Ron Dermer, Israel’s Ambassador to the United States, received fierce backlash on Thursday, July 17, as he defended his country’s Operation Protective Edge offensive on Gaza during a Twitter Q&A.

According to the latest Pew Research polling on the ongoing conflict between Israelis and Palestinians, Americans still heavily lean toward sympathizing with Israel. Yet Dermer urged those who oppose Israel’s military actions to ask him any questions, so he could clarify his government’s position. They did, but the result was probably not the one that Dermer expected.

Israel’s offensive on Gaza that has killed 220 Palestinians as of Wednesday, 80 percent of which have been civilians, according to the United Nations. Meanwhile, only one Israeli has died as a result of rockets fired into Israel.

#AskDermer trended worldwide on Wednesday and Thursday, as a significant number of questions related to the four Palestinian children killed Wednesday on a Gaza beach by shelling from Israeli Defense Forces.

Dermer largely steered clear of tough questions. Some of the more substantive of his answers in the session regarded settlements rights of Jews and Palestinians, and claims of Israeli genocide of Palestinians.

Dermer couldn’t help but leave the session with a dose of snark.

Here are some of the circulated #AskDermer tweets: 

“A Palestinian walks into a room. do you a) blow up the room. b) blow up the person’s home, or c) kill 4 random kids on a beach? #askdermer,” tweeted @wyo93, a self-described “vegan Kuwaiti feminist political leftist.”

“Do you find it weird that an American can join the government of a foreign country while the people born in that country cannot? #AskDermer,” wrote columnist Steven Salaita, @stevesalaita.

“How does it feel that your job, Israeli ambassador, will be a thing of the past? Like the ice cream delivery man, and Vanilla Ice. #AskDermer,” asked @mexicanarchist

“Why is Israel the only state that gets more than 2 senators? #AskDermer,” tweeted Peter Feld, @peterfeld, referring to the power of Israeli lobby in the U.S. Congress. 

“When you’re going to bomb a hospital for the disabled, could you give two extra minutes warning? My wheelchair is kinda slow. #AskDermer,” Stephen Sherman, @stephenesherman, asked sarcastically.

Prominent journalist and activist Max Blumenthal accompanied his #AskDermer tweet with a photos of Israeli soldiers’ using a Palestinian boy as a human shield. “Why haven’t you complained about these Palestinian human shields yet? #AskDermer,” Blumenthal tweeted.

“Is it #AskDermer or #AskDahmer?” wondered one twitter user, referring to the infamous American serial killer Jeffrey Dhamer. 

— RT, TAAN