On Saturday, an Arabic language post from Knesset Speaker Amir Ohana prompted angry responses around the Middle East. "This is a message to the entire Middle East,' Ohana said in his post, accompanied by pictures of the aftermath of Israel's airstrike on Yemen.
"A message from the occupier," former IAEA (International Atomic Energy Agency) Secretary-General Mohamed ElBaradei, an Egyptian national wrote to his 6 million followers. Other popular accounts shared Ohana's tweet, including Mario Nawfal, a Lebanese influencer now living in Dubai with 1.5 million followers, including Elon Musk and Piers Morgan. The tweet was also shared by an account from Saudi Arabia with 721,000 followers.
Joe, an Egyptian satirist living in Qatar and the host of the popular "Joe Show" on Al Arabiya, also shared Ohana's tweet to his 2.1 million followers. The message was read and shared by several accounts in Iran and Turkey as well.
An Egyptian philosopher with 200,000 followers responded to Ohana's tweet: "This Zionist arrogance could not exist in the light of a united Arab force pressing to stop the ongoing genocide in Gaza. Israel isn’t as strong as imagined; see, after 9 months, it’s still unable to release its hostages or open a front in Lebanon for fear of destroying its major cities if it foolishly attacks Beirut. Today they flex their muscles at a civilian port, and they see it as a deterrent, but it’s hatred and a response to a childish mentality.
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Port burning in Yemen, Amir Ohana
(Photo: CHIP SOMODEVILLA / GETTY IMAGES NORTH AMERICA / AFP)
“In general, this Middle East, which once swallowed European colonialism, the Mongols, and the Crusaders, and expelled the Ottoman occupation, will have no difficulty expelling Zionist colonialism, and those of Ohana’s ilk will return to where they came from,” he added.
A Yemeni cartoonist mocked Ohana's post, writing, "The fuel consumed by your jets on the way to Yemen was more than what burned at Al Hudaydah’s port and add to this the value of the missiles... so the message is that you’re losing anyway! And Yemen had hit you hard."