A short time after arriving in Jerusalem for a late-night meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton spoke slowly and deliberately in outlining the purpose of her trip.

"The goal must be a durable outcome that promotes regional stability and advances the security and legitimate aspirations of Israelis and Palestinians alike," Clinton said about ending the violence in Gaza.

You could almost see Clinton underlining the word "durable." Standing beside her, Netanyahu had a similar emphasis, speaking of the desire for a "long-term solution to this problem."

Too many cease-fires in the region have been shattered and long-time experts on the Middle East cautioned that guns that fall silent often don't stay silent for long.

"I think the most likely scenario is that there is a cease-fire, hopefully brokered by the United States and Egypt, and we all go back to exactly where we were before. In a couple of years we start this process all over again," Middle East analyst Reza Aslan told CNN.

Aaron David Miller, Public Policy Scholar at the Woodrow Wilson Center, cited Israel's ground incursion in 2008 and 2009 which yielded three years of relative quiet.

"It's hard to imagine, unless certain incentives were added to the package, that you could get another outcome that would last that long," he said.

Netanyahu spokesman Mark Regev doesn't want history to repeat itself.

"We don't need a quick fix just to have everything explode in our face next week or next month," he said. "When we come out of this crisis, we want to be in a situation where we have a sustained period of peace and quiet. The civilians on both sides of the frontier deserve that," Regev told Wolf Blitzer in an interview on CNN's "Situation Room."

A spokesman for Hamas told Blitzer that Hamas believes past cease-fire agreements with Israel have been violated by the Israeli side. A truce could be agreed to by Hamas if the security of the Palestinian population is explicitly part of any deal.