Yair Lapid
Yair Lapidצילום:Flash90

Israeli Foreign Minister Yair Lapid’s command of the English language became the target of mockery Tuesday night and Wednesday morning, after he tweeted a few words from his recent speech delivered in English.

“Israel wants peace with its neighbors,” Lapid tweeted, quoting part of his address at the opening of Israel’s embassy in Abu Dhabi Tuesday. “With all its neighbors. We aren't going anywhere. The Middle East is our home. We're here to stay. We call on all the countries of the region to recognize that. And to come talk to us.”

The tweet was mocked by dozens of social media users, including former Likud MK Ariel Kallner, who took aim at Lapid’s spokesperson.

“Listen Yair, until you get a spokesperson who knows English, just write in Hebrew and run it through Google Translate. It’ll still turn out better than this embarrassment.”

“And one more question to [Lapid’s] followers: If this had been a Likud minister whose family didn’t come from Europe who would have written this way, how do you think the media would have responded to this, and why?”

Opposition Leader Benjamin Netanyahu’s son, Yair Netanyahu, also ridiculed Lapid’s tweet, calling it ‘eighth grade English’.

“Is this real? What is this eighth grade English coming from a Foreign Minister? The fact that he didn’t pass high school English is his problem, not the state’s. Why doesn’t he hire an English spokesperson who can write his tweets in English for him? What an embarrassment.”