Arabic language

An Israeli soldier photographs a Palestinian man using an AI facial recognition tool during a raid in Wadi Qutyna, Al-Mughayer, occupied West Bank, January 17, 2025. (Avishay Mohar/Activestills)

Israel developing ChatGPT-like tool that weaponizes surveillance of Palestinians

The Israeli army is building an AI language model using millions of intercepted conversations between Palestinians, which could accelerate the process of incrimination and arrest, a joint investigation reveals.

By Yuval Abraham March 6, 2025

Ribhi Kamal. (HaOlam HaZeh)

The Palestinian intellectual who loved Hebrew and fought Zionism

Ribhi Kamal was one of a handful of Palestinian elites who mastered Hebrew before 1948. After his exile to Syria, he deployed it as a weapon against Israel.

By Caroline Kahlenberg April 21, 2023

Palestinians and left-wing activists protest during the Friday weekly demonstration in the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood, Jerusalem, February 18, 2022. (Oren Ziv/Activestills

Meta’s clampdown on Palestine speech is far from ‘unintentional’

A report on the social media giant validated Palestinian experiences of censorship in May 2021, but missed how those policies are biased by design.

By Marwa Fatafta October 9, 2022

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A sticker has been removed but the Arabic remains hidden on a street sign along the central King George Street in Jerusalem. (Ben Reiff)

The Israeli right is erasing Arabic from Jerusalem, one street sign at a time

A campaign by right-wing activists to strike off Arabic from Jerusalem street signs goes hand in hand with government attempts to uproot the city's Palestinian identity.

By Ben Reiff September 24, 2020

A man checks the temperature of a customer to identify if he has a fever, in the northern Arab town of Deir al-Asad, April 18, 2020. (Basel Awidat/Flash90)

‘A glimpse into the chaos’: How Israel’s COVID-19 policy neglects Palestinian citizens

Israel's failure to conduct Arabic outreach and include Arab professionals has made it harder to stem the virus' spread in Palestinian towns, experts warn.

By Makbula Nassar September 21, 2020

Tens of thousands of protesters joined the Druze community in rejecting the Jewish Nation-State Law at Rabin Square in Tel Aviv on August 5, 2018. (Oren Ziv/Activestills.org)

Tens of thousands of Druze protest for equality in Tel Aviv

Demonstrators filled Rabin Square in Tel Aviv on Saturday to protest the Jewish Nation-State Law and demand full equality. Will that be enough to pressure Netanyahu to backtrack? By Meron Rapoport Could it be that the “Israeli state” was born in Tel Aviv’s central square Saturday night? Perhaps it’s a bit early to say, but if…

By +972 Magazine August 5, 2018

Palestinian women cross the Qalandiya checkpoint outside Ramallah, West Bank, into Jerusalem to attend the first Friday of Ramadan prayers in the Al-Aqsa Mosque, July 12, 2013. (photo: Activestills.org)

I don’t need a law to remind me of my inequality

I do not need the Jewish Nation-State Law to remind me that I am not equal to my Jewish friends. And yet, I was born here, I grew up here, this is my homeland. I have no intention of going anywhere. By Yasmeen Abu Fraiha Write it down, I am an Arab woman Born to this land…

By +972 Magazine July 24, 2018

Israeli Border Police officers guard the entrance to Damascus Gate in Jerusalem's Old City, September 21, 2016. (Yonatan Sindel/Flash90)

Arabic was an official language in Israel for 70 years, 2 months, and 5 days

You can look at the new Jewish Nation-State Law from two angles: the message it sends to Jews, and the message it sends to Palestinians — you don’t belong here. Arabic was an official language of the State of Israel for 70 years, two months, and five days. As of July 19, 2018, it is…

By Michael Schaeffer Omer-Man July 19, 2018

An old Arabic newspaper from Palestine in a lab for repairing and digitizing old books and scripts at the National Library in Jerusalem, December 30, 2015. (Hadas Parush/Flash90)

Israel’s nation-state bill threatens the mother tongue of Mizrahi Jews

The Israeli government’s attempts, via the nation-state bill, to erase the Arabic language from this country not only threatens Palestinians, it also undermines Mizrahi identity. But their attempt is doomed to fail. By Netta Amar-Shiff When my grandmother, Sa’ida, came to Israel, she worked at Kfar Hadasim Youth Village as a house mother, and needed to…

By +972 Magazine May 19, 2017

Mubarak Awad. (photo courtesy of Meir Amor)

The Palestinian who won’t give up on the power of nonviolence

At the end of 2000, as the Second Intifada was beginning to spread throughout the West Bank and Gaza, Israeli Professor Meir Amor sat down to speak with Dr. Mubarak Awad, a Palestinian expert on nonviolent resistance. Fifteen years later, the two met once again to talk about nonviolence, growing religious fundamentalism, gender equality, Palestinian…

By Haokets December 19, 2014

Left to right: My grandmother, Becky Mamron (who was called Rubio at the time), with Farid al Atrash and her sister, Leoni. Alexandria, sometime in the mid-late 1930s.

I Don’t Know Arabic, but I do. And yet don’t

Watching an Arabic movie every Friday throughout my childhood. Nearly 30 years would pass before I discover that my grandmother and Farid al-Atrash were friends. I have no idea, it goes under my radar. And yet they are there, the words. By Tamar Kaplansky (Translated from Hebrew by Orna Meir-Stacey) I don’t know Arabic. My…

By Haokets April 7, 2013