Tunisian president-elect: Normal ties with Israel are ‘high treason’

Tunisia’s president-elect said that normalisation of his country’s relations with Israel are tantamount to “high treason.”

Kais Saied, an academic who won a resounding victory in the final round of presidential voting on Sunday, was asked about the normalisation of ties with Israel in a televised debate two days earlier.

“‘Normalisation’ is the wrong word to use,” Saied said. “We should be talking about high treason.”

Tunisia has no diplomatic relations with Israel.

A law proposed last year would have criminalised ties with Jerusalem, but then-president Caid Essebsi did not endorse it.