"Its about the Jewish tradition, it's about Jewish history. - But we need to keep the nature, the character of the state of Israel as a Jewish state because this is - excuse me for using French - the raison d'etre of the state of Israel"
-----FM Tzipi Livni
"Excuse me for using French"? This is what she says to a conference of Jews from around the world? As if they would have no idea what the words "raison d'etre" mean because they are French?
Pardon my French, or Excuse my French, is usually a phrase reserved for excusing yourself for using a curse word or other profanity. Not for actually saying something in French.
Legs and Lungs
2 days ago
4 comments:
Shimon Peres kicks hecklers to the curb during appearance at Oxford University
"It's not too bad to open the ears and open the eyes, and keep the mouth for later occasions"
pretty classic :)
were you - or anyone - at the tov party last night? what happened?
since i don't know the context, i'll base it on solely on the facts as you put it. she was talking to jews around the world, so it was probably in english. but as she's talking about the "jewish nature" of the state, to depart from hebrew is already ironic. but to turn to french, now that's downright anti-semetic!
I'm going with the last commenter and I think she was being a bit ironic and even twisting the English phrase a bit, which is impressive for an Israeli government official because most of them can barely speak English.
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