Palestinian leader's refugee comments shatter taboo

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Mohamad Torokman / Reuters, filePalestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas waves as he arrives to vote in municipal elections at a polling station in Al-Bireh, West Bank, on Oct. 20.By NBC News staff and wire reportsJERUSALEM -- The Palestinian president has set off a strident debate by shattering a once-inviolable taboo, publicly suggesting his people would have to relinquish claims to ancestral homes in Israel.

Mahmoud Abbas' comments on the refugee issue, made in an interview on Israeli TV over the weekend, triggered hot responses from Palestinians and Israelis alike.

In Israel, it suddenly put the long-sidelined issue of peace talks back in the Israeli public's consciousness ahead of parliamentary elections.

Palestinians have demanded that as many as five million of their compatriots -- original war refugees and their descendants -- be granted the right of return to towns and villages that became part of Israel after its founding in 1948. The establishment of the modern state of Israel is referred to in Arabic as “al Nakba,” or “the catastrophe.”

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