Continuing with changes to the United Arab Emirates' government, Sheikh Mohammad Bin Rashid Al Maktoum, vice-president and prime minister of the UAE and ruler of Dubai, has appointed Sarah Amiri as chairperson of a newly created UAE Council of Scientists.

The 29-year-old already served as Emirates Mars Mission Science Team Leader at the Mohammad Bin Rashid Space Centre . She previously served as director for the Department of Research and Development at Emirates Institution for Advanced Science and Technology.

"When it comes to science and technology, the leadership understands that we need to move towards a knowledge-based economy and one of the foundations of this economy is science and technology which we need to build upon and the government sector is one of the cornerstones of that economy," Amiri told Gulf News in regards to her appointment. "This is a new era for the UAE. We’re always at the cutting edge of change in the region and that’s what we hope to see moving forward."

Amiri will lead a group of selected scientists and researchers in implementing development programs that will nurture a new generation of scientists, specialists and researchers.

"I take this as a strong indication that the UAE has a dynamic, sustainable government and a leadership that has a great vision on how to take the country forward and understand the challenges of moving in a fast-paced world and not being worried about change, but actually embracing the change." Amiri said.

The UAE has made several significant modifications to the federal government in the past few days, creating new cabinet positions including ministers for happiness, tolerance and climate change as well as for a representative of the youth. The new 29-member cabinet includes eight women .

Hint, it's not because the word is "borrowed" into Arabic, as one Israeli MP recently said in a Knesset debate, in an attempt to deny the very "Palestinian-ness" of Palestinians.

On Wednesday, a Knesset debate took place between Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and opposition leader Isaac Herzog where they negotiated whether the two-state solution between Palestine and Israel was feasible at the current moment as the Labor party discussed their plan for separation from the Palestinians. Although their views differ, both support the two-state solution, however do not see it as a viable plan right now.

Putting aside their debate, an Israeli lawmaker, Anat Berko, made the session more interesting when she claimed Palestine doesn't exist because the consonant "P" does not exist in Arabic.

"As I said, the letter P doesn't exist in Arabic, so the borrowed term 'Palestine' is worth debating about," Berko said in the Knesset address.

Taking a closer look at the letter P, the seventeenth letter of the Semitic abjads, it in fact includes all the following: the Phoenician Pē , the Hebrew Pē פ, the Aramaic Pē , the Syriac Pē ܦ and the Arabic Fāʼ ف. The original sound value is "puh" as it is pronounced in most Semitic languages other than Arabic, where it is now pronounced "fa".

The Phoenician alphabet became one of the most widely used writing systems which evolved tremendously over time and was the basis for many modern scripts. The Paleo-Hebrew alphabet was directly derived from Phoenician as was the Aramaic alphabet, which is where Arabic script was derived from. The modern Hebrew script is also a variant of the Aramaic script, meaning all three come from the same origin.

Over time, the pronunciation of the letter has evolved in the same way the Arabic language has evolved into different dialects based on country. For example, the letter "j" in Lebanese dialect is pronounced as "ja" as opposed to Egyptian dialect where it is pronounced as "ga." The same applies for the the Arabic pronunciation of the letter "P." It's just a matter of evolution.

The whole p-controversy is a red herring anyways. Palestine is derived from the Latin Palaestina, from the Greek Palaistine (which means Philistia and the surrounding area), which is thought to be from the Hebrew P-leshet (Philistia or land of the Philistines). So why are Arabs using a word derived from Latin (which was in turn derived from Semitic languages)? Palestine has been, much like it currently is, under occupation by foreign powers for almost the entire previous two millienia. The Romans' choice of Palestine was also used by the Christian Byzantines, when they occupied the area, and then became Jund Falasteen under the Rashidun Ummayad and Abbasid caliphates, before the Mamluks annexed it to the Damascus district. While the Ottomans left Palestine under the jurisdiction of Damascus, the use of the word Palestine for the area remained common until modern times.

Considering that, it's hardly surprising that Palestinians reverted to the last official name for their land before it had been joined to Syria – regardless of who coined that word in the first place.

Watch Israeli lawmaker as she makes a bizarre claim below and make sure to focus on minute 0:12 ...

Puh puh puh.