TEHRAN – The Iranian government spokesman has lashed out at U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo for his remarks about Palestine, questioning the American diplomat’s qualification to express opinions about the issue.

Pompeo had on Sunday reacted to Leader of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Ali Khamenei's message to Hajj pilgrims, in which he had called the U.S. Middle East initiative - the so-called “deal of the century” - a crime against the Palestinians and humanity.

In part of his message, the Leader had said, “We invite everyone to active involvement in defeating this plot and stratagem of the enemy, and by the Power of God, we consider this plot and all ploys by the arrogant front doomed to failure against the endeavors and faith of the front of resistance.”

Pompeo had reacted by claiming that the Iranian Leader had no concern for Palestine.

In reaction to Pompeo, Ali Rabiei, the Iranian government spokesman, said Pompeo has little knowledge of Jewish people and their religion.  

“Pompeo doesn’t even understand the concept of the night of Tish B’Av,” Rabiei tweeted on Monday.

Tish B’Av is an annual fast day in Judaism, on which a number of disasters in Jewish history occurred, primarily the destruction of both Solomon’s Temple by the Neo-Babylonian Empire and the Second Temple by the Roman Empire in Jerusalem.

“If [Pompeo] knew, [he would have understood that] the Israeli regime is the very great inauspiciousness which has equally afflicted the Jews and Muslims of Palestine; and to get rid of which one has to pray,” Rabiei wrote in his tweet.

“Once again, lacking historical knowledge, Pompeo has reacted to the Leader’s Hajj message by referring to the ‘Tish B’Av’ night and jumped the Palestinian-Jewish issue. He has recognized criticism of the child-murdering regime of Israel - which is a rite for the Muslim Ummah during Hajj - to be in disagreement with the ‘Tish B’Av’ night ritual,” the Iranian government spokesman observed.

He added, “Pompeo neither knows the Iranian society, in which Jewish citizens have their own special place, nor does he know history, [according to which] our Jewish citizens in all of the Islamic and pre-Islamic eras would observe their religious rites in complete freedom.”