israeli hostipitality119 hospitality of the state possible on the condition of its impossibility or, alternatively, it makes Israeli hospitality possible on the condition of hostility. Whereas the language of Derridean hospitality calls to the Other without condition, Israeli hostipitality formulates a perpetual need for classification (Jewish and non-Jewish) and hierarchy (through a multifaceted Jewish supremacy). Here the need for Mahmoud Darwish’s identity card – and the need for a similar defiance – resurfaces in every interaction with the state. That Palestinian participation in the hospitality of the state reflects this inherent inequality of social, civic and legal status indicates that the challenge to Israel’s consolidation as an equal democracy is the fact that access to the home, the city, the state and the land itself, in the form of identification, claims, rights and membership, is deliberately designed to exclude the non-Jewish community. Both conceptually and practically, these dynamics doubly marginalize and exclude the Arab citizenry of Israel from both the Israeli and Palestinian political societies and national projects. In essence, Palestinian-Arabs in Israel are placed in a paradoxical condition: they become stateless-citizens.