Itongadol.- During the Knesset’s special debate on Tuesday marking ”Arabic Language Day” Knesset Speaker Yuli Edelstein said that the Arabic is an official language should not be ignored in Israeli society.
Throughout the day Knesset committees and subcommittees discussed various issues related to the Arab sector including public transportation in the Arab sector, the teaching of Arabic in schools, providing court services in Arabic, providing online government services in Arabic, and Arabic signage in mixed cities.
”Therefore, despite the fact that the mother tongue of most of our citizens is Hebrew, we cannot and should not ignore the Arabic language or push it away from the public sphere or from the landscape of our lives in general,” Edelstein said.
He noted that the Knesset website is accessible in Arabic.
"Language is a very important bridge between cultures and nations, and I am convinced that mutual familiarity with the neighbor`s language, particularly when it comes to places with mixed populations, can significantly lower the wall of alienation and the mental remoteness,” he added.
One of the changes is to be made by the Transport Ministry which is to provide signs in Arabic.
Joint List MK Dov Henin (Hadash), the chairman of the subcommittee for public transportation said, "In the coming year there will appear a significant change in public transportation in Arab communities in general and accessibility of information to passengers in Arabic in particular."
Gabi Navon, director of planning public transportation at the Transportation Ministry, promised that by the end of August there would be signs in Arabic in all public transport stations in the country and that signs and vocal directions would be translated in buses where 50 percent of the residents are Arabs.
He explained that no electric signs are located at bus stops in Arab towns because of vandalism.
Joint List MK Abdel-Hakim Haj Yahya (UAL) said he encountered many errors in Arabic signs and urged that native Arabic speakers should do the translations.
In the Science and Technology Committee, a report by the Research and Information Center Committee looked at 31 government websites and concluded that around one third have no Arabic content.
In the Committee on the Status of Women and Gender Equality, chairwoman Aida Touma-Sliman (Joint List) called on the Ministry of Culture to increase the budget to support culture in Arabic.