Tunisian Authorities Say They Will Not Hamper Jewish Emigration

The Tunisian authorities have no intention of interfering with Tunisian Jews who want to emigrate to Israel, official circles today told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency. These same circles emphasized that Tunisia is a free country and all Tunisians are at liberty to enter or leave the country at will, unless involved in criminal proceedings.

This statement was made in the wake of remarks by Bechir Ben Yahmed, Secretary of State for Information, who told a press conference that the Tunisian Government hoped that,” Tunisian nationals”–meaning Jews–would not “have their bodies in Tunisia and their hearts elsewhere.” The reassurances of freedom of emigration have not served to lessen to any great extent the fears aroused by M Ben Yahmed’s statement.

The Secretary declared that “in the creation of Israel nearly 1,000,000 people were chased from their homes and their country.” He asserted that the government’s attitude toward Israel would have been the same even if the subsequent immigrants to that state had been Moslems or Buddhists, instead of Jews. Although he also declared that Tunisia was an Arab and Islamic state, M. Ben Yahmed repeated Premier Habib Bourguiba’s stand opposing discrimination against any citizen or group of citizens on grounds of religion.

Habib Bourguiba, Premier of Tunisia, received Zachariah Shuster, European director of the American Jewish Committee, and told him that he considers the Jews a constituent element of the Tunisian nation and that they are contributing to the building of the new regime. No consideration, he stressed, would be allowed to change the situation in which Jews are accepted as partners in furthering the state.

Investigation by the Jewish Telegraphic Agency here of French press reports that a Jewish school in the town of La Goulette had been sacked by Tunisians has established that no such incident took place.