Sep 22, 2015

GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip — The number of Palestinians learning Hebrew in the Gaza Strip is on the rise, and for a variety of reasons.

“There is a growing need to learn the Hebrew language that stems from the importance of knowing how Israelis think about us and what they say about us on their radio stations, television channels and in the newspapers,” said Ahmad al-Salihi, who is learning Hebrew at the Nafha Center for Prisoners Studies and Israeli Affairs, a local education facility. “During the last Israeli war, Israeli TV channels covered everything that was going on in Gaza for the Israeli public to see. Sometimes, I would see the Israeli reporter being very serious, then I would see him laugh and sometimes he would seem annoyed. I wanted to know the truth behind these mix of feelings toward us,” he told Al-Monitor.

Gazans do not consider Hebrew to be a strange language. Before the second intifada erupted in 2000, more than 40,000 workers from Gaza spoke Hebrew fluently from working for several years in different fields in Israel. Some Palestinian prisoners released from Israeli prisons can also speak fluent Hebrew, and some of them have established centers for studies and translation. Abdul Rahman Shehab, a former prisoner, opened the Atlas Center for Studies in mid-2012 to translate Israeli media reports into Arabic for the people of Gaza to read.

The Hamas-affiliated Islamic University offers Hebrew classes to its students. Hisham al-Zahri, a Hebrew professor at the school, told Al-Monitor, “Since the early 1980s, the Islamic University had been teaching its students in all [disciplines] how to read, write and converse in the ancient Hebrew language. However, a few years ago, the university found it best to only teach Hebrew to students in the faculty of arts and added a course called Studies in Modern Hebrew Literature, which is a new line of study that reinforces mastering the Hebrew language and understanding the Israeli mentality.”

Zahri explained that the university teaches Hebrew because the Prophet Muhammad urged his companions to learn Hebrew to be knowledgeable about the Jews. “This is why it is very important for Palestinians to master this language,” Zahri said.