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Anat Berko, a lawmaker from the governing Likud Party, in the Israeli Parliament in Jerusalem on Wednesday.
CreditOlivier Fitoussi
JERUSALEM — One of the many things that divides Israelis and Palestinians is the letter P.
The consonant that prefaces prejudice and partisanship became an object of mirth on Thursday after Anat Berko, a conservative lawmaker from the governing Likud Party, said in Parliament that there could be no such place as Palestine because there is no P in Arabic.
The name “Palestine” is a borrowed term , Ms. Berko said, presumably referring to the ancient Greek “Palaistine” and the Syria-Palaestina of the Roman era.
“I want to return to history. What exactly is our place here regarding Jerusalem, regarding Palestine,” she said during a parliamentary debate late Wednesday called by the center-left Zionist Union on the two-state solution. “As we have said, there isn’t even a P in Arabic so this borrowed term is also worth scrutinizing,” she added.
As opposition lawmakers heckled Ms. Berko, she retorted, “There is no ‘Pa,’ ” sputtering, “Pa, pa, pa,” for emphasis.
“There’s ‘Fa,’ ” she conceded.
Indeed, there is no hard P sound in Arabic, but there is a softer F, and Palestinians pronounce the name of their would-be state as “Falastin” (fah-leh-STEEN) — as do most Hebrew-speaking Israelis. Contemporary written Arabic does have a letter P, with three dots, that was added to accommodate foreign words like “Pepsi.” But it is rare to meet an Arab who can pronounce the letter P; Pepsi is known as “Bebsi” across the Middle East.
Ms. Berko, who was born in Israel to parents who had fled Iraq, is a social scientist with a Ph.D. in criminology. Her academic research focused on terrorism and counterterrorism, and she has written two books about suicide bombers. Her resume notes that her research included interviews with Palestinian prisoners in Israel’s maximum-security prisons.
The Hebrew newspaper Yediot Aharonot reported that Arab lawmakers in the Knesset, or Parliament, walked out in protest over Ms. Berko’s remarks, muttering “P-P-P” under their breath. Or was it “B-B-B?”
Abir Kopty, a Palestinian activist and blogger, wryly agreed with Ms. Berko’s linguistic analysis on Twitter: “Indeed, we are Balestinians, not Palestinians.”
Xavier Abu Eid, an adviser to the Palestine Liberation Organization’s negotiations department in the West Bank, posted, sarcastically: “That’s the sweetest argument I’ve heard from a member of Netanyahu’s coalition in order to justify Apartheid.”
Haim Har-Zahav, an Israeli journalist and blogger, joked on Israel Radio that there was obviously no pizza in America because English does not have a letter equivalent to the Hebrew “Tzadik,” to denote the “tza” sound. And others here have repeated the adage that because Americans do not pronounce the guttural H in Arabic and Hebrew, their hummus is terrible.
Some noted, existentially, that the Jews themselves were potentially in trouble since there is no J in Hebrew.
“If Palestine and Palestinians don’t exist bc there is no letter P in arabic, then I guess Jews don’t exist bc there’s no letter J in hebrew?” Omar Al Ghazzawi, a Twitter user, said.
Source : nytimes
