I think this is significant because Peres has been such a dove.

http://www.boston.com/dailynews/319/world/Peres_says_Israeli_public_favo:.shtml

Peres says Israeli public favors Palestinian state, but vows Palestinians can't return to Israel

By Gerald Nadler, Associated Press, 11/15/2001 18:18

UNITED NATIONS (AP) Israel's foreign minister said Thursday there is support in Israel for a Palestinian state, but he vowed that Palestinian refugees will not be allowed to return to the Jewish state.

''We are not going to commit suicide,'' Shimon Peres said.

Addressing the U.N. General Assembly, Peres also said that Osama bin Laden's claim to be fighting for Palestinian independence hurts their cause.

Peres, a Nobel Peace Prize winner for his efforts to make peace with the Palestinians, said the violence espoused by bin Laden, the chief suspect in the Sept. 11 terror attacks on the United States, cannot lead to a Palestinian state.

By contrast, Peres said that Israel reached peace agreements with Egypt and Jordan ''without bin Laden, without terror.''

In his General Assembly address, Peres explained his thinking on the creation of a Palestinian state, which U.S. President George W. Bush supported in his speech Saturday at the opening session.

''Yesterday, you would hardly find, for example, support for a Palestinian state,'' Peres said. ''And though this is not yet a formal policy of the government of Israel, there is support for a Palestinian independence, support for a Palestinian state.''

Asked about those comments later Thursday after a meeting with U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan, Peres said they reflected his beliefs and were not yet an official government position.

''That's my own position. That is, I believe, the feeling of many of the Israelis,'' he said.

''But I do not see really any other solution neither for the Palestinians, nor for us, nor for peace in the future,'' he said.

Answering questions earlier at the Council on Foreign Relations, Peres said the return of Palestinians to Israel proper should not be on the table of final peace negotiations. Any future Palestinian state would be set up in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.

''Israel should say bluntly, clearly, immediately that the right of return is out of question. No way. I think that the Arabs have an illusion that we shall agree to it,'' he said. ''We shall never agree to it.''

Stressing that allowing Palestinians to return would endanger the Jewish majority, Peres said: ''We are not going to commit suicide. I think it would be better for the Palestinians to know this right away.''

The Arab population inside Israel is about 1.2 million, and the Jewish Israelis number close to 6 million. There are also 2.3 million Palestinian refugees in U.N. camps in Jordan, Lebanon and Syria. Palestinian statistics say the total number of Palestinians living outside their homeland is 4.5 million.

Peres also said he believes that the question of Jerusalem whose eastern part the Palestinians want as a capital for their state should not be a subject in the next round of negotiations.

''We have to wait for a better moment,'' he said.

Peres indicated that new negotiations with the Palestinians should they start could last two years.

Under interim peace accords with Israel, Arafat set up the Palestinian Authority in 1994, achieving control over about 40 percent of the West Bank and two-thirds of the Gaza Strip.

The interim accords were supposed to lead to a peace treaty with Israel, but the talks broke down last January.

Palestinian-Israeli fighting that erupted in September 2000 has killed 754 people on the Palestinian side and 197 people on the Israeli side.

-- Anonymous, November 16, 2001