The controversy of normalization comes back .. What is the truth of the visit of a Tunisian delegation to Tel Aviv?

Amal Hilali - Tunisia

A series of posts on the normalization of the media burhan Bsais sparked a wave of controversy between the political and intellectual circles, after he published the news of the visit of a Tunisian youth delegation to Tel Aviv, at a time when the Foreign Ministry denied it.

Many questioned the motives of publishing this news from the media affiliated with the regime of the late President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali, days after the inauguration of President Qais Said, and his firm position on the issue of normalization with Israel and consider it a high betrayal.

Bsais confirmed through more than one blog post on his Facebook page the arrival of a Tunisian youth delegation from Brussels to Tel Aviv, within the framework of a youth peace program under the supervision of the European Parliament.

The journalist published pictures of the activities of the youth delegation in the Israeli Knesset and other government institutions, pointing out that a Tunisian employee of the European Parliament is responsible for the overall coordination of the visit, while the German Embassy in Tunisia coordinated the process of issuing visas to the occupied territories.

External denies
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Tunisia rushed to deny the news through an official statement, stressing that it had investigated with the EU mission in Tunisia and the EU institutions in Brussels and investigated with the Palestinian authorities in Ramallah and in a number of other capitals.

The Foreign Ministry statement pointed out that the photos published for a youth delegation in Tel Aviv mainly related to the visit of a European delegation, including a Belgian woman of Tunisian origin and a member of a Belgian political party.

The ministry called on "everyone not to employ the Palestinian cause in political and internal matters and to avoid bidding on supporting the just Palestinian cause, as it is a national liberation issue that enjoys the unanimity of all segments of the Tunisian people."

In turn, the media team of the German Embassy in Tunisia denied coordinating any trip to Israel or granting visas for this purpose, pointing out that the embassy is only granting visas to Germany or European countries Schengen.

Burhan Bsais responds
In his interview with Al-Jazeera Net, the journalist Burhan Bsais renewed his report on the Tunisian delegation's visit to Tel Aviv, stressing that the coordinator of the visit to Tel Aviv is an activist in one of the Belgian parties and holds dual citizenship, Tunisian-Belgian, like the young people who accompanied her under the cover of political activities They do it within European parties.

He was surprised by the interpretation of some of what he wrote about the visit of the Tunisian youth delegation to Israel, and considered it a kind of bidding and embarrassment to President Qais Said, who expressed a position rejecting any form of normalization with the Zionist entity.

The journalist said that he was the first to publish in two years the involvement of the Israeli Mossad in the assassination of the martyr and the activist of the Islamic Resistance Movement Hamas, Mohammed Zouari at a time when the trend was going to consider the crime a public right.

He was surprised by what he described as double political and partisan positions in Tunisia regarding the rejection of normalization on the one hand, and the absence of any real desire to enact a law in parliament that defines forms of normalization and officially criminalizes it.

Burhan Bsais published a new blog, asking about the reasons for the entry of an Israeli passport to Tunisia on October 15th.

"How did the Israeli Robbie Nathanson, a lecturer at the Hebrew University School of Business in Tel Aviv, director of the Economic and Social Planning Unit at the office of Israeli Prime Minister Shimon Peres, enter 1995 and 1996 to Tunisia?"

It is noteworthy that the parliamentary blocs left and national had submitted a draft law criminalizing normalization with the Zionist entity, but remained stuck in the shelves of parliament since 2012.

On February 9, 2018, the controversy raged in the parliament on the issue of normalization, reaching a clash of hands between MPs from the Popular Front and the appeal of Tunisia, following the absence of both the foreign minister and a representative of the presidency from a parliamentary session to consider a bill criminalizing normalization.

Try to embarrass the president
Qais Karawi, a campaign activist for President Qais Said, was surprised by what he called an attempt to get the president into a controversy he described as fabricated on the issue of normalization.

Al-Qarawi linked the positions of the president of the republic to categorically rejecting normalization as a crime that amounts to high treason and attempts by some to embarrass him and test his reaction to his supporters through this suspicious visit to Tel Aviv.

He expressed the hope that the new parliament will approve the draft criminalization of normalization with the Israeli entity, pointing out that the dismissal of the foreign minister - who previously assumed the presidency of the Tunis office in Tel Aviv during Ben Ali's rule - comes within the general direction of President Qais Said on the rejection of all forms Normalization.

Prime Minister Yusuf al-Shahid had decided Tuesday evening in consultation with the President of the Republic, Qais Said, to exempt both Foreign Minister Khamis al-Juhaynawi and Defense Minister Abdul Karim al-Zubaidi from their duties.