Israeli Students Show Little Interest In Learning Arabic
In contrast to the revival of Hebrew studies in Gaza, Israeli students are reluctant to learn Arabic, writes Shlomi Eldar.
A few months ago, I received a call from a young Arabic teacher who worked at a high school in the suburbs of Haifa in northern Israel. He told me his name and explained why he called me. “My students refuse to learn Arabic,” he said. “They are very antagonistic toward the language itself.”
The truth is that I wasn’t quite as surprised about what he was describing as by the very fact that he contacted me about it. “Is it really that bad?” I asked.
“Yes,” he said. “Whenever I try to convince them to learn the language, it only gets them angry. I explained to them how important it is to know the language of our neighbors, but they insist on correcting me. ‘Enemies,’ they say, ‘not neighbors.’”
“What can I do for you?” I asked him.
