The Creation of Israeli Arabic ― Security and Politics in Arabic Studies in Israel

This book sheds light on the ways in which the on-going Israeli-Arab conflict has shaped Arabic language instruction. It explores how 'Israeli Arabic' is constructed by a closed network of Jewish-Israeli actors focused on security considerations rather than a desire for open communication. 'Israeli Arabic' has evolved as a silent, listening language which focuses on decoding texts, mostly from newspapers. This enables its students to observe the Arab world but not to interact with Arab people in general and the Palestinian citizens of Israel more particularly. Due to its interdisciplinary nature this book will be of great interest to academics and researchers in security and middle eastern studies as well as those focused on language and linguistics.

Yonatan Mendel is a Research Associate at the Centre of Islamic Studies at the University of Cambridge, UK, and a researcher at The Rosenzweig Minerva Research Center, Faculty of Humanities, at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Israel. He is also the Director of Projects of the Mediterranean Unit at the Van Leer Jerusalem Institute, Israel. His research area is the sociology of language, specifically, the influences of political conflict on the study of, and attitude toward, a language and the way in which research on language contributes to understanding deep social and political processes.