Israeli Lawmaker: Palestine Can't Be A State Because There's No Arabic 'P'

A conservative Israeli lawmaker said there can't be a Palestinian state because there's no "P" sound in the Arabic language. 

"Palestine - There isn't even a 'P' in Arabic, so it's a borrowed term that's worth analyzing," Anat Berko said in the Knesset, Israel's parliament, on Thursday. "There is no 'puh' sound."

Fellow lawmakers booed in response, the Jerusalem Post reported. According to The New York Times, several Arab members even stormed out of the session.

"Don't you have a brain?" one unidentified lawmaker asked, according to Israeli National News.

Berko belongs to the right-leaning Likud party, whose members tend to oppose the creation of a Palestinian state and advocate for Israeli settlements on Palestinian land in the West Bank. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is a member of Likud.

The Times of Israel noted that although this is not a new observation, "it is not generally considered a serious political argument" against a Palestinian state.

Watch her comments in the video above.

-- This feed and its contents are the property of The Huffington Post, and use is subject to our terms. It may be used for personal consumption, but may not be distributed on a website.