20 introduction hospitality of the Jewish state through the use of its provided social, political and legal formulations of ‘Israeli-Arab’ or ‘Arab-Israeli’ implies an acknowledgement that the Jewish population remains the patron with the right to give asylum to the Arab population. Put differently, as a tool of Israeli hostipitality, the category of ‘Israeli-Arab’ becomes a self-contradictory concept. As a result, Palestinian-Arabs are only welcomed in a state where they are categorized as a socio-politically inferior and legally unrecognized collective. Chapter Four works from the above account of Israeli hostipitality and focuses on a detailed examination of the liberal variant of Zionist thought, or liberal-Zionism. The contentions of Alexander Yakobson and Amnon Rubinstein in Israel and the Family of Nations: The Jewish Nation-State and Human Rights (2009) – one of the most robust liberal-Zionist readings of Israeli history, politics and contemporary practices – are the main subject of this chapter. Hardly representative of a hawkish Israeli political attitude, the authors present a liberal account of the Zionist project through systematic academic argumentation designed to counter voices of criticism against the Zionist national project. Citing various European and North American constitutions, norms, and laws, their book works its way along numerous discussions aimed at rendering the Zionist movement immune from critique regarding its (ongoing) violations against the Palestinian people. Yet, the logical and political coherence of the liberalZionist positions put forth by Yakobson and Rubinstein is only maintained through selective readings of international legal resolutions, historical experiences and current political events. In my examination of the book in this chapter, I point out that even some of the most liberal of Zionists have considered exclusive Jewish demographic ascendancy and territorial control as vital for the existence of a Jewish national home. With these two factors as priorities, the liberal-Zionist ideology proves incapable of implementing even the most basic principles of liberalism, including equality, inclusion and a state for all its citizens. The chapter also addresses the deep inadequacies of liberal-Zionism in its reading of state-minority relations within Israel, and its lack of an analysis around the element of control. It concludes that the liberal-Zionist discourse fulfills the exclusionary mandate of the Jewish state by diluting and cloaking the Zionist record of multifaceted violations against its Arab population and the broader Palestinian nation. Building on the above examination of liberal-Zionism, Chapter Five goes on to outline the effects of the basic and inherent contradictions in the Israeli incorporation regime. I explain that, even at the level of

Select target paragraph3

Connect to a paragraph
Connect to an entity
Disable highlights
Add to table of contents