Rooting Security in Arabic Soil

When Zionism Met Arabic
  • Yonatan Mendel
Chapter
Part of the Palgrave Studies in Languages at War book series (PASLW)

Abstract

The connection between Arabic studies and security considerations in Israel is an open secret widely shared by the majority of Israelis. Nevertheless, there is a lack of academic research on this specific topic, a fact that I find rather telling. An examination of the motivations of pupils for studying Arabic aptly demonstrates the explicit and straightforward nature of this open secret.2 For example, research conducted in 1988 was done to assess the attitudes of Jewish-Israeli high school pupils towards Arabic studies. Specifically, the research inquired as to why pupils chose both to study Arabic and also elected to take the final exam on the subject on completion of high school. It found that 65 per cent of those who chose to study Arabic had a ‘desire to serve in the army in a position that demands knowledge of Arabic’.3

Keywords

Jewish Community Education Department Zionist Movement Arabic Language Jewish Life 
These keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.
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Notes

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Copyright information

© Yonatan Mendel 2014

Authors and Affiliations

  • Yonatan Mendel
    • 1
  1. 1.University of CambridgeUK

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