While I support the idea of funding projects like this, I'd like to discourage funding this *particular* item because it is crucial it be done right, and done in the core.
And it is very non-trivial to design it in right.
I'm not plumping for the money (though I appreciate Jun's comment) but but think we need to move forward in an organized way. The main problem I have with your proposal is that it suggests it's a simple task which can easily be slid into the toolkit. It's the timeline more than the amount of money that bothers me. Reaching some level of community consensus on a design by August 15th seems reasonable but not implementation.
Page layouts don't necessarily need to change with a right-to-left language. Depends on the layout. Then again layout may need to change for other reasons. I would look at this as being a separate issue from localization.
I have a rough draft of an explanation of the approach taken in Greenpeace Planet that I can try to finish up soon and post for folks to look at. I think our approach can form the basis for doing internationalization, as I mentioned at our mini-conference.
