Relations Between Tunisia and the Zionist State Within a Post-Abraham Peace Accords Context

This chapter is entitled The Normalization of Ties between “Israel” and North Africa: Reflections from Tunisia. Its goal is to study the evolvement of relations between Tunisia and the Zionist colonial entity since the latter’s creation in 1948. In fact, the Tunisian experience with normalization within the general North African context is considered as highly important, since it constitutes a conciliatory example that bridges the gap between the extreme anti-normalization stance, as represented by Algeria, and the pro-normalization attitude such as that which has been strongly endorsed by the Kingdom of Morocco. Indeed, the past seventy-five years have witnessed a fluctuating relationship between the Tunisian Republic and the Zionist State which has been mainly shaped by the evolvement of conflict in Occupied Palestine. Over these past three quarters of a century, Tunisia has always sought to reconcile economic benefits with regional affiliations, and diplomatic interests with its ethical commitment to the Palestinian cause. This centrist, moderate position, epitomized by Tunisia, pushes us to delve more deeply into the history of relations between these two political entities. It also triggers our curiosity to examine the extent to which the Abraham Accords, that were signed in 2020 between “Israel” and a number of Arab countries, are likely to affect Tunisia’s attitude toward normalization in a positive way. In order to have a more insightful overview of all these debatable issues, a causal analysis approach will be adopted for the purpose of studying the causal factors that have been associated with major changes in Tunisia–“Israel” relationships. This methodological approach would be very helpful in understanding the objective factors that might push such a moderate policy regime as that of North African Tunisia to have shifting attitudes toward the issue of normalization and therefore in indirectly providing an overall illuminative assessment of the North African experience, which is the ultimate goal of this study.