option for refugees. This “need” is based on the demand for national selfdetermination of the Jewish people that is often prefaced on the basis of the Jewish character of the state; a reality recently enshrined into law by the passing of the Nation State Basic Law.106 As a result, the “need” by Israel to maintain a Jewish majority, in a country where the majority of the population is not Jewish (i.e. Palestinians in the oPt, Israel and those living in forced exile), and in which mass immigration has not been sufficient to establish such a majority, has inevitably lead to discriminatory policies aimed at forcibly displacing indigenous Palestinians from their homes and denying them the right to return to them. However, preventing refugees from returning to their homes based on their ethnicity and other practices of separation, segregation and/or discrimination based on racial, ethnic, national or religious background is illegal under international law. Over the years, Israel has developed a regime of institutional discrimination against non-Jews, based on extra-territorial and privileged nationality status of Jews in Israel. Residents of Israel are thus divided under the law into Jewish nationals and non-Jews (mainly Palestinians), the latter treated as secondclass citizens under an almost separate legal and bureaucratic umbrella. Discrimination is particularly prevalent in Israel’s laws and policies regulating immigration and access to citizenship, land and public services. Formal endorsement of this discriminatory regime is a requirement for all political parties wishing to participate in Israel’s parliamentary elections. This system and the privileged Jewish nationality status it seeks to uphold are the main obstacles to a durable solution to the Palestinian refugee issue. 2.2. Right to Restitution The Principles on Housing and Property Restitution for Refugees and Displaced Persons (the “Pinheiro Principles”),107 adopted in 2005 by the UN Sub-Commission on the Promotion and Protection of Human Rights, state at Principle 2 that “all refugees and displaced persons have the right to have restored to them any housing, land and/or property they were arbitrarily or unlawfully deprived,” and describe the right to restitution as a “distinct right [which] is prejudiced neither by the actual return nor non-return of refugees 106 Israel as the Nation State of the Jewish people Basic Law, 5778-2018 (Isr.). 107 Paulo Sérgio Pinheiro (UN Special Rapporteur on Housing and Property Restitution in the Context of the Return of Refugees and Internally Displaced Persons), Housing and property restitution in the context of the return of refugees and internally displaced persons, E/CN.4/Sub.2/2005/17, 28 June 2005, available at: https://undocs.org/E/CN.4/Sub.2/2005/17 [accessed 27 Jul 2018][hereinafter Pinheiro Principles]. 40