TWO years ago Ayman Odeh, the pragmatic new leader of Israel’s Arab parliamentary bloc, said that within a decade Arabic would be “on Tel Aviv street signs as part and parcel of the urban environment”. It is happening faster than he predicted. Across Jewish as well as Arab towns, Arabic signage is sprouting on highways, bus routes and, most recently, railway stations. Some 40% of the digital panels on public buses now list their routes in Arabic alongside Hebrew, up from near zero two years ago. By 2022, says the government, the service will be fully bilingual. A new department pumps out road-safety warnings in Arabic.
两年前，以色列议会阿拉伯议员团新的务实领导人艾曼·奥德两表示，在未来的十年内，阿拉伯语将出现“在特拉维夫的街道牌上，融为城市环境的一部分”。这个情况的发展远超比他的预料。与阿拉伯人的城镇一样，在犹太人的城镇里，阿语标识迅速显现，在高速公路、汽车道，尤其最近在火车站里，都可见它的“身影”。在公共汽车线路的电子公告牌标牌中，除了希伯莱语，有40%有阿语。以色列政府称，到2022年将实现全面双语化服务。一个新成立的部门会推动阿拉伯语的道路安全警告牌建设。
In tandem, a five-year plan, Resolution 922, aims to narrow the gap between Jews and Arabs in education, housing and policing. Though not the first, it is by far Israel’s most ambitious. It costs 15bn shekels ($4.3bn), and unlike previous plans was devised together with Arab representatives.
随后，以色列议会第922号决议提出一个五年规划，要缩小犹太人和阿拉伯人在教育、住房、警务等方面的差距。尽管这并非首次提出，却是迄今为止以色列最为庞大的计划，将耗资150亿谢克尔（合43亿美元），而且与之前的规划不同，这是由以色列和阿拉伯议员联合设计的。
The government of Binyamin Netanyahu, the prime minister, is often derided as chauvinist. So its espousal of integration surprises many. Mr Netanyahu often plays up the Arab threat, particularly at election time. However, he sees pragmatic reasons for treating Israeli Arabs a bit better.
以色列总理本雅明·内塔尼亚胡经常被嘲笑为沙文主义者。因此，有许多人都对他拥护这种民族融合行为深感震惊。他经常挑起阿拉伯威胁言论，特别是在选举期间。然而，他却发现有理由更好地对待以色列国内的阿拉伯人。
Israel’s 1.8m Arabs are citizens, and Arabic is an official language which most Jews study in school. But for decades after independence the authorities left most Arabs isolated in ill-funded villages and towns without transport to the country’s economic hubs. As of 2015, 53% of Arabs were poor, against 14% of Jews. The gap fed resentment. Israeli Arabs now fly Palestinian flags at their rallies. For years security officials have warned that, without integration, Israel’s Arabs would rally behind Palestinians in the occupied territories. Government economists add that including Arabs more fully in the economy would give it a boost—much as immigrants from the former Soviet Union did in the 1990s, says Amir Levy, who drafted the five-year plan.
以色列有180万阿拉伯裔公民，而且阿拉伯语是官方语言，大多数犹太人在上学时要学。不过在以色列独立后的几十年间，当局把阿拉伯人困在与经济中心交通不便贫穷的村庄或城镇里。2015年，有53%的阿拉伯裔人口属于贫困人口，而只有14%犹太人如此。这一差距滋生了怨恨。以色列籍阿拉伯人在集会上竖起了巴勒斯坦国旗。多年来，安全官员警告称，如果不实行一体化，以色列籍的阿拉伯人将会支持被占领土的巴勒斯坦人。经济学家也表示，在经济上更全面地将阿拉伯人纳入在内，这会促进以色列经济增长——起草这一五年规划的阿米尔·利维表示，这如同20世纪90年代从前苏联移民问题一样。
Since the plan was approved in 2015, a third of the budget has been spent. The transport ministry is connecting Arab towns to Jewish hubs such as Tel Aviv with over 300 new and upgraded routes. One aim is to get more Arab women into work. Last month Mr Netanyahu opened the first of 17 police stations to be staffed by Arab officers in Arab towns. “If we want Israel to be strong, we need our minorities to be strong, with the same rights and budgets as everyone else,” says Gila Gamliel, the minister overseeing the plan.
该计划在2015年获批后，用了三分之一的预算。交通部门将阿拉伯城镇同特拉维夫等犹太人交通中心连接起来，共开发或更新了300多条路线。有一个目标是让更多的阿拉伯妇女工作。上月，内塔尼亚胡将在阿拉伯人城镇里的首批17个警察局向阿拉伯人开放。“如果想要以色列变得强大，需要国内少数族裔群体变得强大，拥有与其他人一样的权利和预算。”监督该计划的部长吉拉·盖姆里奥说道。
The new policy has sometimes been implemented insensitively. Arab cities like Jaffa, Acre and Nazareth are given Hebrew names on Arabic signs. Especially galling is “Awrushaleem”, an Arabised version of “Jerusalem” in place of “Al-Quds”, the usual Arabic name for the city. Signs are also Hebraising what Arabs call “Tel Abib”: Arabic has no letter V, so the large sign at a Tel Aviv station has a workaround—three dots below the letter B—that make the sign look more like Urdu. “It’s humiliating to see Arabic treated with such disrespect,” says Mohammad Darawshe, an activist.
新政策有时执行的很迟钝。 像雅法，阿克里和拿撒勒这样的阿拉伯城市在阿拉伯语的标志牌上使用了希伯来语的名字。 尤其令人讨厌的是“Awrushaleem”，一个阿拉伯语的“耶路撒冷”版本，取代了“圣城”这一常见的阿拉伯城市名。 阿拉伯语中的“Tel Abib”标志也被希伯来语化：阿拉伯文没有字母V，所以特拉维夫电台的大标牌有一个解决方法 - 字母B下面三个点，这使得标志看起来更像乌尔都语。 穆斯林活动家穆罕默德·达拉舍（Mohammad Darawshe）说：“看到阿拉伯语受到如此不受尊重，我感到很羞耻。”
Some Israeli officials resist the spread of Arabic. The mayor of Beersheva, a southern town of 200,000 Jews surrounded by 100,000 Arabs, tried to ban bus announcements in the language. And Israel Railways has refused to follow Jerusalem’s tramline in announcing stops in Arabic over the tannoy. “It would be too noisy,” explained its chief executive. Banks offer online services in Arabic. But the only Arabic that visitors could find in the central bank’s corridors were prohibitions against smoking.
一些以色列官员抵制阿拉伯语的传播。 Beersheva市是一个南部城镇，有由10万名阿拉伯人和20万犹太人。该市市长试图禁止阿语的巴士公告。以色列铁路公司拒绝继耶路撒冷的电车之后宣布阿拉伯语停车。该公司首席执行官解释说：“这太吵了。” 银行提供阿拉伯语在线服务， 但游客在中央银行走廊里唯一能够找到的阿拉伯语是“禁止吸烟”。
Some Israelis fear that a bilingual country might become a binational one. Mr Netanyahu’s cabinet is backing a bill designating Israel the nation-state of the Jews and stripping Arabic of its official status. “The more Arabic we hear, the more the government wants to downgrade its status,” says Yonatan Mendel, an expert on Arabic education. Israelis are justly proud of having revived Hebrew as a spoken language—a feat akin to resurrecting Latin in everyday conversation. But for some, that is not enough; Hebrew should have no rival.
一些以色列人担心双语国家可能会成为一个双民族国家。内塔尼亚胡内阁坚持以色列为犹太人的民族国家，并剥夺其阿拉伯语的官方地位。阿拉伯语教育专家Yonatan Mendel说：“我们听到的阿拉伯语越多，政府越想降低其地位。”以色列人为恢复希伯来语作为口语而感到自豪 —— 这一壮举就像在日常谈话中复活拉丁文一样。 但对于一些人来说，这还远远不够，希伯来语不可战胜。
编译：李航菲
编辑：翻吧君