liberal pretence of a jewish state143 upheld this position in the recently passed Ensuring Rejection of the Right of Return Law (2001). This law states that Palestinian refugees, including those displaced from the West Bank and Gaza Strip in 1967, will not be able to return without an explicit approval from an absolute majority of government ministers. According to MK Yisrael Katz, the purpose of the bill during its preliminary readings in May 2000 was to reflect … a Zionist consensus not to allow the refugees of 1948 and 1967 to return to the sovereign areas of the State of Israel … whoever wishes to live in a democracy and in equality – will find a place with us. Whoever seeks another national identity – let him go elsewhere. The right of return, a state for all its citizens – are expressions synonymous to the wish to destroy Israel.26 As shown in Chapter Two and alluded to in Chapter Five below, Arab calls for equal citizenship have been vehemently rejected by consecutive Israeli governments. Instead, claims made by Arab citizens for equality and freedom from discrimination to be explicitly entrenched as a constitutional right in Israeli law are rendered an act of hostility against the state; and its preference for Jewish dominance in all spheres of life. Far from opposing this political, social and legal arrangement, this position is in tune with the liberal defence of Zionism provided by Yakobson and Rubinstein. They too believe that the problem is not that Jews exclusively have a right to return to the land and travel freely, but that Palestinians do not have a state to provide them with this right. Evidently, this line of argumentation is completely deficient with respect to an analysis of power. The rights, benefits and freedoms of one collective do not exist in a vacuum and are intimately tied in a relation of exception to those outside of this collective. As a result, it is the political and legal context of The Law of Return (1950) that makes it problematic. In other words, the right of return becomes prejudicial in a context where Jews have the right of immigration but Palestinians do not simply because of their non-Jewish ethnic identity.27 Under these circumstances, where, for instance, there has never been a parallel attempt to allow for the possible integration of Palestinians in Israel; where refugees from around the world cannot return to their cities and towns of birth; and where Palestinian citizens cannot unite with their spouses or family members in the West Bank, Gaza Strip, and neighbouring Arab countries because of their non-Jewish status, the Jewish access 26 Quoted in Sultany (2003, 19–20). 27 Though beyond the present scope, it is important to mention that the existing critique of this law is more far reaching than presented here. See, for example, Cook (2008) and Badil (2007), among other sources.