A conservative analyst urged observers to be cautiously optimistic about a peace deal brokered between Israel and Hamas that some reports indicate could be signed on Thursday.

President Donald Trump announced that Israel and Hamas had accepted the "first phase" of a peace deal that would end the more-than two-year war that has decimated Gaza. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu seems to think the deal is insubstantial. A U.S. official told Axios that the Israeli leader told Trump that the deal "is nothing to celebrate, and that it doesn't mean anything."

Jonah Goldberg, editor-in-chief of The Dispatch, discussed the deal on CNN's "The Arena with Kasie Hunt" on Thursday.

"There's another major player in why Hamas agreed to do this, and why this was possible, and it's the IDF," Goldberg said. "Two years ago, Israel had seven enemies on seven fronts. It kicked the a---- of six and a half of them, including Iran, which was the linchpin of all of this."

"Military victory actually forces opportunities for diplomatic change that Trump, to his credit, took advantage of," he continued. "I think there are a million ways this thing can all go wrong, and there are a million reasons to think it probably will at some point. But if hostages start coming home, that by itself is a huge victory."