This book sheds light on the ways in which the on-going Israeli-Arab conflict has shaped Arabic language instruction. Due to its interdisciplinary nature it will be of great interest to academics and researchers in security and middle eastern studies as well as those focused on language and linguistics.

This book examines the role played by Arab-Palestinian culture and people in the construction and reproduction of Israeli national identity and culture, showing that it is impossible to understand modern Israeli national identity and culture without taking into account its crucial encounter and dialectical relationship with the Arab-Palestinian indigenous 'Other'. Based on extensive and original primary sources, including archival research, memoirs, advertisements, cookbooks and a variety of cultural products – from songs to dance steps – From the Arab Other to the Israeli Self sheds light on an important cultural and ideational diffusion that has occurred between the Zionist settlers – and later the Jewish-Israeli population – and the indigenous Arab-Palestinian people in Historical Palestine. By examining Israeli food culture, national symbols, the Modern Hebrew language spoken in Israel, and culture, the authors trace the journey of Israeli national identity and culture, in which Arab-Palestinian culture has been imitated, adapted and celebrated, but strikingly also rejected, forgotten and denied. Innovative in approach and richly illustrated with empirical material, this book will appeal to sociologists, anthropologists, historians and scholars of cultural and Middle Eastern studies with interests in the development and adaptation of culture, national thought and identity.

In Arabic Instruction in Israel Allon J. Uhlmann confronts two conundrums, namely the persistently poor level of Arabic proficiency among Jewish Arabic students and teachers, and the traumatic alienation of Arab students by university Arabic grammar instruction. These are not aberrations but rather direct, albeit unintended, systemic consequences of the field of Arabic instruction, where Jewish students encounter Arabic as a dead, hostile language; Jewish hegemony devalues native Arabic proficiency; and Arab students are locked into a fractured educational trajectory – encountering two alienating and mutually unintelligible grammars of Arabic at school and at university. By tracing systemic variabilities in cognition and learning Uhlmann exposes hitherto misrecognised dynamics that hinder Arabic instruction in Israel, thereby offering new avenues for possible change.

The Routledge Handbook of Arabic and Identity offers a comprehensive and up-to-date account of studies that relate the Arabic language in its entirety to identity. This handbook offers new trajectories in understanding language and identity more generally and Arabic and identity in particular. Split into three parts, covering ‘Identity and Variation’, ‘Identity and Politics’ and ‘Identity Globalisation and Diversity’, it is the first of its kind to offer such a perspective on identity, linking the social world to identity construction and including issues pertaining to our current political and social context, including Arabic in the diaspora, Arabic as a minority language, pidgin and creoles, Arabic in the global age, Arabic and new media, Arabic and political discourse. Scholars and students will find essential theories and methods that relate language to identity in this handbook. It is particularly of interest to scholars and students whose work is related to the Arab world, political science, modern political thought, Islam and social sciences including: general linguistics, sociolinguistics, discourse analysis, anthropological linguistics, anthropology, political science, sociology, psychology, literature media studies and Islamic studies.

Explores the contradictory position of Arabic being both the official language and marginalized in IsraelArabic became a minority language overnight in Israel in 1948, as a result of the Palestinian exodus from their land that year. Although it remains an official language, along with Hebrew, Israel has made continued attempts to marginalize Arabic on the one hand and securitize it on the other. Camelia Suleiman delves into these tensions and contradictions, exploring how language policy and language choice both reflect and challenge political identities of Arabs and Israelis. She explores the historic context of Arabic in Israel, the attempts at minoritising, Orientalising and securitising the language, the Linguistic Landscape (LL) of Arabic in Israel, the effect of globalization, modernization and citizenship status on the status of Arabic, Hebrew as a language choice of (semi) autobiographic production of three Israeli authors who are native speakers of Arabic, and lastly, a comparison with the status of Arabic in both Jordan and Palestine (West Bank and Gaza Strip) where Arabic is the official language.Key FeaturesCombines a variety of qualitative methods not commonly used together into the study of Arabic in Israel including ethnography, interviews with journalists and students, media discussion of the language situation of Israel, and analysis of the production of knowledge on Arabic in Israeli academiaProvides a comparative analysis of the language situation in Israel with that in Jordan and PalestineEmploys studies in post-colonial theory, theory of linguistic anthropology, and sociolinguistic concepts of 'indexicality' and 'linguistic landscape'

A fresh look at Jewish-Arab relations in Palestine under the British Mandate

An innovative and provocative study tackling the main assumptions surrounding Israel's claim to Jewish identity.

Since its establishment in the late 1970s, Israel’s Islamic Movement has grown from a small religious revivalist organization focused on strengthening the faith of Muslim Palestinian citizens of Israel to a countrywide sociopolitical movement with representation in the Israeli legislature. But how did it get here? How does it differ from other Islamic movements in the region? And why does its membership continue to grow? Tilde Rosmer examines these issues in The Islamic Movement in Israel as she tells the story of the movement, its identity, and its activities. Using interviews with movement leaders and activists, their documents, and media reports from Israel and beyond, she traces the movement’s history from its early days to its 1996 split over the issue of its relationship to the state. She then explores how the two factions have functioned since, revealing that while leaders of the two branches have pursued different approaches to the state, until the outlawing of the Northern Branch in 2015, both remained connected and dedicated to providing needed social, education, and health services in Israel’s Palestinian towns and villages. The first book in English on this group, The Islamic Movement in Israel is a timely study about how an Islamist movement operates within the unique circumstances of the Jewish state.

Tensions in the Middle East are due to a number of reasons, with the creation of Israel being among them. Give readers a much-needed survey of several lively debates relating to the creation of the state of Israel. Essay sources include The Times of London, The Jerusalem Post, and The Higher Arab Committee. While essayist Jamal el-Husseini argues that Palestine should not be partitioned, Abba Hillel Silver argues that Palestine should be partitioned. Sequenced in the pro versus con format, these essays will activate your readers' critical thinking skills. Once seating reader's deeply in the debates, personal narratives are then shared, by those living with the issues of disharmony between Palestine and Israel. Narratives include a student celebrating the dawn of the Jewish state, and a young immigrant who joins the Haganah.

William G Baker, a Near East expert, university professor, retired military intelligence officer, native Arabic and Hebrew linguist, and author, answers the following questions in this book: • What was the Diaspora and why were Jews persecuted? • What is Zionism and by what authority was modern Israel established? • How was modern Israeli culture reconstituted and the Hebrew language revived? • What were the Arab-Israeli wars? • Who is Israel’s new existential threat? • Who were the Hebrews, Judahites, and Israelites? • When did they rule the land of Israel, who ended their rule and renamed it Palestine? The book examines the gathering of millions of Jews into a cohesive, new, contemporary Jewish-Israeli society and its development of a strong military, which has made Israel a regional superpower. It also explores the Palestinian narrative and objection to Israel’s creation. This is the first single text that covers the historical span of the Hebrew-Israelite-Judahite-Jewish-Israeli narrative from its ethnogenesis in antiquity to its rebirth in modernity.