Language Policy and Inter-group Deliberation in Israel

Abstract

Politics in the state of Israel have operated in the shadow of the Jewish-Palestinian conflict ever since the state was formed in 1948. This complex divide includes overlapping cleavages — ethno-national, religious, cultural and linguistic — between the two populations, and consists of an external divide between the state of Israel and Palestinians in Palestine (the territories in the West Bank and Gaza), on the one hand, and a domestic divide between the Jewish majority and the Palestinian minority within the state, on the other. This chapter concentrates on the latter. It aims to explore a relatively understudied phenomenon, namely, the relationship between language policy and practice, and at the same time, the prospects for effective deliberation among identity groups in divided democracies. Furthermore, by exploring the relative lack of deliberation attempts between Jews and Arabs in Israel, it seeks to establish that language policy and practice are a central element in any deliberative process in linguistically heterogeneous societies, with ramifications that affect interactions at both institution and citizen levels, and therefore that more attention should be paid to the language factor by students of deliberative democracy in divided societies.