ABSTRACT
This chapter presents new evidence of the intrusion of broader socio-political power dynamics into the immediacy of language choices in ‘mixed’ groups. It describes the principle of Arabic avoidance in ‘mixed’ Jewish Israeli and Arab settings are inferred from the evidence of linguistic choices. In a context where social segregation is the norm, meetings of Palestinians and other Arabs together with Jewish Israelis pose a problem for establishing a language of communication. Some of the Jewish Israeli ‘guests’ at the Palestinian political events were introduced as ‘knowing Arabic’, and this allowed the event to proceed as basically Arabic-speaking, without interpreting provided to the ‘guests’. The Arabic character of the event, with dabka dancing, patriotic songs, and Palestinian poetry and Issawi Freij’s inclusion of all those present in the category ‘hosts’, had the effect of presenting Meretz as a ‘safe space’, in Israeli politics, to be an Arab.
