The Palestinian Question as a Framework for a Century of Tunisian Mobilization

     February 14, 2026
Hèla Yousfi
In September 2025, Tunisia was the scene of an event of considerable symbolic and political significance: the departure of the Global Sumud flotilla for Gaza from the ports of Sidi Bou Said and Bizerte. Supported by a broad coalition of activists, trade unions, associations, and Tunisian citizens, this international initiative was aimed at breaking the blockade imposed by Israel on the Gaza Strip since 2007, drawing the international community’s attention to the genocide perpetrated by Israel in Palestine, and demanding the opening of a maritime corridor for the delivery of humanitarian aid to Gaza.1 The popular mobilization it has sparked in Tunisia is expressed in the Arabic slogan “Resistance, Resistance, no peace, no compromise,” which is combined with the internationalist slogan “Free Palestine,” reflecting the intertwining of Tunisian mobilizations and transnational solidarity.

This episode is part of a long history: since the 1920s, well before the creation of Israel, the Palestinian cause has been a structuring axis of political engagement in Tunisia. Far from being a simple mark of solidarity, it has been a lever for anticolonial dynamics, a vector of political radicalization, and an instrument of social mobilization against authoritarianism. To illustrate this, I will focus on three main episodes: the pro-Palestinian mobilizations from 1920 to 1948 and their resonance within the Tunisian national movement; the defeat of the Arab armies by Israel in June 1967 and how this radicalized the left in Tunisia and throughout the Arab world; and the various forms of revolutionary mobilization since 2011, which have seen the resurgence of the issue of the struggle against normalization with Israel.
Through these three historical sequences, this article will analyze how the Palestinian cause has forged specific forms of engagement in Tunisia, from the mobilizations of the 1920s to contemporary dynamics. While the Palestinian question has been asserted from the outset as an Arab issue, its centrality in the various mobilizations in Tunisia serves as a reminder of the intertwining of struggles in the different Arab spaces that share—beyond a language, culture, and collective history—a common economic and political destiny.
Palestine and the Construction of Tunisian Nationalism (1920–1955)
The first expressions of Tunisian solidarity with the Palestinian cause date back to the 1920s, in connection with growing tensions in British-mandated Palestine. The riots of August 1929, known as the Buraq Revolt, following a conflict between Jews and Arabs over access to the Western Wall in Jerusalem, resonated strongly in Tunisia.2 These protests quickly became a roundabout way of denouncing colonial rule, while strengthening national cohesion without direct confrontation with the French colonial authorities. The Buraq Revolt also marked a decisive turning point in the evolution of relations between Jews and Arabs in the Maghreb and played a structuring role in the history of Zionism in the region, as well as in the emergence of Palestinian and Arab nationalism.3 These events, combined with other dynamics, contributed to the development of Tunisia’s position towards the Zionist movement, which had been present in Tunis since 1910.4
Hédi Timoumi highlighted how this Zionist activity became institutionalized through educational, cultural, and associative networks, often supported by the Alliance Israélite Universelle.5 In this regard, Chedly Khaïrallah wrote that Zionist theory tended “to molest several hundred thousand co-religionists who only want to live in peace in their own homes and govern themselves as they see fit…. Zionism is a doctrine of enslavement because its realization imposes the enslavement of several hundred thousand Arab Muslims to a handful of adventurers financed by Europeans and Americans. That is the truth.”6
Maghreb nationalists, particularly Tunisians, had already organized themselves as a force of opposition to French colonial rule. The trade union movement, beginning in the early twentieth century, perceived Zionism not only as a colonial project in Palestine, but also as a potential threat to the community balance in Tunisia.7 This perception was reinforced by the ideological and political proximity between Zionism and the colonial powers. The events of August 1929 heightened their vigilance towards Zionist activity in Tunisia, which was supported by a flourishing Zionist Jewish press after the First World War.8 Tunisian politician Abdelaziz Thâalbi’s participation in the World Islamic Congress in Jerusalem in December 1931, as well as the rise of a Tunisian nationalist press in Arabic and French, reflected an increasingly assertive stance against Zionism, a position based both on solidarity with the Palestinians and on the denunciation of Zionism as a form of colonialism.9 Demonstrations of support for the Palestinians and the cancellation of Zionist propaganda conferences, such as that of Fanny Weill in 1932 under pressure from nationalist activists of the Destour and Neo-Destour parties, illustrate this mobilization.10 These demonstrations were part of a broader strategy of cultural and political resistance against all forms of colonialism, whether European or Zionist.
In 1948, several Tunisians traveled to Palestine to fight against the creation of the state of Israel alongside the Palestinians in the ranks of the Arab Liberation Army composed of volunteers from several Arab countries and organized under the auspices of the Arab League. This commitment was part of a dynamic of solidarity, fueled by the rejection of colonialism and the rise of Arab nationalism.11 This war was seen in the Arab world as a founding moment of collective anticolonial and pan-Arab consciousness.
Zionist activity in Tunisia, the creation of Israel in 1948, and the Nakba had the effect of deteriorating intercommunity relations and alienating a large number of Tunisian Jews from their Arab-Muslim environment.12 The challenge for Tunisian nationalists at that time was to dissuade the local Jewish elites from fully identifying with the French nation or the Zionist project by emphasizing the need for joint action against colonial domination.13 Some of them, such as Elie Nataf, sided with Zionism or sought to emigrate, while others, such as Georges Adda and Albert Bessis, sought a political compromise, “adhered to communist and socialist ideology, whose principles of non-discrimination and struggle against imperialism allowed them to ‘crystallize their own idea of nationalism.'”14 However, the space for peaceful coexistence was shrinking, gradually marginalizing Tunisian Jews from the nationalist program, which was predominantly Muslim in nature. Nevertheless, some nationalist leaders, such as Salah Ben Youssef, still attempted to call for unity against the French colonial enemy. In a speech in Djerba on November 9, 1955, in the presence of Jewish representatives, Ben Youssef criticized his “Jewish brothers” who were “going to the East” (meaning Israel) “for religious or sentimental reasons when the country needed their help.” “The common enemy, he insisted, “is the French colonizer.”15
1967: The Naksa and the Radicalization of the Tunisian Left
The defeat of the Arab armies (Egypt, Syria, and Jordan) in 1967 by Israel during the Six-Day War (the Naksa) caused a political earthquake and a major ideological shift for the Arab left, calling into question the legitimacy of Nasserism and traditional Arab nationalism embodied by the Arab Nationalist Movement and the Ba’ath Party.16 The Naksa reactivated the traumas of the Nakba of 1948, reinforcing a sense of betrayal by traditional Arab regimes and fueling radicalization on the left, particularly among students.17 This new situation also prompted Arab communist parties to review their positions: they questioned their alignment with the Soviet position in favor of the partition plan for Palestine, distanced themselves from the recognition of Israel, and became more actively involved alongside Palestinian national liberation movements.
This radicalized youth adopted new ideological references: Maoism, Third Worldism, and theories of “popular liberation war” inspired by the Chinese Cultural Revolution.18 The “New Left” (al-Yassar al-Jadid) emerged from Arab nationalism, but imbued it with a strong Marxist-Leninist and anti-imperialist slant. Palestine became the focal point of this ideological realignment: Marxism was Arabized and the Palestinian revolution was seen as the vanguard of the global Arab revolution. Tunisia was no exception to this dynamic. On June 6, 1967, large demonstrations broke out spontaneously, targeting American and British representatives, who were perceived as accomplices of Zionism. They were quickly joined by student members of the General Union of Tunisian Students, left-wing activists (the Tunisian Perspectives movement), and Nasserist and pan-Arab activists who denounced Habib Bourguiba’s alignment with the Western powers. These events marked the first serious breach in Bourguiba’s authoritarian regime and represented a moment of convergence between the militant left and part of the urban youth.19 This was followed by severe repression, which reinforced the rift between the regime and the new generations of activists.
From 1967 onwards, the Socialist Study and Action Group in Tunisia (GEAST), known for its magazine Perspectives, established itself as the main political opposition force in the country. At the Algiers conference in March, the group clarified its theoretical orientation by adopting the strategic objective of “unifying the Arab peoples through a victorious transition to socialism.” In September of the same year, GEAST broke with the ideological diversity of its early days and officially adopted a Maoist line. This orientation advocated direct confrontation with the ruling power and aimed to initiate a socialist revolution on a national scale. This position allowed the movement to distinguish itself from the Tunisian Communist Party, which was considered too conciliatory towards the French Communist Party and the Bourguiba regime. Furthermore, Maoist theories offered a model of popular struggle based on the mobilization of the rural masses and confrontation with the state that appealed to Tunisian youth who were rebelling against the authoritarianism of the Bourguiba regime. This influence led to a radicalization of militant action and a clear desire to link national revolution with profound social transformation.20
In 1969, the movement called “Le Travailleur tunisien” took over from GEAST, ushering in a new phase in the history of the Tunisian radical left. Emerging from student struggles and revolutionary Marxist currents, this movement sought to bring together Marxism, Arab nationalism, and Maoism in a context of political repression and ideological turmoil.21 It was part of the ongoing Arab anti-imperialist struggles, particularly through its active commitment to the Palestinian cause. Several of its members joined Palestinian organizations in Lebanon, where they received political and military training, strengthening their commitment to armed struggle and transnational solidarity as a path to national liberation. At the same time, Le Travailleur tunisien adapted Marxism to the social, cultural, and linguistic realities of the Arab world, initiating a process of “Arabization” of revolutionary thought. This choice was reflected in particular in the gradual abandonment of French, the dominant language in left-wing intellectual circles, in favor of Arabic in publications and militant discourse. Le Travailleur tunisien thus embodied a political radicalism conceived from the Global South, breaking with Eurocentric models.22
The 1967 defeat thus provoked not only widespread disappointment but also a genuine political and ideological shift in the Arab world, particularly in Tunisia. Radicalized youth invented new forms of engagement, closely integrating the Palestinian cause with social and national struggles. This legacy, which would weigh heavily on subsequent political realignments, is fundamental to understanding the trajectory of contemporary social and political movements in Tunisia. Solidarity with Palestine is never dissociated from Tunisian national and social demands: it is conceived as a logical extension of the struggle against economic domination and foreign interference.23 Nevertheless, the cycle of mobilization of the radical left began a gradual decline from the late 1970s onwards. The Iranian Revolution of 1979, by reintroducing religion as a vehicle for political protest, ushered in a new phase in the dynamics of resistance within the Arab and Muslim world. This trend was confirmed with the emergence and consolidation of Islamist movements such as Hezbollah, Hamas, and the Islamic Tendency Movement (now Ennahdha) in Tunisia. These organizations took up part of the anti-imperialist discourse historically espoused by Marxist movements.24 This phenomenon contributed to redefining the contours of political opposition, gradually marginalizing left-wing groups, which now faced competition in the arena of protest from religious actors with a strong capacity for popular mobilization.
The Tunisian Revolution and the Struggle against Normalization with Israel
More recently in Tunisia, Zine El Abidine Ben Ali’s authoritarian regime, like Bourguiba’s, adopted an ambivalent stance on the Palestinian question. Officially, Ben Ali continued to proclaim his support for the Palestinian people, organizing controlled demonstrations—as during the Second Intifada in 2000. However, in reality, the Tunisian regime embarked on a path of gradual normalization with Israel: in 1996, a Tunisian-Israeli interests office was opened in Tel Aviv, a concrete sign of a desire for economic and diplomatic integration into the new, post-Cold War regional order shaped after the Oslo Accords, against which opponents continued to organize, often in the shadows.25
Despite a context marked by strong security constraints, various political and associative organizations continue to express political dissent in various forms. Collectives of lawyers, student groups, human rights activists, and trade unionists continue to raise the issue of national sovereignty and solidarity with Palestine.26 These pockets of resistance played a decisive role in reshaping the political landscape from the 2000s until the outbreak of the revolution in 2010–2011.
The outbreak of the Tunisian revolution on December 17, 2010, reignited the centrality of the Palestinian question. The demand for national sovereignty was coupled with increased opposition to normalization with Israel. Palestinian flags were omnipresent in the Tunisian demonstrations of December 2010 and January 2011. The slogan “The people want the liberation of Palestine” was intertwined with calls for the fall of Ben Ali’s regime. Palestine thus appeared not as a foreign cause, but as a mirror: the oppression suffered by the Palestinians symbolized that experienced by the Arab peoples, subjected to authoritarian regimes allied with foreign powers. Supporting Palestine therefore meant demanding collective emancipation.
After the fall of Ben Ali, the issue of normalization with Israel resurfaced forcefully in public debates. During the work of the National Constituent Assembly (2011–2014), several deputies proposed to include the criminalization of normalization in the new constitution.27 However, due to international pressure and internal dissension—exacerbated by the ambivalent attitude of the dominant Ennahda party on this issue—the proposal did not succeed. This outcome caused deep frustration among revolutionary youth and left-wing movements that had supported the demand.28 Since then, several legislative initiatives aimed at criminalizing relations with the Zionist entity have been put to the vote, without ever coming to fruition.29 While the Palestinian question is enshrined in the preamble to Tunisia’s 2014 constitution, the debate over normalization has become a political barometer, revealing the limits of the changes brought about by the revolution and the tensions between popular aspirations and the interests of the political elite.
Despite the political difficulties, solidarity with Palestine remains a powerful force for mobilization. Furthermore, the 2016 assassination in Sfax of Mohamed Zouari, a Tunisian engineer linked to Hamas whose death was attributed to the Israeli Mossad, sparked a wave of outrage nationwide.30 It also revived memories of the deadly Israeli attack on leaders of the Palestine Liberation Organization on Tunisian soil in Hammam Chatt.31 The Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions movement and the Tunisian campaign against normalization with the Zionist entity are gaining strength, particularly among trade unions and students, as evidenced by the July 5, 2023, petition against academic and cultural normalization.32 These mobilizations renew the historical commitment of Tunisians to the Palestinian struggle mentioned above. They confirm Palestine as a crucial issue for Tunisian society, beyond official political institutions.
Conclusion
An examination of a century of mobilization in Tunisia shows that the Palestinian cause has never been merely a horizon of external solidarity: it has been at the heart of ideological realignments, militant practices, and social and political movements in Tunisia since the beginning of the twentieth century. Thus, the struggle in Palestine has profoundly influenced political and social dynamics in Tunisia, from the challenge to French colonialism to the current debates on democracy and national sovereignty. Far from being a temporary issue, Palestine has emerged as a revealing indicator of internal contradictions—between elites and popular movements, between international openness and regional considerations—while constituting a symbolic space in which collective aspirations for dignity, national sovereignty, and justice are projected.
Today, the tragic news of the genocide perpetrated by Israel in Palestine revives this history. It confirms the structuring nature of the Palestinian question in the Tunisian political imagination, reviving memories of past solidarity and reactivating the dividing lines between, on the one hand, the logic of normalization with Zionism and regional integration into the “Greater Israel” project, and, on the other hand, the persistence of a popular movement that places the liberation of Palestine at the heart of democratic and social struggles. Far from being reduced to a distant cause, the Palestinian cause acts as a mirror in which Tunisians recognize their own experience of domination and their unfinished quest for full sovereignty.
The Tunisian case thus illustrates a broader dynamic across the Arab world: the conviction that any lasting democratic transformation in the region must first challenge the colonial, imperialist, and genocidal logic that afflicts the Palestinian people and threatens all peoples in the Arab region. Palestine thus appears not only as a matter of international solidarity, but also as a constituent element of any reflection on the political, economic, and social future of Arab societies.
 
Notes
1.        ↩ Monia Ben Hamadi, “La flottille Global Sumud pour Gaza part enfin de Tunisie, après avoir subi deux attaques de drones,” Le Monde Afrique, September 17, 2025.
2.        ↩ A large Jewish demonstration organized by a Zionist group called Betar on August 15, 1929, at the Buraq Wall (the Western Wall of the Al-Aqsa Mosque) was the spark that triggered deadly clashes between Arabs and Jews on one side and between Arab demonstrators and the British army on the other. Among those killed were 113 Jews and 116 Arabs, and more than 200 people were wounded. On the riots of 1929 and their repercussions in the Maghreb, see Julien Charles-André, Histoire de l’Afrique du Nord (Paris: Payot, 1961). For more on the Buraq Revolt, see Maher Al-Sharif, “Palestine: A History Punctuated by Intifadas,” Orient XXI, September 20, 2020, orientxxi.info. For its resonance in Tunisia, see the archives of the newspaper Lissan ach-Chaab (1928–1932), studied by Fayçal Ghoul, “The Palestinian Question in the Tunisian Press (1917–1936),” thesis, University of Nice, 1974; and David Cohen, “North African Nationalists and Zionism (1929–1939),” Revue française d’histoire d’outre-mer 77, no. 286 (1990): 5–29.
3.        ↩ I use the categories “Arabs” and “Jews” as they are used in political and common discourse in Palestine and Tunisia. It is true that these categories are the product of a particular history resulting from a succession of colonial projects aimed at separating Berbers and Arab Jews from their Arab/Berber history and culture in the homogenizing project promoted by Zionist discourse (Julien Cohen-Lacassagne, Jewish Berbers: The Emergence of Monotheism in North Africa [Paris: La fabrique, 2020]; Ella Shohat, Zionism from the Perspective of its Jewish Victims: Eastern Jews in Israel [Paris: La fabrique, 2006]. Nevertheless, these identities, which are the product of a unique history, have largely shaped the political identity and trajectory of liberation movements in the Arab region, as the Tunisian example shows.
4.        ↩ It should be remembered that the first Zionist organization in Tunisia was founded in 1910 and approved by the French administration on January 19, 1911. This was Agoudat Zion, founded by Alfred Valensi, Yossef Brahmi, and Rabbi Yaacov Boccara (Itshaq Avrahami, “Les Juifs de Tunisie sous le régime de Vichy et sous l’occupation allemande, octobre 1940–mai 1943: L’attitude des autorités et de l’environnement” [“The Jews of Tunisia under the Vichy Regime and German Occupation, October 1940–May 1943: The Attitude of the Authorities and the Milieu”], Revue d’Histoire de la Shoah 205, no. 2 [2016]: 291). The federation of all the Zionist associations founded in the 1910s was established in 1920 and was legally recognized the same year by the French government (Cohen, “North African Nationalists and Zionism”).
5.        ↩ Hedi Timoumi, Zionist Activity in Tunis from 1897 to 1948 (Tunis: Med Ali, 1982), in Arabic.
6.        ↩ La Voix du Tunisien, June 3, 1932, quoted in Cohen, “North African Nationalists and Zionism,” 8.
7.        ↩ Timoumi, Zionist Activity in Tunis from 1897 to 1948.
8.        ↩ Cohen, “North African Nationalists and Zionism.”
9.        ↩ Ghoul, “The Palestinian Question in the Tunisian Press (1917–1936).”
10.     ↩ Avrahami, “Les Juifs de Tunisie sous le régime de Vichy et sous l’occupation allemande, octobre 1940–mai 1943.”
11.     ↩ Walid Khalidi, “Selected Documents on the 1948 Palestine War,” Journal of Palestine Studies 27, no. 3 (1998): 60–105.
12.     ↩ Timoumi, Zionist Activity in Tunis from 1897 to 1948.
13.     ↩ Abdelkrim Allagui, Jews and Muslims in Tunisia: From the Origins to the Present Day (Paris: Tallandier, 2016).
14.     ↩ Olfa Ben Achour, “The Emigration of Jews from Tunisia to Palestine in the 1940s: The Impact of the Zionist Ideal,” Archives Juives 50, no. 2 (2017): 127–47.
15.     ↩ Mohamed Dhayfallah, Salah Ben Youssef, Speeches and Various Documents 1955–1956 (Tunis: University of La Manouba, Higher Institute of Contemporary Tunisian History, 2015), 107, in Arabic.
16.     ↩ In June 1967, Israel occupied the West Bank, East Jerusalem, the Gaza Strip, the Syrian Golan Heights, and the Egyptian Sinai Peninsula.
17.     ↩ Nicolas Dot-Pouillard, “After Defeat, the Arab Left on the Offensive,” Orient XXI, August 29, 2017.
18.     ↩ Ridha Mekni, The Tunisian Left and the Palestinian Question (1947–1988) (Tunis: Dar Hached, 2018), in Arabic.
19.     ↩ Hèla Yousfi, The UGTT, a Tunisian Passion: Investigation into Trade Unionists in Revolution (2011–2014) (Tunis-Paris: IRMC-Karthala, 2015).
20.     ↩ Hichem Abdessamad, Soixante-huit en Tunisie: le mythe et le patrimoine (1968 in Tunisia: Myth and Heritage) (Villeurbanne: Mots Passants, 2019).
21.     ↩ Mekni, The Tunisian Left and the Palestinian Question (1947–1988).
22.     ↩ Mekni, The Tunisian Left and the Palestinian Question (1947–1988).
23.     ↩ See the brochure by the Tunisian Socialist Study and Action Group, entitled “The Palestinian Question in its Relationship to the Development of the Revolutionary Struggle in Tunisia,” Perspectives Tunisiennes, no. 2 (February 1968), nachaz.org.
24.     ↩ Nicolas Dot-Pouillard, “Arab Lefts: Living Memories, Lasting Impact,” Orient XXI, November 7, 2023.
25.     ↩ “Prélude à des relations diplomatiques plus poussées La Tunisie ouvre un bureau à Tel-Aviv,” Le Monde, October 4, 1994.
26.     ↩ Yousfi, The UGTT, a Tunisian Passion.
27.     ↩ Tunisian Parliamentary Archives, “Debates of the National Constituent Assembly, 2012–2013 Sessions.”
28.     ↩ “Adoptez une loi criminalisant la normalisation avec Israël si vous êtes de bonne foi!,” Nawaat, July 24, 2014.
29.     ↩ Linda Kaboudi and Zeïneb Ben Ismail, “Tunisie-Palestine: un soutien affirmé mais limité,” Inkyfada, October 14, 2023.
30.     ↩ Frédéric Bobin, “Hamas Accuses Mossad of Murdering One of Its Leaders in Tunisia,” Le Monde, December 18, 2016.
31.     ↩ Arwa Labidi, “October 1, 1985: The Day the Israeli Occupation Army Bombed Tunisia,” Inkyfada, October 1, 2021.
32.     ↩ “Normalization with Israel Is a Crime against the Freedom of Self-Determination of the Palestinian People and the Arab Peoples,” Inhiyez, August 5, 2023, inhiyez.com, in Arabic.