Tunisia’s Islamist Party Slams Anti-Semitic Chants

TUNIS, Tunisia (AP) — The head of Tunisia’s moderate Islamic party condemned Monday anti-Semitic slogans chanted by a handful of ultraconservative Muslims at the arrival of a top Hamas official.

Rachid Ghannouchi also reiterated the policy of his party, which heads the country’s new government, that Tunisia’s Jews are “full citizens with equal rights and duties.”

“Ennahda condemns these slogans which do not represent Islam’s spirit or teachings, and considers those who raised them as a marginal group,” Ghannouchi said in a statement.

Videos circulated online showing members of the crowd greeting Hamas’ Ismail Haniyeh at the airport on Thursday chanting “kill the Jews” and “crush the Jews.” The chants came from Salafists, ultraconservative Muslims that have been making their presence felt in Tunisia recently.

After decades of being oppressed by Tunisia’s secular dictators, Ennahda won elections and has been at pains to demonstrate its moderate credentials and belief in universal rights and freedoms.

They have been repeatedly embarrassed by ultraconservative Islamic groups that have emerged since Zine El Abidine Ben Ali was ousted from power last year.

The groups have attacked university campuses and staged sit-ins over female students not being allowed to attend classes in the conservative face veils and have demonstrated over a variety of moral issues in cities.

At a rally in a sports complex for Haniyeh on Sunday, supporters of the banned ultraconservative Hizb al-Tahrir party called for death to Israel, but did not repeat their anti-Jewish slogans.

Tunisia’s new government has been at pains to ease any fears the country’s small Jewish community has over the new Islamist-tinged government.

The new president, veteran human rights activists, Moncef Marzouki, went so far as to call on Dec. 19 for any Tunisian Jews who had fled the country in the past to return.

Tunisia presently has a Jewish population of 1,500, but in the 1960s there were 100,000. Most left following the 1967 war between Israel and Arab countries, and Socialist economic policies adopted by the government in the late 1960s also drove many Jewish business owners out of the country.

Most now live on the resort island of Djerba, near the country’s border with Libya.

_____

Paul Schemm contributed to this report from Rabat, Morocco.