Ghannouchi rules out normalisation with Israel

The head of Tunisia's Ennahda party, Rached al-Ghannouchi, said on Saturday that his country cannot normalise ties with Israel. The Tunisian official news agency TAP quoted al-Ghannouchi as saying “Tunisians' problem is with Zionism, not with Judaism,” adding that “there can be no normalisation with Israel.” Addressing a ceremony on Saturday in the north-western town of Beja, marking Land Day, al-Ghannouchi said that the only way for Palestinians to reclaim their land now occupied by Israel,  is through “the victory of democratic regimes in the Arab World.” He also accused Tunisia's former president Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali, who was toppled in a revolution that started the Arab Spring last year, of being “a collaborator with the Zionists.” A few hundred people held a rally outside the national assembly building in Tunis on Friday to protest any normalisation of ties with Israel.