The majority of Palestinians consider that their homeland was lost during the establishment of Israel in 1948, and see the right of return as crucial to a peace agreement with Israel, even if the vast majority of surviving refugees and their descendants do not exercise that right. The Palestinians consider the vast majority of refugees as victims of Israeli
ethnic cleansing during the
1948 Arab–Israeli War, and cite massacres such as
Deir Yassin. All Palestinian political and militant groups, both Islamist and socialist, strongly support a right of return. The
Palestinian National Authority views the right of return as a non-negotiable right.
Almost all Israeli Jews oppose a literal right of return for Palestinian refugees on the grounds that allowing such an influx of Palestinians would render Jews a minority in Israel, thus transforming Israel into an Arab-Muslim state.