Some Tunisians expressed outrage at Mark Zuckerberg’s shirt that the billionaire sported on his 40th birthday Tuesday, The New Arab reported.
The offending shirt bore the Latin phrase “Carthago delenda est,” which means “Carthage must be destroyed” and featured prominently in the rhetoric of Cato the Elder, a second century B.C. Roman senator, the outlet explained. Cato famously added the phrase to the end of every speech he made in the Senate regardless of topic, emphasizing the need to eliminate the North African city-state as a potential rival in the Mediterranean. (RELATED: REPORT: Mob Torches Historic Synagogue In Tunisia)
Carthage is located in modern Tunisia.
Mark Zuckerberg’s birthday shirt triggers outrage in Tunisia https://t.co/GfOkc4gDw3
— Ilan Hulkower (@IHulkower) May 17, 2024
In the Facebook post accompanying the photos, Zuckerberg wrote that he was “[g]rateful for my first 40 years” and that “[my wife] Priscilla threw me a little party and recreated a bunch of places I lived in the early days.”
“The inventor of Facebook, which is the most dangerous invention in human history, is Zionist in belief and knows well that everyone is following him. Therefore, in my opinion, it is necessary to respond to him clearly, firmly, and quickly,” Hisham Al-Hajji, a Tunisian journalist wrote, according to The New Arab. Zuckerberg is Jewish.
“Gaza is Carthage, and Zuckerberg is Cato the Elder,” wrote another Tunisian journalist, the outlet reported.
Carthage, a coastal city founded as a colony by the Phoenicians of modern Lebanon near what is today this city of Tunis, was a rival to Roman power in the Mediterranean that fought three wars with Rome prior to its destruction at the hands of the Latin republic, according to National Geographic. The Carthaginians were notorious for their practice of ritual child sacrifice and sacred prostitution, multiple outlets noted.
In 2016, Zuckerberg used the phrase “Carthago delenda est” as a rallying cry against Google, a rival of Facebook, Business Insider noted.
