As I understand it, the original vision of Zionism was that the Holy Land should become the country which all Jews could see as home, and where they should be free to go and live if they chose, alongside the people who were already living there. This would have meant a state where Jews and non-Jewish Arabs were present in more or less equal numbers.

In 1948 there was a tragic war, which led to most of the non-Jewish people living within the territory set up as Israel becoming refugees. Because of a further tragic series of events the refugees were never allowed to return home.

The outcome has been an Israel where non-Jews have been a relatively small minority, not at all in line with what the original Zionists envisaged. However the idea has rooted itself that this situation is a defining characteristic of Israel, and that any right of return for the refugees and their descendants is by definition hostile to Israel as such.

However it is worth noting that throughout this whole period Israel has continued to recognise that those Arab who remained within the new state had full constitutional rights as citizens. Israel's Jewish majority has never fallen into the trap of restricting citizenship to Jews, which is something which could easily have happened. If Israel was to extend that citizenship to returning refugees it would be in line with this honourable precedent, and with the vision of the original Zionists. In a sense what would be involved would not be the destruction of Israel, but its restoration.

In practice a two-states-in-partnership solution, under which there would be a right of return to the Palestinian state for all descendants of refugees, is a more realistic way of trying to entangle the knot.

What would make it more realistic would be for this to be accompanied by a right of return to their original homeland for the dwindling numbers of first generation refugees, who had lived in the territory of what became Israel. This would not threaten the existing majority status of Jewish Israelis, but could make it a lot easier for the Palestinian Diaspora to accept the past and move on.