The expropriation of Arabic from Arab-Palestinians: On Arabic and coloniality in the Israeli academic sphere

Referring to three topics – (1) the place of Arabic in the Israeli public academic sphere, (2) the pedagogy of the teaching of Arabic in Israeli universities and (3) the use of Arabic as an academic language (discussion and research, academic writing, academic sources) – this paper will study the field of Arabic in Israeli universities as a direct outcome of the power relations in the country, crystallized over the years between the indigenous Palestinian population and the mostly European-oriented Jewish-Zionist decision-makers, thinkers and scholars. Following we will relate to settlercolonial elements in the Zionist project in order to explain the process of inferiorization of Arabic in the Israeli academic sphere, and the way its study was created through prioritizing Western methods that by and large exclude the Arab-Palestinian society and that have made members of this society uninfluential even in the study and research of its own language and culture. These ways included the preference of Western philology (‘grammar translation’) on direct methods (such as ‘immersion’ or ‘direct teaching’), the decision to teach Arabic in Hebrew, the pattern of discussing Arabic literature in Hebrew, the preference Hebrew-led linguistic landscape, and more.