I needed to share this.
https://vimeo.com/154984434
This story is currently causing a bit of a storm here in Israel:
MK Dr. Anat Berko (Likud) on Wednesday started an international crisis when she told the Knesset plenum that the Arabs who live in Israel and elsewhere cannot pronounce the name they’ve picked for their future state, “Palestine.”
The Arab alphabet has a variety of beautiful sounds which are created in areas of the human mouth and throat that European languages never visit. But Arabic does not have the “P” sound, and Arabs, for the most part, have a hard time pronouncing words with the letter P in them, opting usually for the letter B instead, which is also created by the human lips.
Which is why, as MK Berko pointed out, it’s pretty embarrassing when your national leaders pick for your new nation and country a name you can’t pronounce — Palestine.
And Dave has been busy starting what will be a tremendous new “Know your history” series looking at old copies of the New York Times. It’s pretty clear from today’s story from 1945: the “Palestinians” in Israel in 1945 were the Jews. The Arabs were just the Arabs of Palestine.
And then my friend shared a song (that’s absolutely crying out for a proper video) which explains exactly where the name “Palestine” came for. So I had to share it!