Prime Minister Ariel Sharon said in an interview published today that Israel would have to remove some settlements for peace with Palestinians, and called the fall of Saddam Hussein a chance to end the conflict.
He was clarifying for the first time previous references to "painful concessions" Israel could face to reach peace. But his coalition relies on rightists committed to settlements and has raised objections to a US-backed plan for a Palestinian state.
Mr Sharon, long a right-wing champion of Jewish settlement on land occupied by Israel in the 1967 Middle East war, told the liberal daily Ha'aretz he was ready to take steps "that are painful for every Jew and for me personally".
"Our whole history is bound up with these places: Bethlehem, Shiloh, Beit El. I know that we will have to part with some of these places," the former general said in an interview.
"There will be a parting from places that are connected to the whole course of our history ... As a Jew, this agonises me. But I have decided to make every effort to reach a (peace) settlement. I feel that the rational necessity to reach a settlement is overcoming my feelings."
Shiloh and Beit El are Jewish settlements in the West Bank. Bethlehem was reoccupied by Israel last June along with six other Palestinian West Bank cities after a spate of Palestinian suicide bombings. All seven obtained self-rule under interim peace deals in 1993-94 that Mr Sharon opposed while out of power.
In the interview, however, Mr Sharon sounded like his left-wing Labour rivals in saying that a continued Israeli military grip on Palestinian areas was untenable morally and economically. "I don't think we have to rule over another people and run their lives. I do not think we have the strength for that. It is a very heavy burden on the public and raises ethical problems and heavy economic problems," he was quoted as saying.
The international community says Jewish settlements are illegal under international law. Israel has disputed this and kept building settlements even after the interim peace deals.