For the time being, the Arab press of Tunisia has given up its violently anti-Jewish campaign, which reached a crescendo last month with the publication of numerous articles attacking the Jews and Israel. However, the Arab press continues to carry anti-Israel features and reports.
Meanwhile, the French and Tunisian authorities have given the Jewish community assurances that they will not stand by idly if the anti-Jewish campaign is resumed. They intend to invoke a statute prohibiting any action intended to stir up racial strife.
The attitude of the future civil servants among the Moslem population of Tunisia toward the Jewish minority was outlined at a press conference today at Zitouna University, the center for Moslem culture.
Sheikh Mohammed el Bedoui, president of the student committee at the university, replying to questions by a Jewish Telegraphic Agency correspondent, said that the students are strongly linked with the Moslem and Arab states in their stand on Israel, but that within Tunisia they wanted a strictly Moslem state with protection for non-Moslems, as provided for by the teachings of the Koran.
Sheikh el Bedoui said that in a free Tunisia education would be exclusively in Arabic and could be based on the teachings of the Moslem religion. For non-Moslems, notably Tunisian Jewry, however, there would be special classes in an atmosphere devoid of “a spirit of conversion.”
Zitouna University currently has a student body of 14,000. It annually graduates between 1,500 and 2,000 students. It is to these graduates that the country must look for replacement of Frenchmen now in government posts.
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The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
