the third such effort in the span of one decade — Israel would be well-served by a national unity government running the show. Such a government would be the most qualified to orchestrate a ground campaign and divide the Gaza Strip into distinct units, after which Hamas would implode and Israel would get to install a new regime. It is one thing to ask Israelis to support an aerial campaign of several days. When it comes to the re-occupation of the Gaza Strip, such an effort must enjoy across-the-board consensus.

Meanwhile, negotiations are going on through several channels, with Cairo serving as the epicenter. We should let Egypt set the rules for the cease-fire and have it assume responsibility for its outcome. However, it is quite unfortunate that Israel’s top negotiator for the talks — a prominent Mossad official — is nowhere to be seen. It is even more worrisome that Egyptian President Mohammed Morsi has yet to emerge from behind the scenes and talk about his role in the truce talks.

The race against the clock to find the right formula for a cease-fire reached a crossroads Monday night: Decision-makers in Jerusalem and Gaza were weighing the pros and cons of the Egyptian-mediated draft agreement calling for an immediate end to hostilities followed by further talks on a long-term lull.

Israel seemed to warm up to the proposal, saying “quiet will be met with quiet,” both now and later. Because of what Israeli leaders call a “severe blow to Hamas and its assets,” the organization’s reaction was also positive, and it was even ready to commit to having the other armed groups in the Gaza Strip abide by the emerging cease-fire. That said, Hamas has so far refused to back down from the demands it had set for a long-term cease-fire. Among them: a clear Israeli commitment to stop targeting its leadership, an end to the naval blockade and an opening of the Rafah crossing point in a way that allows an unrestricted flow of goods.

The Hamas negotiating team is two-pronged: The political echelon is represented by political bureau chief Khaled Mashaal and Hamas Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh; the military wing is represented by Mohammed Deif (who is still officially one of its leaders despite being crippled by an assassination attempt) and Marwan Issa (who has become the acting head of the military wing in the wake of Ahmed Jabari’s assassination last week).

Israeli negotiators were holed up most of the day in a nearby room in Cairo on Monday, reporting directly to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

They communicated with their Palestinian counterparts via Egyptian intelligence officials, in a way that is strikingly similar to the talks over the release of captive soldier Gilad Schalit last year, which culminated with the two sides agreeing on a prisoner swap. But unlike that exchange, international power brokers are actively working the two sides from behind the scenes. Among the players are the U.S. (President Barack Obama talked with Egyptian President Mohammed Morsi on Monday), the European Union, the Arab League, Turkey (Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu will arrive in the Gaza Strip on Tuesday) and U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon (who arrived in Cairo on Monday and will proceed to Israel on Tuesday).

While this international wheeling and dealing should ostensibly help Hamas by stopping Israel from launching its ground offensive, Israel has just as much to gain from this activity, as it offers the Jewish state a face-saving solution that would spare it from a ground campaign that enjoys little support among the political class. But even more importantly, if the international community manages to broker a cease-fire, its breach, whether by Hamas or some other group that fires rockets on Israel, will have broken a promise made toward the West and the Arab World, creating legitimacy for Israeli action.

In other words, the unofficial truce that appears to be in the works in Cairo will serve as the foundation for the next IDF campaign. The agreement will try to make it very hard for terrorists to act against Israel from the Gaza Strip and will provide Israel with significant international backing. Israel will still have to grapple with dilemmas, such as whether to engage in pre-emptive action and assassinate would-be perpetrators when there is actionable intelligence of an imminent terrorist attack, but even in such scenarios, the deterrence that Israel established in this campaign (which security officials says is much greater than it appears) would help.

This increased deterrence is a result of the severe blow Hamas was dealt in the first six days of fighting: the assassination of military wing commander Ahmed Jabari, the taking out of the Fajr rockets and Hamas’ unmanned aerial vehicle units and the targeting of the organization’s command and control apparatus; the destruction of hundreds of launchers and dozens of tunnels, and the past two days’ strikes on its command posts and government buildings. These actions, along with the killing of dozens of terrorists, came as a strategic surprise. The organization will most likely engage in some extensive soul-searching in light of this bitter experience.

While the organization is likely to claim it successfully outlasted the Israeli assault, behind the scenes it will lick its wounds and try to rehabilitate. It would have little time, or appetite, for another military adventure with Israel.

But make no mistake: There will not be a Hamas surrender. While it clearly wants to end the fighting and avoid an Israeli ground campaign, it is ready for a protracted battle. It still has thousands of rockets. While these are mostly short-range projectiles, they can make the lives of Israelis in the south miserable for days on end.

While the Israel Air Force has managed to severely curtail the rocket-launching activity (Saturday saw 245 launches, Sunday 151 and Monday “only” 121), this comes with a price. The targets are fast encroaching on the civilian population and have made it increasingly likely that noncombatants would be in harm’s way. This could complicate Israel’s situation on the world stage.

In light of all this, Israel has yet to launch its ground campaign. If there is no progress on a cease-fire (or if it unravels after a few days), it may reconsider and eventually decide to go ahead with the invasion. The IDF reservists will have to wait a day or two to allow a proper assessment. The two sides are going to fight until the final whistle is blown, and until that happens, we might see some surprises (as the IDF spokesman said on Monday). This could be in the form of a deadly attack on Israelis or the assassination of top Palestinian operatives. Both scenarios might make all hell break loose and have both sides continue fighting.

“Peace will come to the Middle East when the Arabs love their children more than they hate us,” then Foreign Minister Golda Meir said in 1957, during an address to the National Press Club in Washington, D.C.

Meir, one of the signatories of Israel’s Declaration of Independence in 1948, made her pronouncement long before the Six-Day War, when Israel was nearly annihilated by a host of Arab armies, emerging victorious by the skin of its teeth and the grace of God. This was the war that resulted in the unification of Jerusalem under Israeli sovereignty, and the repossession of Judea and Samaria (the West Bank), and the Gaza Strip.

Rather than simply annexing the above territories — which were not only legitimate spoils of war, but historically Jewish since time immemorial — Israel made what would turn out to be a serious mistake. It administered, protected and funded them, in the hope that the Arab population residing in them would come to terms with their Jewish neighbors, eventually reaching an agreement that would be satisfactory to all concerned.

This fact has been obfuscated to the point of eradication since those days. Indeed, the Arab world knew a good thing when it saw one. This “good thing” took the form of a particularly effective propaganda campaign aimed at Western liberal sensibilities on the one hand and at Arab vulnerability on the other.

Creating an entity called “the Palestinians” — those Arabs who had lived in east Jerusalem, the West Bank, and Gaza before the war and those born after 1967 — enabled them to play David to Israel’s Goliath. It was a brilliant maneuver, since up until that point there was little doubt that Israel was a tiny country surrounded by much larger Arab states bent on its destruction. Once “the Palestinians” were created, this reality became forgotten, certainly in the international arena, but even by many Israelis.

The idea that the only real obstacle to peace in the Middle East was the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians not only took hold across the globe; it also came to shape Israeli foreign policy, including that of right-wing governments.

It is thus that there have been repeated U.S.-backed Israeli initiatives to make peace with the Palestinians. Each of these initiatives has been based on the assumption that Israel must relinquish land in exchange for Palestinian promises of peace. Each has ended in war.

Given the stated aims of the Palestine Liberation Organization and Hamas — the former ruling over the West Bank and the latter over Gaza — it is no wonder that Israel’s attempts have failed abysmally. Basing policy on false premises is never a good idea. Repeating such an error again and again is psychotic, suicidal, or both.

Nobody is more aware of this than the Arabs themselves. And the more they can milk it for all it’s worth, the better for them.

But don’t take my word for it. The perpetrators of Israel’s current war against the terrorist infrastructure in Gaza always articulate it so precisely. This week is no exception.

For days, Hamas has been broadcasting battle-cry video clips on its Al-Aqsa TV station, produced especially for Operation Pillar of Defense. The purpose of these segments, jointly devised by Hamas and its military wing, the Al-Qassam Brigades, is twofold: to rally the residents of Gaza around the regime and to threaten Israel into submission.

One such segment includes the following warning to the Israel Defense Forces: “The price will be high, sons of Zion … Oh occupier, we are coming toward you. Leave our land. All of Palestine is ours. There is nothing here for you but death. There is nothing here for you but to be killed and to leave … In the land that you came to alive, you will end as body parts. That is Allah’s promise.”

This is but one of many and varied examples — translated by Palestinian Media Watch over the years — of how the Palestinians actually view their conflict with Israel. It has nothing to do with the 1967 borders. Nor does it have to do with “occupation”; Israel withdrew completely from the Gaza Strip in 2005. Neither is it rooted in poor peace planning. It is an assertion of a religious imperative that Israel must be destroyed.

Another clip, part public-service announcement and part horror-film promo, has a narrator calling out menacingly to the IDF, “From the Al-Qassam Brigades to the Zionist soldiers: The Al-Qassam Brigades love death more than you love life.”

This goes to show that Golda Meir was only partly right. Peace won’t come to the Middle East when the Arabs love their children more than they hate Israel, but rather when they stop loving death, period.

She was completely on the mark, however, when she said that Israelis might be able one day “to forgive the Arabs for killing our sons, but it will be harder for us to forgive them for having forced us to kill theirs.”

Ruthie Blum is the author of “To Hell in a Handbasket: Carter, Obama, and the Arab Spring” (RVP Press).

Just because one sparrow has been sighted doesn’t mean it’s spring. That said,  President Barack Obama’s siding with Israel over Operation Pillar of Defense flies in the face of all those who predicted he would “settle old scores” with Netanyahu if he was re-elected. While the situation in Gaza stands out compared with other issues — because Hamas is the sole culprit responsible for this escalation and because of the principled stance the U.S. and Europe have on terrorism that could be exported their way — Washington’s approach on Israel’s latest campaign bodes well for the bilateral relations down the road. While the U.S. may change its rhetoric and call for restraint on both sides if Israel expands this operation and launches a ground campaign, for now it is very likely that Washington will exert diplomatic and economic pressure on Egypt to have it restrain Hamas, rather than press Israel.

Egyptian President Mohammed Morsi’s inflammatory speech in Cairo the other day, in which he threatened Israel, at least rhetorically, could be just demagoguery that is designed to pay lip service to the radicalism in the Egyptian street and to respond to the signals of duress communicated by a frightened Hamas leadership.

But it could also be designed to secure his base and shore up his credentials should the time come and he has to meet U.S. dictates. The Egyptian regime’s actions are not just a function of the economic pressure coming from Washington, but also reflect an innate desire to maintain stability in the region and at home, both of which could be threatened by the actions of Hamas and the other jihadists in the Gaza Strip.

Policy makers in Washington have diverging, often conflicting, views on the challenges Obama will have to face in his second term. Last week, New York Times columnist Thomas L. Friedman wrote that the Middle East’s problems (Iran, al-Qaida, the rise of Islamists, Syria, Afghanistan and the Palestinian issue) might see “multiple, interconnected explosions.” The Washington Post’s deputy editorial page editor, Jackson Diehl, who supported Obama during his re-election bid, recently questioned Obama’s ability to rise up to the challenges in his second term.

Aaron Miller, who alongside former State Department special envoy Dennis Ross, played a major role in Arab-Israeli peace talks, sounded a similar note recently. In a recent post on the highly influential portal Politico, he said that when it comes to the Middle East the president needs “smart management rather than bold solutions … where he will most likely fail.” Miller adds that the last thing Obama needs is more pointless spats with Netanyahu that have helped no one but his rivals.

Obama knows that Netanyahu will most likely be prime minister throughout his entire second term (if the latter is re-elected in January) and that there is a good chance Washington and Jerusalem will collaborate on strategic geopolitical issues. Let’s hope this extends to the Palestinian issue as well. The two leaders will have an opportunity to display this unity in coming weeks when Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas asks the U.N. General Assembly to afford the Palestinians the status of a non-member state. The tightening of relations requires wise judgment and pro-active Israeli initiatives, as well as a constant reassessment of the concessions that the Jewish state can or cannot make. What’s important is to keep Israel’s over-arching interests in mind, rather than being singularly focused on the path taken to get to where we want.

The big question is the Iranian issue, which has become more pressing as of late in light of the controversy over the red lines for its nuclear program and the recent developments that validate the assertions Netanyahu has made in his recent speeches (and which were reinforced by the recent IAEA report).