Will Tunisians accused of having "direct or indirect ties" with the State of Israel, its companies or its citizens soon be liable to life imprisonment? This was the aim of a draft law adopted on October 24 by the Rights and Freedoms Committee of the Assembly of People's Representatives (ARP). Deliberations on the draft text started on Thursday, November 2.

The initiative is particularly significant at a time when the country is experiencing a wave of solidarity with Palestine. Tunisian President Kais Saied has never concealed his hostility to "Zionism," whose aim, in his words, is to "exterminate the Palestinian people." On July 12 – months before the Hamas attack and the Israeli response in Gaza – some 15 representatives who support the president introduced an initial bill. The text was hardened, in the wake of the war, by members of the ARP's Rights and Freedoms Committee.

The new version carries a sentence of up to 12 years' imprisonment for any person of Tunisian nationality who maintains relations with "the Zionist entity" – in other words, Israel. In the event of a repeat offense, the penalty rises to life imprisonment. "Normalization" is defined as any form of "deliberate" communication, cooperation or commercial relations, "directly or indirectly," with anyone born or who morally identifies as Israeli, with the exception of Palestinians who hold Israeli nationality.

As the Israeli army continues to pound the Gaza Strip, calls to criminalize these relations have multiplied in Tunisia. Often chanted at demonstrations in support of the Palestinian cause, the slogan "The people demand the criminalization of normalization" is also being taken up by some of the political class and civil society organizations.

Since the October 7 Hamas attack in the south of Israeli and the resulting Israeli military offensive in the Gaza Strip, calls to demonstrate against Israel and countries considered allies – particularly France, the United States and Germany – or to boycott brands or products linked to Israel have been a daily occurrence in Tunisia, where the Palestinian cause is of major importance to a large majority of the population.

Against the backdrop of the various processes to normalize diplomatic relations between Tel Aviv and several Arab countries, notably with the Abraham agreements in 2020, Saied and a large part of the Tunisian political establishment consider this "normalization" to be akin to high treason.

This is not the first time a bill to criminalize relations with Israel has been tabled in the Assembly. In 2015, lawmakers from the Popular Front, a coalition of left-wing and far-left parties, presented a bill along these lines, which has since gathered dust in the Assembly's drawers.

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