I think Israel,s leaders should keep Arabic as a national language. Because, one day a peace deal is going to take place in the Middle East . Then Israel will be able to join the Arab league & Israeli businessmen will be able easily to do business with Arab countries specially the rich Golf states.

Why is Arabic so scray? Because we dont understand them when the Arabs speak in their own languages. We feel like losing the controll over them. How to solve that problem? not by sending them away because they are part of Israelis society. Children should be taught Arabic like this there is a huge chance to reduce the agony. And to all the Jews from Europe: Remember where you come from! Remember that Jews were known from being scary because no one understood their language! Dont repeat what people have done wrong to you.

It would level the field for ALL Israelis speaking one language. In every single case where there is more than a single language there is discrimination based upon which language was used. Every single country that uses multiple official languages ends up a failure. This is the first intelligent agenda item this government has come up with.

I usually post on these talkbacks as Aharon too.

It would only be racist if one held that other peoples had a right to a sovereign state with an enshrined ethnic language, and held that Jews do not. Many of us instead hold that no peoples, Jews, Scottish, Basque, Kurds, Dixies, Cajuns, etc. need an ethnolinguistically protected homeland, and that an independent Wales, Kurdistan, or Israel that have a strong "this is for us and only for us" mentality are not good things to strive for. This does not make us racist - we deny these ugly privileges to all "races".

any language. Jesus was primarily speaking to the Jews as a Jew. There were no Christians at the time! Even Jesus was refered to as, "Rabbi".

.. of Jews that indiginously lived in the area all the time. They also were in the clear majority in Jerusalem. Selective memory seems to serve you well.

As a linguistic incompetant, I should speak? However, I do know that, besides the cultural riches of classical Arabic (including Judaic texts), it just doesn't make sense, from the point of view of self-preservation, to live surrounded by a sea of Arabic speakers and not know what they are saying. (As for the sense of living in a sea of Arabs, that's another issue, and apparently Shamayim's will.)

You speak the language of the occupier, you pray to the god of the occupier and you bow in the direction of the land of the occupier 5 times a day in prayer. You have "proof" that your family lived in "Palestine" for over 800 years. Guess what, khalili, "Palestine" is a term the Roman occupiers gave to this land when they ethnically cleansed it of us, its natives, the real "Palestinians", if you will. No person who loved this land or was truly indigenous to it would refer to it by the name occupiers gave it. In addition, though, I bet that I can prove the majority of your ancestors illegally immigrated from Syria after 1900. You're about as "baladi" as the Arabs in Morocco! Palestine = Occupation and as a self-described "Palestinian", you are therefore an occupier, regardless of whether your occupation of our land has lasted 60 years, 800 years or 2000 years. End the occupation called "Palestine"!

to retain the signs of their identity: the Saturday Shabbat and the Hebrew language. In high school and college, Jewish students I knew went to school on the weekend, too, for Hebrew school. The Jews learned the language of the land they lived in, but on weekends or evenings they learned Hebrew. Now the Jews have a homeland and the official language should be Hebrew. Other cultures should learn their second languages in the home or at weekend or evening schools as the Jews had to learn Hebrew in the diaspora. The amazing Jews retained their Sabbath of the Lord's day, not a counterfeit Sabbath day...and they retained the sign of their language that connected them to Jews around the world. Let the Arabs do the same if they want to live in Israel: learn Arabic in night or weekend or home schools.

Sadiqi, I am affraid your post is somewhat ill-informed. First, Jesus never converted to anything. He lived and died an observant Jew. Even Christians acknowledge this. According to their beliefs, Jesus was not a Christian, He was the Christ. Second, Palestinian Arabs do not speak any "Aramiac Levantine dialect." They speak Levant Arabic. The only people in the West Bank who may speak some form of Aramaic are the dwindling number of Samaritans. Recent Genetic/DNA research has shown these people are MUCH more closely related to Jews than they are to Arabs. Third, the "Arabian tribes" have not been a part of 'Palestine" since before Jesus Christ. To begin with, Israel was never called Palestine until the Roman Emperor Hadrian renamed it that in the 2nd century. Furthermore, with the exception of some Nabatean raiders who were related to Arabs no Arabs dwelt in Israel until the Islamic invasions of the 7th century. You cannot show any Bernard Lewish work that proves otherwise. Look, the very name by which you call yourself, "Palestinian" is nothing but the old word Philistine. The Philistines, according to what amounts to scholarly consenus, were from Crete, i.e. Greeks. You are not related to them at all. And as I mentioned earlier, the Land of Israel was named Palestine by a Roman. You have developed your entire identity on a name stolen from Europeans! Your family may have been here for hundreds of years, but the truth is they only got here by military conquest and occupation. If the Jews have retaken the land by military conquest and occupation, as you claim, then oh well. You win some, you lose some. Maybe the Arabs can take it back in about a thousand years, but I doubt it. You would be better off to move to Jordan and rename it something else. After all, Jordan is a name from the Hebrew Bible; why would you want to name an Arab country with a Jewish name? But don't name it Palestine, because naming an Arab country after a group of ancient European Greeks makes even less sense. Marhaba Habibi

The idea of making arabic a secondry language like has been done to english is long term important to preserving Israels identtity. The only reason english was ever an official language was because of the mandate we just inherited it. The only reason arabic is an official language is again something we inherited from the arabs before the founding of the State of Israel ( the jewish state ). Whats wrong with having cultural languages and official languages? An arab school could teach arabic if they wanted but its not an official language of state as for printed information most important information now is printed in at least hebrew, arabic, english & Russian. Making hebrew the only official language of state protects Israels idientity as a jewish state. The multiculturalism idea damages it I have heard in the past of proposals from the likes of Livni thaat we should on the national symbol of the menorah also write STATE OF ISRAEL in arabic .. trying to be multicultural damages our identntiy. Arab states before they expelled their jewish populations didnt make hebrew an official langugae & Iran which still has a jewish population doesnt make hebrew a national language so why should we? Political corrcteness and a desire to be multicultural is killing this country

Like it or not. Arabic is my native language. My command of Arabic is better than most of the Arab Israelis. However, I indulge myself into speaking Arabic only when visiting an Arab-speaking region. One last word: don't you worry about my IQ; I am certainly more educated than you are. I hold science degrees of a major US university .

The true Egyptians are the Copts and they do not speak the same dialect as the Arabs. And who are these Old Women with the Aramaic Levantine dialect? If the do speak Aramaic, in all liklihood they are Christian, and not the Muslim majority claiming to be Palestinian. Christian like Edward Said's family who came from Lebanon where there are also communities of Aramaic speakers. Furthermore, the Arab columnist for Jerusalem Post Khalid Abu Toameh once wrote an article about how security forces from Gaza had to be sent back from the West Bank because West Bank Arabs couldn't understand the Egyptian dialect spoken by Gazan Arabs. It's only been 40 years and you can't understand each other after thousand of years of unity. "In fact, some people go as far as the Canaanites/Phonecians themselves" - Those "some people" are called Arabs.

Many of them were Christians like the Ghassanids... Many Christian families from the West Bank, and Muslim converts descend from them. Nabateans: Many of the Palestinian Bedouins and those in the southern part of the West Bank descend from them... In fact a well known figure in history was Herod the Great whose influence on Palestine and its architecture is huge.... He was practicing Judaism the only form of the Abrahamic religions at the time. Philip the Arab: The emperor of Rome was also an Arab from the northern Palestine regions... The patriarch Sophronius: with whom Umar bin al-Khattab signed the treaty of the capture of Jerusalem in 637 A.D. He was a Christian Arab. So clearly, Arabs and Arabians existed in Palestine and the whole Levant region well before Islam... Similar Arabic tribes also existed in Iraq.... In fact read this: The earliest known events in Arabian history are migrations from the peninsula into neighbouring areas [2]. Around 3500 BC, Semitic-speaking peoples of Arabian origin migrated into the valley of the Tigris and Euphrates rivers in Mesopotamia, supplanted the Sumerians, and became the Assyro-Babylonians (see Babylonia and Assyria). Some archeologists argue that another group of Semites left Arabia around 2500 BC during the Early Bronze Age and settled along the Levant, mixing in with the local populations there. Some of these migrants became the Amorites and Canaanites of later times. Some archeologists argue that the migration instead came from the northern Levant. Other archeologists argue that there was no migration, and that the outside influences found in the indigenous Levantine population resulted from trade. Bernard Lewis mentions in his book The Arabs in History: "According to this, Arabia was originally a land of great fertility and the first home of the Semitic peoples. Through the millennia it has been undergoing a process of steady desiccation, a drying up of wealth and waterways and a spread of the desert at the expense of the cultivable land. The declining productivity of the peninsula, together with the increase in the number of the inhabitants, led to a series of crises of overpopulation and consequently to a recurring cycle of invasions of the neighbouring countries by the Semitic peoples of the peninsula. It was these crises that carried the Assyrians, Aramaeans, Canaanites (including the Phoenicians), and finally the Arabs themselves into the Fertile Crescent."[3]

This argument on why arabic should be an official language of state can be used to undermine the jewish culture of Israel in every way. Couldnt you use this argument to say that all the symbols of state and the anthem dont represent the arab population, they dont identify themselves with the menorah, the magen david especialy not an anthem that is about a return to zion considering they dont want there to be a jewish state at all. Why not apply the same argument to the whole idea of a jewish state. The arabs who live here are not jewish, they dont identify themselves with the idea of a jewish state so in the name of multiculturaslism and political corrctness lets do away with this outdated idea of Israel being a jewish state makie it binational. Especialy when the palestians start going back to the single state idea officialy as Ahemed Quari has threatened they will end then the liberal hard left in Israel start supportitng this new great idea for peace. Lets get rid of the law of return that only gives the right to jews to move to Israel its not a very multicultural attitude is it we will allow jews to come here but we not only dont allow arabs to move here but we are against the palestian so called right of return. This is an argument you can use to promote arab culture at the expense of jewish culture at every level. Its just like trying to find legal loopholes for precidents to push through your case and this is a kind of legal loophole where we have set a precient of sacrificing Israels jewish chrecter ( making hebrew the only official language ) to be acomodating of others and trying to make them feel more welcome.

There is no need to strengthen the Hebrew language - it is the spoken language of the country. And it is precisely to weaken Arab influence in Israel that this is a good idea - and yes, again, for nationalistic reasons, which I don't see as a negative. And no, the Arabs will not reconcile themselves to a Jewish state - don't fool yourself into believing it for a minute. Please do not tell me that I rant about "hating everything Arab" - I most certainly don't. You are imagining something totally within your own head, a stereotype, if you will. If you saw my house, looked at my way of eating, listened to the music I often play, you might be very surprised - I'm quite "oriental" in life-style. In any case, I absolutely did not say no one should learn Arabic. It's a language like any other & if someone is interested, why not? Your last line was the best, however. In terms I would understand - know your enemy. Very funny. As a recent immigrant from an Arab country, I think I know & understand them them quite well. It is you who do not understand them. That's why I think the way I do - having lived most of my life among them.

my grandmother and great great grandmother were from HEBRON .......1/3 were jews 1/3 were Christians ..1/3 muslims ..don't bullshit us .....You read "From Time Immemorial "by joan peters

Halabi is right, Israel must do like Canada and grant the status of official language to French since many refugees from Arab countries, like Morocans, speak French. Arabic must not become an official language as long as Arabs will pursue an hostile agenda. The difference between Quebecois and Israeli Arabs is that Quebecois are not terrorists and does not support jihad.

which is a dialect of Hebrew was the language spoken in the Garden of Eden. There is evidence of Hebrew in all languages so it had to be the language people spoke before God divided the nations by languages at the tower of Babel. Well said.

Arabic is the language of terror and hate today although it was the language of civilization hundreds of years ago. Israeli Arabs should learn Hebrew. Is Hebrew not taught in state schools in Arab towns? If not then that problem should be solved. A recent article pointed out that only 100,000 books have been translated into Arabic in the last 1000 years and most of them were religious texts. Arab students will always be at a huge disadvantage if they rely on Arabic for their advanced studies. There are plenty of web sites in Arabic with bomb and rocket making instructions however.

and not you. He stated that the light unto all nations (israel) will be judged on its treatment of the Arabs. tri-lingual israel will be dynamic (its part of its success so far!) keep it that way My family built Israel with their bare hands and acted as its greatest diplomats by using their brains in all the communication, expression and friendships that they had. ...please do the same.

To me, it is incredible how such an article can be published. This article really is a shame for the jewish people.

Even though I have no doubt that the proposal is purely political, will not advance any positive issue nor make Israel /Israelis more secure. As an Israeli-Arab it will not make any difference to me. Beside street signs, the Arabic language is completely marginalized and hardly ever used in any official capacity, making it unofficial will not change much. Moreover, we Israeli-Arabs start learning Hebrew starting at 3rd grade, by the time we get to high school, most of our science text books are in Hebrew, we speak it like natives, even better than most of the Jewish immigrants. Therefore, I disagree with Halabi’s statement that having academic studies in Hebrew only “……prevents tens of thousands of young Arabs from acquiring higher education.” On the contrary, I encourage that, as Hebrew is the language that brings ALL Israelis together regardless on their mother tongue or country of origin.

Please don't confuse the education system in the west bank and gaza with the one used in the Israeli-Arab schools in Israel. We Israeli-Arabs, not only learn about Jewish history, the holocaust, zionisim and the history of the state of Israel. We also learn hebrew starting at 3rd grade and many of our text books are actually in hebrew. We only learn about jews in a positive light and our schools don't preach hatread like it is in the Palestinain or Israeli-Jewish system...