If a minority,Arabs in this case,wish to exclude themselves from the mainstream by speaking a different language,that's their affair and they have nobody but themselves to blame for being at a disadvantage.The majority is under no obligation to accommodate them by burdening themselves learning another language. It's as crazy as MY government requiring all British pupils waste their time learning Welsh and Gaelic just in case they meet somebody who CAN speak English but refuses to on principle.It's not going to happen. THREE CHEERS FOR ISRAEL!!!

My 4 kids each studied literary Arabic for 2 or 3 years and they all hated it and learned nothing. Are there schools which teach spoken Arabic (writing the words in Hebrew)? And if so, do they have better results?

Did you read the article at all? Nowhere does it talk about learning Arabic in order to "accommodate" to the minority, but rather emphasing the need to learn one of the major languages and indeed the language of the majority in the geographical area, not for the good of the Arab minority, but rather for the good of Israel. Acting out of hatred making yourself blind will bring you nowhere.

Economically it is a desert with a couple of oil wells. Politically it is an anachronistic disaster still discovering individual rights. Culturally it is a mostly illiterate region where most publishing is of religious texts. In addition, learning literary Arabic is useless for conversation with actual Arabs, while learning Levantine Arabic is not going to help you get much out of Arab culture. That is on top of the fact that the language is probably the hardest in the world to learn. I would say the average student can probably learn become literate and fluent in both French and Italian in the time it would take them to learn to be just literate in Arabic. Learning Arabic is simply useless except for intelligence purposes.

it is vital to one's survival to understand what your enemy is saying - in his language, not yours.

Then you'd have to invest in education and that's just not going to happen in Israel.

As a resident of Gush Etzion I think it is mandatory to be able to converse with the neighbours, which work here or we meet in the supermarket. It breaks the ice and you can meet nice people. Anyway we all know that we, the Jews, stay and they also stay (but hopefully not their corrupted leadership which most of them also despise). I started to learn spoken Arabic and it is really easy especially for Hebrew speakers. Knowledge of Arabic facilates to understand the Arabic and Islamic mindset, and possibly mistakes like the Oslo agreements would have been avoided. Israel is part of the middle east and understanding the environment can be only postive and prevents to see things one-sided and surfacly.

Israelis are learning Arabic. Hebrew is being taught in the schools in Gaza. Why are they doing this? Because they are looking into the future, when both Israelis and Palestinians will not be the enemies they are now, but trading partners. So learning each other language is preparing the future for the future generation.

Understanding what your enemies are saying about you is very important. As for the peace part - sorry but it takes two sides to make peace and the Arabs are not looking for that. Maybe in another few hundred years, after they murder enough of each other and mature, but not until then.

If want to know what my enemy's saying,I can read the newspaper.I don't have to learn his language and conduct a personal interview. If I'm to learn Arabic to know what my enemy's saying,where doe's it stop?Farsi,Russian,Malay,Korean...? Anyway,It's long overdue that the Jews and Arabs in Israel stopped thinking of the other as an enemy and stared thinking of him as a fellow citizen. THREE CHEERS FOR ISRAEL!!!

Blimey! Why didn't the IDF think of that?!?!?! Wait until the day after the Arabs attack us with chemical weapons and high explosives, and read about it in the papers! Then all the Israelis who weren't killed in the first attack can retaliate! Have you been studying the works of General Monty Python or something?

Israeli children should learn arabic but only because it is the langage of the enemy and if you know the language of the enemy you have an advantage. We should not though be learning it so they can enjoy arabic poems or for peace making. The Jews should not all be learning arabic because the arabs living here don't know hebrew, the arabs are a minority in a hebrew speaking country and so they should learn hebrew. What should be the priority is to improve Israelis knowledge of english. In my experience most Israelis have a poor command of english which is the language of global communication and trade so if we are going to be teaching foreign languages we need to improve peoples knowledge of the language of international business rather than worrying about learning another language for the sake of culture and peacemaking.

From my admittedly limited knowledge it would appear that Palestinian Arab citizens of Israel are more linguistically proficient than the Jewish population. Most do know and use Hebrew and even their Arab dialect is increasing interspersed with Hebrew words and phrases. In addition, many know and speak English. This stands in contrast to the de facto acceptance and widespread use of Russian in Israel in spoken and written forms, thereby lessening the necessity for a significant sector of the Jewish population to learn Hebrew! The real point, however, is that Israel was established in the midst of an Arabic-speaking region. To say the least, how short-sighted not to encourage the learning of that language.

The Israeli public non religious school system has been a failure since its inception as far as teaching it s Jewish students even elementary Jewish civilization elementary Jewish relgious values. Ben Gurion tricked millions of innocent Jewish imigrants to send their children to his secular school system where they naively believed they would receive a traditional Jewish education when in fact his Kibbutz dominated school system wanted to do the opposite and educated them out of religion and faith resulting in the chaos of Israeli society today.

It should not be that hard for both ppls to learn each others language.

Kids in my family learned Arabic and did Bagriot in it--if you are a native Hebrew speaker/reader, it's easier to learn than English, and more useful since 20% of the population is MT-Arabic speakers. We live in the ME--learn Arabic. Then you canlisten to the news in Arabic, converse with the neighbors, read Jewish poetry and philosophy from the Middle Ages which was written in....Arabic. Don't be such a bunch of parochial yahoos....

Wel, I'm certainly glad to see that you acknowledge that your knowledge is "limited." It is that, and more. Can you spell "Mossad?" Do you have so much as an infantile knowledge of what the Mossad can, and does, do with respect to linguistic abilities? Honey bunny, the Mossad has trained people in languages that can even compare to yours. Why do you persist in climbing upon your rather dubious shelf and pretend that you actually know something about the issues in the Middle East? Linguistic and others. Why do you persist in pontificating upon that of which you know nothing? How many languages do you speak, Bertie boy? I'm not all that certain that you can claim fluency in English, so do tell us -- based upon which languages do you claim such "knowledge?" Pretty short-sighted of you, I'd say, given that your command of your alleged native language is so dismally poor. Do enlighten us, dear boy, won't you? Just how many languages do you speak? I can count only one foreign language with respect to you -- that would be English. Which are the rest, Bertie boy?

I agree learning spoken arabic is more important that learning the written language (which itself can be different from modern to classical arabic). With over a million Arab citizens in israel who are fluent in hebrew, it's much better learning it form conversation with native speakers as opposed to classroom

The man on the street,including me,and the IDF and intelligence services are different entities. We DELEGATE intelligence gathering to the people that we pay do do it.It simply isn't necessary for all of us to be multi-lingual spies. THREE CHEERS FOR ISRAEL!!!

Arabic is very similar to Hebrew. If one learns spoken arabic (using Hebrew letters), one can learn quickly. Also: "Learning Arabic is simply useless except for intelligence purposes." That is a very big exception!

We brought English, Spanish, French, Italian, Russian and Ukrainian. What we learned in Israel... Hebrew and Arabic. and unlike Sarah B. we managed to leave pompous and nasty out of what we brought and/or learned.

clearly you are just another educated, polite and urbane English speaker (not) and therefore you aren't aware that my Jewish Grandmother and all of her Jewish Grandchildren speak arabic as a matter of course!

#13 has a point. The only Israelis I know who speak arabic live in Jerusalem, and there aren't that many of them. Many of my [Jewish] friends' parents speak arabic better than Hebrew. And there is nothing wrong with being able to speak the language of those around you.

Absolutely right. Only through understanding can come victory.... ....And only through understanding can come peace.

I have Jewish and non Jewish arab friends. They all try to teach their kids arabic. Some succeed, some don't.

My kids speak Hebrew, English, Spanish, and French, with the older one now learning German. They all refuse to even attempt to learn Arabic. Dont say its easier to learn Arabic because if the heart is not in it then nothing will prevail

I bet GR hasn't any intention of learning Urdu even though it's a minority language in London. Unless he intends to do as he says,he shouldn't expect others to do as he says. THREE CHEERS FOR ISRAEL!!!

Yes Berlitz has a fantastic course which uses the Hebrew alphabet (modified slightly) it focuses on listening and speaking. This course or similar should be taught NOT the useless classical Arabic of course, this is not rocket science Israel is it? Duh...

...to put up the first contribution to fund this effort. Right now Israeli parents are voting with their wallets, about which hugim are important enough to find money for. Anyway the REAL future is that Palestinian-descent Israelis to be studying Arabic for nostalgia. They'll be speaking Hebrew at home. Arabic-speaking homes are on the OTHER side of the RIver.