Israel's Parliament to consider bill demoting Arabic from official language status

A street sign in Arabic and Hebrew.
(Image credit: Thomas Coex/AFP/Getty Images)

A bill that Israel's Parliament is about to consider would leave the country with just one national language, Hebrew, downgrading Arabic to having a "special status in the state."

The bill is sponsored by a member of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's right-wing Likud party, Avi Dichter, and has been deliberated in committee for four years. Lawmakers have approved the law's wording, which states that the right to self-determination in Israel "is unique to the Jewish people," The Guardian reports. If the bill becomes law and Arabic has special status in Israel, Arabic speakers will "have the right to language-accessible state services."

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Catherine Garcia, The Week US

Catherine Garcia has worked as a senior writer at The Week since 2014. Her writing and reporting have appeared in Entertainment Weekly, The New York Times, Wirecutter, NBC News and "The Book of Jezebel," among others. She's a graduate of the University of Redlands and the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.