The primary focus of Politics of Arabic in Israel is a linguistic and sociological analysis of the Arabic language and the status of the Arab population in Israel. Camelia Suleiman provides an extensive discussion of the linguistic research that has been done in Israel, Palestine, and Jordan, examining the impact of major research on the language and culture of different ethnic groups in Israel.

Chapter 1 provides a historical background by reviewing the founding of Israel as a Jewish homeland in 1948, the migration of Jews, and the dispersion of the Palestinian population. Chapter 2 discusses the evolution of Arabic studies in Israeli universities. It reviews the work of three generations of Arab and Semitic scholars, and how the scholarship has changed over time. Of particular interest is the discussion of the university programs that teach the Arabic language to Jewish students. In Israel, training in Arabic is focused on the need for the government to have Jewish Israeli Arab language speakers to ensure the security of the state. Graduates in Arabic-language training are employed by intelligence, military, and police agencies to monitor communications, social media, and publications to identify threats to the country. Chapter 3 discusses the use of linguistic landscape analysis to determine the importance of Arabic in communities in Israel. Suleiman takes the reader on a walk through the old city of Jerusalem to listen to the languages spoken in different locations and to observe street and commercial signage. The author includes a wide variety of images of signs to illustrate the discussion and concludes that written and spoken Arabic are being marginalized in public areas in Israel.

Chapter 4 discusses the impact of modernization and globalization on Israel and its Arab population, as well as the meaning of the official language of Israel. While the government recognizes Hebrew and Arabic as official languages, support for Hebrew is significantly greater, both politically and academically. Chapter 5 compares the work of three Arabic speaking authors from different generations who chose to write in Hebrew. Among them, only Somekh continues to live and work in Israel. This is largely because Somekh was of the Jewish faith and chose to support the policies of the Jewish state. Christian Shammas and Muslim Kashua, who were critical of the status quo and advocated more equitable policies for Palestinians, decided to move to the United States. Chapter 6 discusses the status of Arabic in Jordan and Palestine. The Jordan Academy of Arabic and the Dictionary of Colloquial Palestinian Arabic are cited as positive examples regarding the documentation and advancement of scholarship in Arabic.

Overall, Suleiman has written an enlightening book on the status quo of Arabic in Israel. The book documents the policies of Israel that limit the ability of its Arab population to attain full and equal rights from a sociolinguistic perspective. These policies have resulted in the diminished use of the Arabic language in written and verbal communication.