All the dominoes were lined up for peace and security for Israel and Palestine. Both sides would have likely made the further needed concessions.
			James Adler, Boston, U.S.A.

It is impossible to know. But peace was never more likely. It was before
the second intifada, before 9/11, before the spread of Islamic extremism,
before the ascendancy of Hamas. The Israeli public was less cynical, less
skeptical less tired, less beaten down, and was for giving peace a chance.
The giant peace demonstrations in (now) Rabin Square show how much the
Israeli public wanted peace.

Arafat was a strong unchallenged leader, unlike Abbas, and his total power
went unchallenged by Hamas or Islamist extremism, and so he could have
delivered. The handshakes in front of the White House were high-profile and
world-famous and the world pressure was visible and intensive.

The Gulf States and Saudi Arabia were in recent deep debt to the United
States and Western powers and Arab coalition for the First Gulf War and
liberation of Kuwait. Even Syria had fought for the allies in the war.
Russia was still in the middle of its pro-Westernl Boris Yeltsin days and
was as helpful as it has been before or since. The indomitable King
Hussein of Jordan was still on the scene as a powerful, influential, and
trusted moral force for peace in Jordan, and just as much in Palestine and
Israel alike. President Clinton was at the height of his power and
influence, still in his first term with the second to go, and as far from
being a lame duck as you could get.

All the dominoes were lined up for peace and security for Israel and
Palestine. Both sides would have likely made the further needed
concessions– for example Israel about division of Jerusalem, and
Palestinians about getting no more than a face-saving but only symbolic and
token right of return.

There were even some ingenious possibilities being floated as trial
balloons, such as God being declared sovereign of Jerusalem and the Israelis
and Palestinians making a division of Jerusalem into merely pragmatic
administrative districts, and God recognized as in charge of an officially
united Jerusalem.

Maybe that specific idea wouldn’t have worked, but it shows the creativity
and optimism and spirit of peace of that era. Tens of thousands of ordinary
Israelis held a massive peace demonstration in central Kings of Israel
Square, led by the Prime Minister of Israel himself. And then a brutal
fanatical right-wing assassin destroyed all the hope and possibility.