If you blink you might miss the last chance for peace in our time. At least that’s what Secretary Blinken is saying as he launches his latest Mideast trip. “This is a decisive moment, probably the best, maybe the last, opportunity to get the hostages home, to get a cease-fire and to put everyone on a better path to enduring peace and security,” he said at Jerusalem this morning. This is the oldest Mideast gambit. 

At last we checked, the phrases “Mideast” and “last chance” headlined 797 stories in recent decades. Yet, a chance for what? And who would suffer by missing it? As Mr. Blinken landed in Israel yesterday, a man carried a bomb in a knapsack to southern Tel Aviv, where he entered from Nablus in the West Bank. He killed only himself because a premature detonation saved the lives of dozens of nearby synagogue-goers who celebrated love on Tu B’Av. 

Hamas and the Palestinian Islamic Jihad immediately took responsibility, but Iran has long beefed up its support for West Bank terrorists, hoping to add a new hot front to its multi-prong genocidal proxy assault on Israel. That is the Mideast big picture. The Gaza war, which has been in the headlines in the ten months since October 7, is one part of an Iran-backed attack to realize the Islamic Republic’s long goal of ending the Jewish state.   

Is this what Mr. Blinken meant when he said that the cease-fire is “the best way to make sure that conflict doesn’t spread”? In other words, can a deal with Hamas be struck and a regional war averted now, during the Democratic convention? Isn’t this the last chance for President Biden’s legacy-making Saudi-Israeli peace? If Mr. Blinken aims to save the 115 hostages in Hamas’s hands, though, and end Gazans’s plight, he seems to be barking up the wrong tree.

The secretary acknowledged that Prime Minister Netanayhu has accepted the latest American “bridging” deal and that if there’s to be a deal, Hamas must accept it, too. Yet Hamas seems to count on America and Mideast mediators to help it win the war. With its top benefactor, Hamas hopes to use Gaza’s border with Egypt to rearm in the deal’s aftermath, so it can attack again. Mr. Netanyahu insists on Israeli control of that border, known as the Philadelphi corridor.

“We are conducting negotiations and not a scenario in which we just give and give,” the premier said yesterday. Yet, a pattern has emerged since Mr. Biden published a plan in May for a weeks-long lull in fighting and phased releases of hostages: America, Qatar, and Egypt negotiate with Israel; Washington claims a breakthrough; Hamas then rejects an agreement; Israel is urged to compromise. Rinse, repeat, and alert of a “last chance.” 

In a telling detail, Hamas avoided sending envoys to last week’s talks at Doha. Over the weekend it rejected the American “bridge” to nowhere, claiming it was dictated by Israel. Since the beginning, Hamas has insisted that the IDF agree to first end the war. While its chief, Yehya Sinwar, is losing, he seems to bank on Iran to consolidate all fronts in a region-encompassing war that would take the pressure off Gaza.

He sees an opportunity in Israel’s killing of master terrorists at Beirut and Tehran. Hezbollah and Iran have vowed revenge that would inflict “pain” on Israel. That such revenge is widely considered “inevitable,” Israel’s leading opposition leader, Yair Lapid, writes, is not only “deeply flawed moral logic, it also sets a dangerous precedent for the rest of the world.” America has sent military assets to the region to avert an Iranian-Hezbollah attack. 

The pressure is on Israel to make more concessions to Hamas, even as it faces an existential war waged by Iran and its proxies. We understand that Mr.  Blinken’s time in office is running short because of the Democrats’ “coup” against Mr. Biden. Yet Iran is about to go nuclear, and the greatest legacy danger is if it attains a bomb while Mr. Biden is in office. This may be his last chance to exert maximum pressure where it belongs — on Iran.