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.
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.
