According to Ehud Olmert, the Israeli prime minister preceding Binyamin Netanyahu, he and Palestine Authority President Mahmoud Abbas came a hairbreadth away from finalizing an agreement to finally end the Palestine-Israel conflict. Abbas later concurred that the two parties were very close. But the opportunity, like so many others, evaporated. The immediate cause this time was the corruption charges against Olmert, which soon after drove him from office (and eventually led to a six-year prison sentence). Abbas, unfortunately, was not able to use the parameters of the Olmert negotiations once new talks took place under the auspices of the Netanyahu-led government. For one, Netanyahu was simply unwilling to accept those conditions as a starting (or finishing) point. Also, the secret Olmert-Abbas negotiations did not commit either party to the conditions each laid on the table, as long as no agreement was signed. And the Obama administration was not willing to use the Olmert-Abbas proposed deal as a starting point (for fear of not getting Netanyahu to the table at all). Nonetheless, those negotiations may not have been totally for naught. A series of proposed solutions to the conflict, including the Camp David II negotiations (2000), Clinton Parameters (2000),  Geneva Accord (2003), and Olmert-Abbas talks, all included very similar points of agreement. The various failed proposals and deals, I believe, reinforce one another, so that if and when the stars align properly, it will be precisely those parameters that will be the foundation of a successful resolution of the conflict.