questions on the past and future of the

questions on the past and future of the Israeli-Palestinian problem. FP: What were your best and worst moments in the Israeli-Palestinian negotiations, and what was the greatest missed opportunity? Saeb Erekat: Though I was not the chief negotiator at that moment, the connection between [then Prime Minister Yitzhak] Rabin and President Arafat made everyone around them, including myself, feel that peace was possible. There was significant progress in all tracks until Rabin's assassination by an Israeli terrorist -- after he was killed, no Israeli leader had the vision to understand that the window of opportunity for a two-state solution would close as fast as they continued their colonization policies. The missed opportunity has definitely been Israel throwing away the Arab Peace Initiative, which offers normalization of relations of 57 countries with Israel in exchange for Israeli withdrawal to the 1967 border. They threw it away by bombing Gaza, by intensifying collective punishments, and by increasing settlement construction all over the occupied West Bank, particularly in and around Occupied East Jerusalem. HOUSE_OVERSIGHT_029787