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Netanyahu’s son mocked after claiming Palestine never existed

Hana Hussain
6 years ago
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu (L) and his son Yair at Al-Aqsa's Buraq Wall (also known as the Western Wall) on 18 March 2015 in Jerusalem [AFP]

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu (L) and his son Yair on 18 March 2015 in Jerusalem [AFP]

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s son Yair has been criticised after publishing several tweets denying the existence of Palestine because there is no “P” in the Arabic language.

Yair, who is known to be active on Twitter, initiated the discussion after sharing pictures from a Palestinian village that was ethnically cleansed of its inhabitants by Haganah, Irgun and Lehi – Zionist groups that are widely considered terrorist organisations – during the Nakba (Catastrophe) in 1948.

The provocative tweet drew several replies from users pointed out the bloody history of the village and the fate of the Palestinians who had lived there.

In response, Yair claimed that the idea of Palestine was a myth, presenting as proof the fact that the letter “P” does not exist in Arabic, ignoring the fact that the Arabic name of the region is Falasteen.

He went on to claim that Arabs belong to Arabia due to linguistic similarity, the same way Jews ought to belong to Judea.

Netanyahu’s son was mocked after racist Twitter rant against Palestinians
[Twitter]

Unfortunately for Yair, users were quick to point out that the letter “J” does not exist in Hebrew, and so by his own logic, Jews should have no connection to the region considered Judea.

Israeli-American pro-Palestine activist Miko Peled further questioned whether the lack of “J” in Hebrew meant Jerusalem also did not exist.

READ: Outgoing France ambassador to US: Israel already ‘apartheid state’

Some highlighted that if such comments had been made by non-Jews, it would have been considered anti-Semitism.

Other users sought to educate Yair on Palestine’s history, drawing upon old Ottoman maps that clearly identified the region as Falasteen, later replacing the “F” with the Turkish “P”, even prior to the British Mandate and the division of the Levant by imperial powers.

https://twitter.com/MENAsymbolism/status/1120477723946901504

Yair continued to justify his comments, pointing out the similarity between the national flags of Jordan and Palestine.

Yet his point was further undermined when users pointed out similarities between numerous flags in other parts of the world.

Israeli politicians have frequently attempted to manipulate history in order to justify the establishment of Israel and denounce any claims made by the Palestinian inhabitants.

Yair Netanyahu has attained a reputation for crass and offensive behaviour on social media. Last month, he was slammed by Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan after accusing Turkey of occupying Constantinople. Last year, he sparked a diplomatic between Ankara and Tel Aviv after he posted publishing an image on Instagram reading “Fuck Turkey”, following condemnations of Israel’s attack on protesters at the Gaza Strip.

In December Facebook banned him for 24 hours after he posted a series of anti-Muslim and anti-Palestinian posts which the social network said broke its rules on hate speech.

In 2017 he posted a status deriding American left-wing groups as more dangerous that neo-Nazis, less than a week after the white supremacist terrorist attack in Charlottesville, which left one person dead.

He came under fire again a month later after he posted an anti-Semitic caricature suggesting a conspiracy was behind his family’s growing legal issues. The image was shared by former leader of the Ku Klux Klan David Duke and neo-Nazi news websites.

READ: Fake Twitter accounts being used to garner support for Netanyahu

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