Bill Poser posted an interesting note on a modified Arabic alphabet that is easier to render than traditional Arabic script. For the idealistic among us, another very interesting alphabet variant has been proposed by Nizar Habash: his Semitish alphabet is a cross between the Arabic and Hebrew alphabets, designed to be (with a little practice) intelligible to readers of both.
See also his Palisra page for artistic imaginings of a land not torn apart by nationalism, as well as his work on platform-independent support for Arabic.
