By calling for the right of refugees to return home as in other conflicts, the movement has brought to the fore the long neglected issue of “whether Israel, even if it were to cease its occupation of the West Bank and Gaza, can be both a democracy and a Jewish state”, Thrall writes.
"The two-state concept was transformed from a possible solution to Israeli occupation to the primary pretext for depriving Palestinians of equality. It was also the main excuse for keeping the majority of Palestinians in exile: in order to preserve Israel’s Jewish majority, the refugees would have to languish in camps outside Israel’s borders until there was a Palestinian state that could absorb them.”