While Arab universities usually have no specific area studies department that focuses on Israel, scholars have produced argumentative literature based on linguistic, literary, religious, and historical studies. This paper aims at demonstrating that within this field of Israel Studies in the Arab world (nurtured mainly by Hebrew and Judaic sources), the Israeli-Arab conflict has dominated the scholarly production, resulting in a problematic fluctuation between a neutral focus on the study of Israel and the concentration on polemical issues. This problematique can be described as follows: Whenever there is a political improvement of the conflict, researchers get more attracted to exploring Israel’s essence and its unique features. By contrast, when the situation worsens, a tendency prevails which perceives Israel as an expansionist state in the heart of the Arab world that has no keen intentions for permanent peace in the region. In addition, this paper examines the motivation behind studying Israel in Egypt and in the Arab world. Discussing this point will demonstrate that even though Arab scholars of Israel Studies have based their research interest on an array of reasons (ideological, economic, or cultural), the impact of their scholarly output is governed by two factors: the first is the decisions issued by policy makers, and the second is the acceptance of this academic discipline by the broader public. In other words, the desire of scholars of Israel Studies in the Arab world to neutrally study Israel and share their findings with their societies is blocked by factors which they cannot influence. Their willingness to publicly discuss scholarly insights (particularly those which might challenge the mainstream understanding of the essence of Israel and Zionism), is challenged by a variety of generalizations and misconceptions spread among the broader public and top-level political decision makers alike. Since the historiography of Israel Studies in the Arab world is overlooked and scarcely examined, the sources on which this paper shall draw vary from scholarly production of Egyptian and Arab scholars and interviews with professionals in the field. In sum, the Egyptian academic discourse on Israel is highly dominated by the Arab-Israeli conflict; whenever political attempts to solve the conflict seem to succeed, scholars are encouraged to find out how to benefit from Israeli culture. On the contrary, when circumstances on the political level worsen, voices call for breaking off any ties with Israel and exhort the intelligentsia to highlight the insincerity of Israel’s political agenda.