Addressing the heads of the Islamic, Jewish and Christian denominations, Saeed said: “I welcome you to this meeting and consider it among the most important historical meetings that highlight the steadfast tolerance and coexistence in Tunisia for centuries and centuries.” Hurt, it hurts us.”
Tunisian President Kais Saied confirmed on Wednesday, during his meeting with the heads of the Islamic, Jewish and Christian communities in his country, after the attack that took place last week in the vicinity of the Ghriba synagogue on the island of Djerba, that Tunisia is a country of “tolerance between all religions.”
Saeed received, in the Carthage Palace, the Mufti of Tunisia, Sheikh Hisham bin Mahmoud, the chief rabbis of the Jews in Tunisia, Haim Bitan, and the chief archbishop of the Catholic Church in Tunisia, Hilario Antoniazi.
The Tunisian presidency broadcast a video recording of part of the meeting, during which Saeed said that he wanted from this meeting to “show the image directed at the whole world that there is a state, and there is tolerance between all religions, and this matter is not new in Tunisia, but rather it has been well-established for centuries.”
Saeed added, “We will secure your temples, while they are secure, and practice the rituals of your religion. Together, we will eradicate the seeds of sedition and division that the enemies of our dear homeland want to ignite.”
However, the Tunisian president turned to “those who want to arrange bloodshed by imposing what is called normalization,” saying: “Let them know that there is no such concept in the dictionary of our people in Tunisia, and we differentiate between Judaism and Zionism.”
Saeed called on the international community to work to “put an end to the tragedy of the Palestinian people, so that they can regain their right to their land and establish their state with Al-Quds Al-Sharif as its capital.”
After the meeting, the chief Jewish rabbi said in the same recording that “the meeting was excellent,” stressing that the President of the Republic “spoke what was in everyone’s heart… He reassured us that we, the Jews of Tunisia, live like all other Tunisians, and he gave us guarantees that what happened will not happen again, if he wishes.” God”.
On Friday, Saeed denied the existence of any anti-Semitism in the Tunisian state, after a policeman carried out a bloody shooting in front of a Jewish synagogue on the island of Djerba. The attack occurred on Tuesday evening at a time when hundreds of Jews completed the annual pilgrimage to the Ghriba synagogue, the oldest in Africa.
Three police officers and two visitors – one of them holding Tunisian and Israeli nationalities and the other holding Tunisian and French nationalities – were shot dead by the attacker before the security forces shot him. The Tunisian authorities condemned the “criminal” attack, but refrained from describing it as “terrorism” or adding an anti-Semitic dimension to it.
Visiting Ghriba is a tradition for Tunisian Jews, who number just 1,500, compared to 100 before independence in 1956.
