Nationality and Cases of Statelessness in the Middle East and North Africa to a right of return in the event of the establishment of a fully-fledged Palestinian state. These sentiments have affected naturalisation policies and their implementation with respect to persons of Palestinian origin, as well as other nationality matters, including the question of a national woman’s right to pass her nationality to her children (where this could also affect the nationality of children of a Palestinian man). As such, the presence of these large Palestinian groups has contributed to rather restrictive nationality policy – any proposals for more inclusive rules have been readily struck down on the basis that these are neither desirable nor tenable given the Palestinian presence.87 Another demographic issue that is highly specific to the MENA region is the phenomenon of a citizenry that is outnumbered in its own country. In several of the GCC countries, the number of migrant workers present in the territory at any given time is far higher than that of the nationals of the state. For example, the estimated population of Qatar currently stands at 1.7 million people,88 of which the actual citizen population only constitutes approximately 225,000,89 meaning that close to 87% of the population are not nationals. This migrant labour force is made up of a 87 - See, for instance, Les apatrides, otages de l’équilibre confessional et du dossier palestinien, L’orient le Jour, 8 December 2009 [Lebanon]. 88 - Qatar Statistics Authority, December 2011. 89 - H. Eakin, The strange power of Qatar, 2011. 70