Crossword Genius

Emphasise the Arab cities are different all round (9)

Ross

I believe the answer is:

italicise

I'm a little stuck... Click here to teach me more about this clue!

'emphasise' is the definition.
('emphasize'->'italicize' is in my internal thesaurus and 'ize'->'ise')

'the arab cities are different all round' is the wordplay.
'the arab' becomes 'ali' (I can't justify this - if you can you should believe this answer much more).
'are different' is an anagram indicator.
'all round' indicates putting letters inside.
'cities' anagrammed gives 'itcise'.
'ali' inserted into 'itcise' is 'ITALICISE'.

Can you help me to learn more?

(Other definitions for italicise that I've seen before include "Emphatically" , "Convert to sloping type" , "change appearance of character" , "In email, make a big deal" , "Print in sloping letters" .)

I've seen this clue in the Evening Standard.
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