Tunisia's Israeli Dilemma

Ever since the signing of the Abraham Accords in late 2020 and early 2021 between Israel and Abu Dhabi, Manama, Rabat and Khartoum, the Jewish state has literally  been head over heels about the gravy peace train. From then on, the objective for Israeli officials became to get other Arab countries to normalize with Israel come what may.

Lots of media rumors as well as leaked diplomatic chit-chat who is going to be next of the Arab country states and which Muslim country is waiting in the normalization pipeline and these ranged from the Comoros Islands to Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, Malaysia, Mauritania and a whole lot of others. For the Israelis the idea was to keep the pressure on, and no doubt circumvent the Palestinians, who at one stage, saw that everything was falling apart.

In reality, the peace train was not moving as expected despite the nudges, hints, smiles and the shakes. The gravy train of the UAE, Bahrain, Morocco, Sudan and before that Jordan (1994) and Egypt (1978) seems to be a long way off among the sand dunes. But this is not for the lack of trying. Its is clear the Americans and Israelis are keeping the pressure up on Saudi Arabia, and although there is continuing rumors of diplomatic nudges and maybe exchange of visits, the uphill struggle is heavy.

In comes Tunisia 

The idea of Tunisia normalizing with Israel has never cropped up until now, maybe it should have because of the consular relations established between Tunis and Tel Aviv in 1996 after the 'Palestinian' Oslo Accords in 1994. But relations were soon frozen in 2001 after the Jerusalem Intifada when it came to be realized that the peace process was like beating a dead horse. And this state of affairs continued till recently, more like the last few days and maybe weeks before that. 

Tunisia was also having its problems and its people, the media and different establishments were in a "ballyhoo of wonder" that, some somehow diverted the normalization eye from the country, seen as one of the success stories of the post-Arab Spring revolutions after 2011 where people were in no mood for normalization with an "enemy state" and which in 2019, the then coming President Qais Saied said anyone normalizing with Israel would be guilty of "high treason" as part of his election campaign and which many believed.

With this imprint, one could well believe Tunisia, yesterday and today, wouldn't normalize with Israel despite the rumors put out by Jewish websites and Israeli commentators. Would the Tunisian president normalize now, after all, he has much problems back home. At one stroke he dissolved parliament in July 2021 because of what he saw as political bickering, he has much economic problems and desperately want to rescue Tunisia through IMF loans, he wants to introduce political and constitutional reforms but these are coming at a price of squeezing the domestic constituency inside Tunisia who are already livid and angry with the president.

Unless he has been promised much booty from the Israelis or their American backers, he would be committing political suicide if he extended his hand to Tel Aviv.  On hearing the rumors last week that Tunisia was prepared to normalize with Israel, the country's Foreign Ministry quickly put on a statement saying these are false rumors and blatant lies. And that Tunisia always stood by the Palestinian people and their "inalienable rights" and will not establish relations with an "occupying entity".

Djerba  

These are strong words indeed but there are two issues that stick out. The first is Tunisia - apart from the Covid-19 pandemic has always welcomed Jewish tourists from all over the world to visit one of the oldest synagogue in the world on its island of Djerba. Thousands of tourists, with many saying, a lot from Israel, come to that Island in May for a religious Jewish festival. 

There are 1800 Jews in Tunisia and around 1000 of them long on the Island and part of the 2500-year-old syngogue. In communal harmony, it is said the festival is attended yearly by both Jews and Muslims and its launch in late May was attended Prime Minister Najla Bouden and other government ministers and officials which later was criticized by Tunisian activists and mainstream society. 

Many of them have begun asking is how are the Jews from Israel turning up on the island especially when officials say in public there is  no diplomatic and  visa channels between Tunisia and Israel. Is the government changing its mind and will there be moves to normalize relations with Israel as its president, who took it upon himself to appoint the government that has no parliamentary backing  in the light of the fact the political system is becoming more authoritarian? 

While that may indeed happen, it seems far-fetched because Saied has already made it clear in his "high treason" speech he wouldn't normalize with Israel as he doesn't want to anatagonize the street any further because it is already on the boil and there are people who want to introduce legislation to criminalize anyone who would want to normalize with Israel. But its difficult to see how can that happen because of the absence of parliament.  

Algerian backdoor  

Tunisia may not want to normalize as well because of its relations with strong relations with Algeria that tend to be mainly economic and financial interests. Tunisia is 70 percent dependant on Algerian natural gas and the latter has agree to loan Tunisia $300 million and this is just touching the surface. 

Algiers has been for a long time taken an anti-normalization stand and have pressured other countries not to establish relations with Israel. For Tunisia these financial interests outweigh the move towards normalizations. 

So it would seem we are at point zero, but in actual fact normalization already exists through the Jewish religious tourists that might be coming through the backdoor to Djerba. These will likely continue because of the touristic financial angle. 

And that of course will not stop the Israeli Foreign Ministry from continuing to apply more pressure through such readily available channels although the Jews of Tunisia have said many times they are happy in coexistence with their Muslim brethern in that country.