Tunisian minister pressed on Israeli tourist decision

Members of Tunisia’s elected assembly approved a petition on Wednesday to question the tourism minister about a decision to permit Israelis to use their passports when entering the country for an annual religious pilgrimage.

Tunisian media in March highlighted a visit by 61 Israelis who entered the country on Israeli passports. This stirred controversy because Tunisia has no relations with Israel.   

“Our problem is not with our Jewish brothers who come for the pilgrimage but with the Zionist entity that occupies Palestinian territories” Mohammed Hamdi, head of the centre-left Democratic Alliance, was quoted as saying by the Associated Press (AP).

A petition calling for Tourism Minister Amel Karboul to clarify her actions to parliament was signed by 85 of the 217 member assembly, according to spokesperson Karima Souid.

It is not the first time Karboul has come under fire for issues relating to Israel. Shortly after being appointed tourism minister in January, she offered to resign when faced with criticism over a trip to Israel in 2006 when she attended a United Nations training initiative for young Palestinians.

Members of the Jewish community travel to the Ghriba synagogue on the Tunisian island of Djerba for an annual pilgrimage to celebrate the holiday of Lag BaOmer, a minor festival that takes place 33 days after Passover.

Israelis have long since entered Tunisia for this pilgrimage but it is the first time they have been permitted to use their passport for entry, previously special travel documents have been issued by Tunisian embassies.

While some Tunisian parliamentarians have expressed anger that allowing Israelis to enter the country using their passport amounts to recognition of the Jewish state, others have defended the decision saying it promotes tourism.

“We must dispense with these political arguments and focus on the essential”, Mehdi Jomaa, interim prime minister, said in remarks to the assembly on Tuesday. “All previous governments authorised Jews from Israel to come to Tunisia for the annual pilgrimage, we just decided to do it in total transparence” he added.

The tourism industry is a key sector for Tunisia, accounting for 7.5 of gross domestic product and employing more than 400,000 people.

The political volatility that followed the 2011 ousting of former president Zine El Abidine Ben Ali led to a sharp drop in the number of tourists visiting Tunisia but increasing stability has led to Tourism Minister Karboul to project a record year of 7 million visitors to the country.

“I tell Western tourists, come to Tunisia, the first democracy in the Arab world, to share this historic moment and support a democratic transition” Karboul recently told Reuters.

More than 8,000 Jews made the pilgrimage in 2000, with many coming from Israel, but numbers have sharply dropped since a 2002 bomb attack on the synagogue killed 21 people, mostly German tourists.