Bahrain’s foreign minister paid tribute to ex-Israeli president Shimon Peres on Thursday, in a surprise statement that drew strong Arab criticism on social media.
“Rest in Peace President Shimon Peres, a Man of War and a Man of the still elusive Peace in the Middle East,” Sheikh Khaled bin Ahmed al-Khalifa said on Twitter.
The response to his tweet was swift.
Like most Arab countries, Bahrain does not have diplomatic relations with Israel, and many Arabs associate Peres with the successive wars that have rocked the Middle East rather than the Oslo accords with the Palestinians that earned him the Nobel Peace Prize.
“The foreign minister is paying tribute and praying for the Zionist terrorist and the killer of children,” complained former opposition lawmaker Jalal Fairooz.
Another critic, Khalil Buhazaa, tweeted: “Diplomacy does not mean rudeness.”
Peres died on Wednesday aged 93 after suffering a major stroke.
Although he is known to the west for wining Nobel Peace Prize in 1994, Peres is well remembered as the man who ordered the devastating “Grapes of Wrath” operation against Lebanon in 1996, which left 175 people dead.
He was also seen as a driving force in the development of Israel’s undeclared nuclear program.
