I have been writing about peace initiatives in the Middle East for longer than I care to remember. As the years have unfolded, each effort has seemed more perfunctory and hopeless than the last. Until this week.

Late in the night, after we had started printing what was supposed to have been a cover on America’s economy, news broke of the peace agreement between Hamas and Israel in the Egyptian resort town of Sharm el-Sheikh. The ceasefire and the expected release of the hostages are wonderful tidings in themselves. But I was also struck by how the deal opened up new possibilities.

Instead of endless, abstract negotiations over maps and the hypothetical constitutional arrangements of two states, the Trump plan promises a practical approach in which Israelis and Palestinians can rebuild their lives. Success looks less like a ceremony in the White House and more like cement mixers spinning in Gaza, as the threat of missiles fades and ordinary people embrace a slowly rising belief in a safer, more prosperous future. It is a triumph for President Donald Trump’s transactional, bullying style of diplomacy.

Of course, the obstacles to further progress are immense—how could they not be? Nonetheless, in a region that has known little other than decades of conflict, this is an extraordinary moment: a slender but real chance at a new beginning.

That is the case we set out in our cover leader. And it was tested by some of my more sceptical colleagues today, when we recorded the first edition of our new Insider show, free at launch for subscribers to The Economist. I joined Zanny Minton Beddoes, our editor-in-chief, and a panel of editors and correspondents to examine the agreement and consider whether the Middle East really is opening a new chapter. You can now watch the show on demand.