Arabic radio failed to transmit Zionist ideology due to language and poverty barriers.

Evidence

Like a weak carrier wave, the Arabic language was deemed unsuitable for transmitting the gospel of Zionist redemption. Although radio was thought to permeate the air, reaching the illiterate masses, the marginalization and dire poverty of the Oriental immigrants left many of them out of radio’s broadcast range. Finally, radio became a metaphor for not only the ingathering of the exiles but also the threats to Israel’s existence emanating from the Arab world. — Ivan Davidson Kalmar, Derek Penslar, Orientalism and the Jews, 728

Categorization

• XREF: Echoes the theme of technology’s limits in reaching audiences, similar to the quiet-space and signal-vs-noise threads in the reader’s soundscape books.