John Templeton, the legendary fund manager, famously said, "The four most dangerous words in investing are: This time it's different." That warning was ignored by those in 1999 who believed profits didn't matter in the internet age and those in 2007 who thought housing prices would rise for years to come.

Templeton's warning could apply to the Arab-Israeli conflict, too. Are we going to invest too much hope in the recent moves toward Middle Eastern peace in the belief that this time it's different? On Oct. 13, President Donald Trump declared: "Together we've achieved what everybody said was impossible. At long last we have peace in the Middle East."

Is he right? After a century of violence and disappointment, will Israel and its neighbors see long-term peace? I sure hope Trump's advisers know their history. Over the past eight decades, Arab armed forces have tried to erase the Jewish state many times. Each time, the Israeli Defense Forces have repelled the attacks.

In 1947, the United Nations voted to partition British-ruled Palestine into an Arab state and a Jewish one. In 1948, the Jewish portion of Palestine declared its independence as the state of Israel in accordance with the U.N. vote. The armies of Transjordan, Egypt, Syria, Lebanon and Iraq invaded the new nation.

Israel fought off the attackers. An armistice agreement was reached in 1949 under pressure from the United States and United Nations. No Palestinian Arab State was established. Instead, Egypt occupied the Gaza Strip, while Transjordan seized control of East Jerusalem and the West Bank and renamed itself Jordan.

In May 1967, Egypt blockaded Israel's access to the Red Sea — an act of war under international law. Less than a month later, Israel launched a strike against Egypt. Despite Israeli warnings, Jordan joined in the conflict as an Egyptian ally. During the Six-Day War, Israeli troops moved into East Jerusalem, the West Bank, Gaza, the Golan Heights and the Sinai Peninsula. The U.N. Security Council led by the United States and the Soviet Union called for a ceasefire. Israel hoped its decisive victory would lead to peace talks, but the Arab League responded with "three noes": "no peace with Israel, no recognition of Israel, no negotiations with it."

In 1973, Egypt launched an attack across the Suez Canal to avenge its 1967 defeat. Despite early successes, it suffered another defeat. In the face of threats to intervene by Egypt's ally the Soviet Union, Israel accepted a ceasefire.

In 2000, Yasser Arafat, chairman of the Palestine Liberation Organization, rejected an Israeli proposal for a Palestinian Arab state. Two years later, former President Bill Clinton stated, "I regret that in 2000 Arafat missed the opportunity to bring that nation into being and pray for the day when the dreams of the Palestinian people for a state and a better life will be realized in a just and lasting peace."

In 2005, Israel shut down its civilian settlements and withdrew its military forces from the Gaza Strip. In 2007, Hamas overthrew the Palestinian Authority in Gaza after a civil war. According to Human Rights Watch, it established control with killings, abductions and beatings of opponents. There have been no elections in Gaza since 2006.

On Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas launched an attack on Israel in which it murdered over 1200 people, almost all civilians, and kidnapped 250 more. Just this month, Israel and Hamas accepted President Trump's plan for a ceasefire and the return of the remaining living hostages Hamas still held in Gaza.

But we've seen this movie before: an Israeli battlefield victory and an imposition of a ceasefire that fails to establish an ongoing peace.

Yes, indeed, but this one just could be different. Over 20% of the citizens of Israel are of Arab descent. They largely remained loyal during the war. Egypt and Jordan stood aside from supporting Hamas as well. Iran's leader has described Israel as a "malignant cancerous tumor... that has to be removed and eradicated." Yet since October 2023, Iran's policy of destroying Israel has been stymied. The Iranian-funded Hezbollah in Lebanon has been defeated; the Assad regime in Syria, a key Iranian ally, has been overthrown; and an Israeli air attack on Iranian nuclear sites, supported by the United States, has shown Iran to be a paper tiger.

The governments of Qatar, Egypt and Turkey have endorsed Trump's 20-point plan for peace in the Middle East. Saudi Arabia, the richest and strongest Arab nation, participated in a peace ceremony held in Egypt.

In its war against Hamas, Israel failed to win the battle for world opinion even while it won on the field of battle. As the late Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meir reportedly said, "Better a bad press than a good epitaph." Now though, false claims of Israeli genocide have dwindled. Israel's acceptance of the ceasefire and Trump's 20-point plan show that it was, in fact, fighting to free the hostages and to end Hamas rule without genocidal intent.

Today, Israel stands supreme as the dominant military power in the Middle East. Rich countries bordering the Persian Gulf such as Qatar and Saudi Arabia look ready to accept Israel as a friendly neighbor and an ally against Iran. President Trump has the opportunity to win a Nobel Peace Prize like Barack Obama, his first term predecessor, and to show up his second term's predecessor, Joe Biden, whose Middle Eastern peace efforts failed. The ingredients for a lasting peace are there.

Unsurprisingly, though, challenges have already arisen since the ceasefire. For example, Hamas has staged public executions of Gazans accused of opposing its rule and has delayed returning the bodies of Israeli hostages who died in captivity. Israel reported its troops had opened fire on Gazans who'd approached in a threatening manner.

Still, despite Templeton, history and recent events, I do wonder whether this time could be different.

A renaissance man, Keith Raffel has served as the senior counsel to the Senate Intelligence Committee, started a successful internet software company and written five novels, which you can check out at keithraffel.com. He currently spends the academic year as a resident scholar at Harvard. To find out more about Keith and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators website at creators.com.

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