The Arabic language in the midst of the Zionist-Arab conflict

The Arab Center for Research and Policy Studies published the book The Arabic Language in the Zionist-Arab Conflict by Dr. Yasser Suleiman-Maali, in which he continues a new phase of his research project that revolves around the relationship of language with identity and conflict, as in his book The Arabic Language in Battlefields: A Study in Ideology, Anxiety, and Terrorism published by the Arab Center in 2023. The book is 399 large pages, including an introduction and four chapters. A conclusion, in addition to references, a general index, and a list of pictures.The book examines a topic rarely addressed in the literature on the Zionist-Arab conflict, which did not give the linguistic issue the place it deserved, even though the Zionist movement at the beginning of its era in Palestine relied on an ideological triad whose elements consisted of the idea of “return to the land” with the aim of possessing it, and the practice of the principle of exclusive “Jewish labor” in this land in order to transform it into an economic lever, consecrating the principle of rupture with the European past. And with the Palestinian environment, and to the “Language Revival” project“Hebrew,” and this is the entrance to the study in the hands of the reader, to be the language of communication between the Jews who settled in Palestine with the aim of uprooting the indigenous people of the country, in an attempt to “negate the exile” linguistically in its relationship with the “hateful” past. The linguistic dimension in this trinity did not rise to the surface among the Palestinians and other Arabs at the beginning of the Zionist movement’s arrival in Palestine, as their interest was focused - and this is understandable - on resisting attempts to seize the land. And its Zionists, on the other hand, were the linguistic issueAlways present in achieving various goals that serve the Zionist interest by benefiting from the experiences of the country's indigenous people in dealing with their geographical environment with all its components, in addition to collecting information for intelligence purposes in managing latent and non-latent conflict relationships between the new arrivals and the people of the country. This issue has been dealt with from the Zionist point of view from an arrogant, Orientalist standpoint, which views the Arabic language as a language of cultural backwardness in a region of the world where violence is widespread and widespread.Hostility against everything that is civilized and enlightened. This is the whole point of approaching the Zionist movement through a settler colonial lens in this book.