The "right of return" issue has been a frequent peace deal breaker. Allowing refugees from the 1948-49 war that followed creation of the Jewish state to return to their homes in Israel has been a key Palestinian demand for decades.
About 700,000 Palestinians fled or were driven from their homes during the fighting. With their descendants, they number about 4 million today. Israelis say such an influx would destroy the Jewish character of their state.
Vice Premier Ehud Olmert said Monday that the United States is aware that the issue "is one of the things that must be discussed" concerning an internationally backed "road map" to peace, which includes eventual Palestinian statehood.
The road map calls for the fate of Palestinian refugees to be resolved in a final peace deal. But Olmert said "without an explicit commitment by the Palestinians to depart wholly, unequivocally and completely from the 'right of return,' Israel is not going to do anything dramatic" in peace moves. He defined that as anything irreversible, but would not be more specific.
Olmert would not say whether Israel insists the Palestinians drop their demand as a condition for even entering the "road map" process — which could scuttle it immediately.
He also reiterated the government's position that Israel would not participate in the peace process if the Palestinians don't stop attacks against Israel.
"I say in the most unequivocal way that if there will be terror, there will not be progress," he said.
Palestinians blame Israeli military operations and restrictions for the continuing violence, though incoming Palestinian Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas has said that the violent aspects of the Palestinian uprising were a mistake. In 31 months of violence, 2,281 people have been killed on the Palestinian side and 760 on the Israeli side.
Israel's hawkish government has ruled out negotiations with the Palestinians as long as violence continues. Dovish critics favor immediate peace talks, charging that the no-attacks condition gives violent extremists a veto over negotiations.
Olmert repeated Prime Minister Ariel Sharon (news - web sites)'s assertion that Israel accepts "the general framework of the road map."
"We do have some comments and some disagreement about some items. But there will be no refusal of the general road map as such," Olmert told a meeting of the local Foreign Press Association. A top Sharon aide visited Washington recently and presented a list of 15 changes Israel wants, primarily concerning security.
Abbas' new Cabinet will go before the Palestinian legislature for a vote on Tuesday, opening the way for the formal presentation of the road map by the so-called Quartet of mediators — the United States, European Union (news - web sites), United Nations (news - web sites) and Russia.
U.S. President George W. Bush (news - web sites) has said he will unveil the peace plan once Abbas has been installed. Bush and Israel refuse to deal with Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat (news - web sites), whom he considers tainted by terrorism, and has been holding out for an alternate Palestinian leadership.
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