**1. Introduction**

Multicultural environments in academic institutions face major challenges in teaching, learning, and social integration. Although the number of Arab students attending institutions of higher education in Israel has increased, the Arabic language has little presence in the Israeli academic world.

The language of every society reflects, and molds, that society and is part of its sociopolitical reality. In recent years, the place of the Arabic language in Israel has become a subject that is being increasingly debated. While, on the one hand, attempts are being made by certain groups and individuals in Israel to undermine its official status in the country, attempts are also being made by other groups and individuals to draw attention to Arabic's importance as an integral part of the national fabric. For example, over twenty years ago, the Israeli Supreme Court, in its capacity as the country's High Court of Justice, stated in one of its rulings: "The uniqueness of the Arabic language in Israel is twofold. First of all, Arabic is the language of a large minority group that has lived in this country for generations. It is the language of the country's Arab citizens who, despite the Arab-Israeli conflict, want to live in Israel as citizens with equal rights whose language and culture are respected. Second, Arabic is one of Israel's two official languages. Although a wide variety of languages are spoken in Israel, Arabic alone, along with Hebrew, is an official language in this country" (High Court of Justice file no. 1999/4112).

### **2. The Palestinian Arab population in the State of Israel**

On December 31, 2021, the total population of Israel was 9.449 million, of which 6.982 million were Jews (73.9 percent of the total), 1.995 million were Arabs (21.1 percent of the total), and 472,000 (5.0 percent of the total) were classified under the category of "Others."

There are today 58,000 college and university students in Israel who are members of the country's Arab community and who attend Israel's universities and academic colleges. They constitute 17 percent of Israel's total student population, although Israel's Arab citizens constitute 21 percent of the total population. The number of Arab college students represents a 122 percent increase from 2010.

The cultural and linguistic background of the students attending institutions of higher learning in Israel is diverse. Egalitarian pedagogy cannot exist unless the educational institution ensures the presence of the languages and cultures of its students in their particular academic settings. The ensuring of such a linguistic and cultural presence must be expressed in each educational institution's academic vision and must be implemented in an orderly manner by the teaching staff and the administration. In their respective classrooms, the members of the academic staff must teach in their students' particular language and must encourage their students to become familiar with their language and culture. The educational institution's administration should encourage both instructors and students to participate in workshops designed to familiarize them with the students' language and culture.

The encounters between Arabs and Jews in the academic world take place by means of language. In the context of these encounters, a dialog is engaged in, and in this dialog, individual students can express themselves through the words that they themselves choose. The question that must be asked here is whether the space for self-expression assigned in academia to Jewish students is similar to the space for self-expression assigned to Arab students. Some Arab students are on the seam between full expression of their identity and a relinquishing of such full self-expression through the employment of a language that is not their native tongue, namely, Hebrew [1]. This relinquishing is acceded to for the sake of interaction, dialog, and collaboration [2]. If we accept the assumption that language represents identity, we can understand the immense importance that must be attached to the legitimization of Arabic in addition to Hebrew in the academic sphere.

### **3. Israel's higher education system: An overview**

Institutions of higher learning are very important social agencies for many reasons. They are a central site for the creation of knowledge and for the molding of dialog. In addition to serving as a moral and ethical symbol, they are an important station along the route of the student's development: For many young people, an institution of higher learning helps introduce them to the working world, is a mechanism of socialization, is an important meeting place for diverse social groups, and is a hothouse for the cultivation of social, economic, and political leaders. Thus, it can be said that Israel's system of higher education is crucially important: It helps shape society and teaches students how to cope with the social gaps and political discrimination that exist in Israel.

Institutions of higher education in Israel have a special moral responsibility toward the country's Palestinian Arab citizens, because they played a pivotal role in the

#### *Perspective Chapter: Visible or Invisible? Arab Students in the Israeli Academic World DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.110077*

formation of the ideology that has had such a major impact on these citizens, including, of course, Palestinian Arab students.

It should be noted here that social segregation exists in the common spaces on campus and that there is invisible interracial competition in Israel's institutions of higher learning [3].

Social activities on campus represent, and are directed toward, students who are members of the majority group, and students who are members of minority groups sense that they are not part of, and do not derive any substantial benefit from, those social activities. As a result, minority group students are sometimes angry and frustrated and have a sense of powerlessness; these sentiments lead them to feel alienated, to feel that they are strangers on their own campus [4].

Often, the minority group's culture is ignored in the social expanse on campus. "White culture" is regarded as everyone's culture and therefore negates any need for the presence of any additional cultures. The curricula in "white-culture-dominated" settings place special emphasis on male, heterosexual, and white perspectives, ignoring the contribution of other cultural groups. From the visual standpoint, the multiculturalism that exists on campus emphasizes the dominant position of "white culture." Thus, for example, in America, some academic institutions give priority to their white students and exclude blacks [5]. The buildings on campus "inform" all those who enter them whether they belong or are even welcome and whether their cultural knowledge and cultural background are relevant [6]. There is a connection between ethnicity and budget levels, which express themselves in the quality of a campus building's structure. In California, white middle-class students study in new buildings, while the buildings where white working-class and black students attend classes are older. The sense of belonging to their campus that is felt by students who are members of minority groups is undermined when cultural "signs" on campus represent only the dominant culture [7]. The feeling of superiority expressed toward Hispanic culture on American college campuses creates complex dilemmas [8].

Many research studies represent Israel as a country in which ethnic origin carries much weight, as can be seen in all spheres of life in Israel. Israeli democracy is republican in nature, and there are two categories of citizenship in Israel: republican citizenship for Jews and liberal citizenship for Palestinian Arabs. However, only Israeli Jews can realize their citizenship by participating in the joint social good [9]. Academic space is not a nationalized ceiling in that sense, and the paradigms and vitality of the members of the dominant national group are heavily invested in the organizational space of academia and define that organizational space [10].

Israel's institutions of higher education are not disconnected from the broad social context in which they are anchored. The conflict between Jews and Palestinian Arabs beyond the perimeters of college campuses is replicated on Israeli college campuses and impacts the relations between Jewish and Palestinian Arab students as well as the relations between Palestinian Arab students and the administrative and academic staff members of these colleges and universities, most of whom are Jews [11].

The place of Arabic in Israel in general and in Israeli academia in particular is an important subject for research study and for discussion in academic and judicial contexts. Linguistic rights are collective rights in addition to being cultural rights; furthermore, they can be compared with the right to religious freedom. In contrast with the narrow judicial approach that grants Arabic only instrumental status, the State of Israel must provide broad support to the languages of its minority groups and must make those languages present in the country's public spaces and in the lives of the members of Israel's majority group. Neglect of the language of the country's

minority groups and prioritization of the language of the majority group could cause serious damage to the cultural identity of the minority groups [12]. Arabic plays an important role in the lives of Palestinian Arab college students; it has a symbolic dimension for all Palestinian Arabs [13].

Palestinian Arab students have no Arab institution of higher learning budgeted for any Arab community in Israel. Apparently fearing political repercussions, Israel has decided against the opening of an Arab University in Israel. Recently, Tel Hai Academic College has been recognized as a university; in establishing Tel Hai University, Israel has dramatically increased the number of Jewish universities in the country; as a result of this move, the language, the culture, and the identity of Palestinian Arab students cannot develop, cannot be enriched, and cannot occupy a dignified place in Israeli society.
