Back in the early days of the State when the economy was not doing great and there was a shortage of foods, in what is called the days of Austerity, Prime Minister David Ben Gurion approached Osem and asked them to come up with a cheaper alternative to rice. They took the task to heart and created the petitim, a baked pasta type of food that was made to look like rice. It was given the name officially as petitim but has also always been known in Israel by the name Orez Ben Gurion - Ben Gurion's Rice.

So according to Ahmad Tibi, not only did Ben Gurion steal the Land of Israel from the Palestinians, but also stole the iconic petitim.

Tibi claims this is just a form of maftul, or couscous, which is a Palestinian dish. it clearly is not even though one of the commonly produced shapes of petitim is small round balls sort of like maftul/couscous. I guess just like I have not eaten maftul (though I have eaten couscous), Tibi must not have eaten Petitim if he thinks they are the same. He must have gotten confused by the name on the bag that describes it as couscous because of the shape...

Whatever the source might be, bon apetit