israeli hostipitality109 citizenship, the state, [and] the subject of the state, even if it is a world state” (Derrida 2000, 3). With the language of rights arises the “question of conditionality.” The non-permanent right of resort and association (or, “the cosmopolitan right”) granted to the visitor is contingent upon her/his acceptance of the code of conduct and accepted rules of interaction of the space, so long as he peacefully occupies his place. In effect, the conditions of hospitality render it a constant negotiation. Of course, there is always a certain risk that accompanies the extension of the right of entrance and temporary resort in the native household, city, state or sovereign territory to the visiting stranger. Yet, as a conditional injunction, the extension of hospitality is essentially legal, both in formulation and practice. So while it is possible that the foreign Other may possibly destroy the space, challenge the established codes of conduct, or refuse to later accept the non-assimilative conditions of their stay, their temporary entrance is nevertheless warranted as it is subjected to legal parameters of protection. No longer an absolute and unequivocal directive based on magnanimity, hospitality becomes a gamble posited in the form of a constantly negotiated (and, if necessary, arbitrated) legal formulation. Working from Kant’s notion of hospitality, Derrida points his readers to the “historical, ethical, juridical, political, and economic questions of hospitality” (Derrida 2000, 3). Defined as “the right of a stranger not to be treated with hostility when he arrives on someone else’s territory,” hospitality ensures that a stranger is dealt with as a friend or colleague rather than an enemy (Derrida 2000, 4). However, the word hospitality, says Derrida, “allows itself to be parasitized by its opposite, ‘hostility’, the undesirable guest … which it harbours as the self-contradiction in its own body.” With this, the concept of hostipitality – the hostile underpinnings of hospitality – is born. Starting from the home, Derrida’s investigation of the relationship between the host and its perennial Other makes use of the experiences of the historical, Biblical, and literary personas of Oedipus, Socrates, Lot and Abraham. As foreigners, outlaws and hosts, these figures are leaving the city, crossing the border, offering hospitality, and raising the laws of hospitality above all other codes. In their experiences, hospitality emerges as an always already juridical concept, understood through its often violent limitations. “Universal hospitality arises,” writes Derrida, “from an obligation, a right, and a duty all regulated by law” (Derrida 2000, 4; 2005, 6). As such, the desire of the host to “welcome without reserve and without calculation, [and provide] an exposure without limit to whoever arrives” is eclipsed with requirements and preconditions which change the gift of hospitality into a contractual relation, “opening into a policed