liberal pretence of a jewish state145 of multifaceted violations against its Arab population, and the broader Palestinian nation. Insupportable Israeli policies and practices are reframed according to a steadfast narrative of Israeli political and regional vulnerability, so that the Zionist project is not left without political excuses for even its most destructive record as it either meant well or was compelled to violate Palestinian rights.28 With the assertion that “for all of the justified criticism that can be directed at it, the state [of Israel] has had to face serious objective difficulties,” the logical line of argumentation apparent to the reader is that Israeli violations against Palestinian human rights are merely a necessary response to various existential challenges to its incorporation regime, rather than part of a systematic political project (Yakobson and Rubinstein 2009, 105). Mostly limiting their already jaded criticism of Israeli state power to its post-1967 record, the authors point only to the “violence and terror … resorted to by Palestinians” in their mention of “the grave events that occurred in the wake of the failure of the Camp David talks” (Yakobson and Rubinstein 2009, 64). Israel’s post-Oslo record of intense Palestinian infrastructural and institutional destruction, land confiscation, military checkpoints, road-blocks, closure policies, curfews, systematic assault on Palestinian activists and intellectuals, and the disablement of the Palestinian economy is thoroughly ignored by the authors. From this, they move on to provide a packaged defence of a range of Israeli infringements. For instance, the actions of the Israeli Military Administration from 1948–1969 were justified because “it was felt necessary;” and Arab citizens of Israel were targeted out of sheer misfortune because “Israel’s geography, 28 A report by Israeli journalist Amira Hass in Haaretz points to this dynamic in the case of Jewish settlement building. Hass points out how Palestinian inclusion in UNESCO, the United Nations cultural organization, and its broader application for statehood, is equated with Jewish settlement building. She writes: “The extent to which the term ‘peace negotiations’ has been prostituted can be gleaned from a remark by the EU’s envoy to the Quartet, Helga Schmid. On October 26, in a last-ditch attempt by the Quartet to stop the Palestinians from applying to UNESCO, she said – according to sources in Ramallah – that the application for membership is like construction in the settlements: a provocation. It is not enough that the EU countries are not punishing Israel for building the settlements (Ma’aleh Adumim or Givat Assaf, all are equally felonious); now the EU envoy is creating symmetry between years of violence by the occupying overlord and legitimate defence of the occupied.” Here liberal-Zionist discourse has transformed and reframed the non-violent claims to statehood through official legal channels by Palestinians into a justification for the devastation and violence of the Zionist project and continued illegal settlement building. See Amira Hass, “Palestinians must say no to negotiations with Israel,” Haaretz, November 02, 2011, http://www.haaretz.com/print-edition/opinion/palestinians-must-say -no-to-negotiations-with-israel-1.393255.