max.sands

The program in Tel Aviv has its problems. If you really want to gain some fluency in Arabic, I would suggest going to an Arabic country. The CLS program, which has moved to Salalah, Oman is ran by perhaps one of the smartest professors I have ever encountered. He got his grad degrees at Harvard and now teaches in the UAE. I was also thinking about Anti-Terror and State Department, before I had a change of heart, I have spoken to a ton of State Department folks, and I happen to know a few people in the FBI's CTU (Counter Terrorism Unit). If learning Arabic is something you really want to do, and Middle Eastern Culture is something you really want to learn about, I suggest just going for it. Drop yourself in the country of your choice for a while and experience it. If you just want to learn MSA (which I have found to be a little worse than useless) just pick up Rosetta Stone and do an MES course in the US. Also when picking a place for MES you have to decide what you want to focus on, history, culture, politics etc. Hope you the best of luck!