One thing about abbreviations in Arabic is they will be read as a word, not as distinct letters. In English, "http" can't be read as a word, you always read it

One thing about abbreviations in Arabic is they will be read as a word, not as distinct letters. In English, "http" can't be read as a word, you always read it as "ech-tee-tee-pee". "etc" is not read "etk" but read as "ee-tee-see". Where as in arabic, "الخ" is read as one word "ilkh" instead of as letters "alif-lam-kha". So, to abbreviate words, you have to think hard about how people will read it. For instance, someone mentioned in another reply "Hamas" and "Fatah". Both these abbreviations read nicely as other words with related meanings. But, how would one abbreviate "Filisteen"? If you choose the first three letters "Filis", well, that reads like "penny" and is generally used to refer to cheap things - you don't want to use that. If you use "ft", that would read as "FiTT" فط which just sounds awful in Arabic. (it's not like "fit", the "t" here is heavy/strong). Actually, "filisteen" is already bad enough: it sounds like "filis" + "TTeen" which is "penny" + "dirt" (we used to make fun of this when we were kids). Though in Palestinian (and the Levant region in general) they pronounce it "falasteen", not "filisteen".