The head of Tunisia’s moderate Islamic party criticized anti-Semitic slogans chanted upon the arrival of a top Hamas official.
The condemnation by Rachid Ghannouchi, head of the Ennahda Party, which leads the ruling government coalition, came hours after Tunisia’s small Jewish community had called on the government to prevent such incidents.
Last week Ismail Haniyeh, the prime minister of the Hamas-led government in Gaza, arrived in Tunis and crowds began chanting “kill the Jews” and “crush the Jews.”Ghannouchi said that the shouts were the work of a few ultraconservatives.
“There are no Zionists in Tunisia and we don’t want to be mixed into the problems of the Middle East,” said Peres Trabelsi, a representative of Tunisia’s small Jewish population, as he asked the government for protection. “Tunisia is our country.”
About 1,500 Jews live in Tunisia, an Islamic country with a population of approximately 10 million. — jta