Jabotinsky wanted modern Hebrew to sound European and Mediterranean, not Arabic

Evidence

As part of his criticism of the orientalist tendencies of some Zionists, Jabotinsky objected to the notion that modern Hebrew should sound like another Semitic language, Arabic. He felt that ancient Hebrew had very little in common with a language that originated in the Arabian peninsula. In an essay titled “The Hebrew Accent,” he claimed that in the attempt to rediscover the original and pure Hebrew sound, an aesthetic principle must be employed. According to Jabotinsky, the European sound, particularly that of Italian and other languages that developed along the shores of the Mediterranean, is the pure sound that modern Hebrew must emulate. Jabotinsky claimed that the Semitic sounds of Arabic were but a series of noises without distinction or character. Moreover, he argued that the ancient Hebrews, according to the Bible, had very little contact with the Arabs, and that Jerusalem, with its cool breezes and snowy winters, had little in common with the hot and tropical Arabian world. Modern Hebrew, then, must rid itself of Arabic sounds and adopt the noble sounds of the Mediterranean languages that not only are more aesthetically pleasing but are historically closer to the ancient Hebrew tongue. — Ivan Davidson Kalmar, Derek Penslar, Orientalism and the Jews, 558

Categorization

• SEED: Article angle: how language-accent debates encode civilizational hierarchies — Jabotinsky’s claim that Arabic is ‘noises without distinction’ is a striking case of an oppressed group adopting the oppressor’s aesthetics against a sibling culture.
• XREF: Connects to the chapter’s broader theme of orientalism within Zionism, and echoes Said’s argument that orientalism is a form of self-definition for Europeans.