…What I found most significant in the new bill seems to be getting the least attention so far, and that is revolutionary correction of a huge mistake made in 1948 which was to posit the equality of Hebrew and Arabic as national languages which was simply unrealistic. Since day one, there has been in the Knesset a glaring inequality between the languages. Business is conducted solely in Hebrew, which de facto renders the Arabic language unequal.

Commands in the army from officers to enlisted men are in Hebrew, not Arabic, and in both situations that is the way it has to be. On the battlefield there is no time for misunderstanding and translating.

It was a huge conceptual error in 1948 driven by the desire to be normal to rank Arabic with Hebrew as an official language. The bill breaks that equality and gives Arab a “special status” which is a euphemism for its inferior status. Arabic is being demoted and that bothers the Enlightened because, again, they are Hellenists who want to be in tune and in step with the latest intellectual and philosophic ideas in the West…