Jews in Tunis Uneasy As Talks of New Arab Attacks Persist

Uneasiness persists in Tunis as a result of the series of attacks on Jews in that city and the continuing talk that new raids are in the offing, it was reported here today.

Meanwhile, in Paris and in Tunis, the outlawed Arab nationalist Neo-Destour Party issued statements condemning the attacks and implying that they were instigated by enemies of the nationalist movement. The Paris statement said: “We strongly condemn the incidents which have taken place in the Jewish quarter of Tunis where the two elements have always lived together in accord.” It warned Tunisians of both faiths to guard against maneuvers of “provocateurs seeking to create a diversion which will serve the ends of the enemies of the nation.”

However, the French Foreign Office charged that extremists of the Neo-Destour Party were responsible for the attacks, using them as a means of keeping attention focused on the nationalist dispute with France.

(The New York Times reported from Paris today that neutral observers of the Arab-Jewish disorders in Tunis agreed that they were “out of character. ” These observers pointed to the fact that the Bey of Tunis had refused, during the Petain regime, to enforce the Petain anti-Jewish laws in Tunis, and that during the Palestine war, Tunisia had remained free of anti-Jewish incidents such as had occurred elsewhere in Moslem countries.)