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CNN
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Tunisian chief Kais Saied has claimed that the “Zionist motion” was behind the naming of Storm Daniel, which introduced on huge floods that killed hundreds of individuals in Libya final week, prompting outrage and accusations of antisemitism.

“Has nobody questioned why it was known as so? Who’s Daniel? He’s a Hebrew prophet,” mentioned the 65-year-old president in an almost hour-long monologue at a cupboard assembly on Monday. “Why did they identify the storm Daniel? As a result of the Zionist motion has penetrated, has made it to the core of the thoughts and considering… From Abraham to Daniel, it’s clear.”

Swaths of the Mediterranean area have been lashed by Storm Daniel this month. The storm was the results of a really robust low-pressure system that turned a “medicane” – a comparatively uncommon kind of storm with related traits to hurricanes and typhoons which might deliver harmful rainfall and flooding.

The storm was named Daniel by the nationwide meteorological providers in southeast Europe, and shaped on September 5, affecting Greece, Turkey, Bulgaria and at last Libya – which witnessed the worst devastation and highest demise toll.

Storm names are picked from a listing compiled by the United Nations World Meteorological Group committee. The names are sometimes organized alphabetically, they usually fluctuate by area as they’re meant to be acquainted to the folks in every impacted space.

The president’s feedback sparked outrage on social media. Some dismissed his speech as a misinformed rant, noting that the biblical determine Daniel can be revered as a prophet by Muslims.

Others denounced Saied’s feedback as antisemitic.

Monica Marks, a professor of Center East politics at New York College Abu Dhabi who focuses on Tunisia, mentioned that Saied’s feedback have been a part of a sample of “scapegoating and victimizing” completely different teams, together with Black migrants and members of the opposition.

Within the cupboard assembly, Saied mentioned that his “subject will not be with Jews” however with the “worldwide Zionist motion.”

Tunisia is residence to between 1,500 and a pair of,000 Jews, down from practically 100,000 within the Nineteen Forties, in line with Minority Rights Group Worldwide. Round one third of Tunisian Jews dwell within the capital Tunis, whereas the rest are in Djerba, an island off the coast of the nation.

A lethal assault on the synagogue on Djerba island earlier this 12 months led Saied to pledge security for all Jews within the nation.

The president isn’t any stranger to controversy and has been accused of peddling racism up to now. This 12 months, Saied decried the incompatibility of Black African “values” with these of Tunisians, saying his grandfather “used to purchase and promote them.” He additionally mentioned that Black migration to the nation was a plot to vary the racial make-up of the nation.

Saied launched into a serious energy seize in 2021, ousting the federal government, dissolving parliament, and deciding to rule by decree. Final 12 months, he pushed via a brand new structure that solely cemented his one-man rule.

In his speech, Saied additionally denied being racist in opposition to Africans, saying “we’re happy with being African.” He attributed accusations of racism in opposition to him as “a part of the worldwide Zionist motion.”

He additionally attacked different Arab international locations’ normalization offers with Israel, calling them “excessive treason.”

Marks mentioned that Tunisia’s dwindling Jewish group is alarmed by Saied’s conspiratorial rhetoric, which she says represents an “excessive Arab nationalist minority.” His feedback, she mentioned, sharpen the antisemitic discourse “in new and harmful methods.”