It all started when an Arutz-7 reporter went to Tunisia to cover the annual Jewish pilgrimage to the synagogue in Djerba, an event that attracted many rabbis from Europe and Israel.
Arutz-7 got a video statement from the Grand Mufti of Tunisia, Othamane Battikh:
Now Tunisian Islamists are upset that the Mufti spoke to Israeli TV, and call for him to be removed from office.
The opposition Popular Popular Party demanded in a statement published Wednesday that the Mufti should be removed because of his statement which was "a deviation from the deep conscience of the Tunisian people and a betrayal of the blood of its martyrs."
The Mufti, under fire, now claims, implausibly, that the Arutz-7 reporter pretended to be an Arab reporter!
He told the Akher Khabar newspaper that he had been duped by the Israeli journalist who interviewed him, who pretended to be a Palestinian, having worked as a press secretary to Yasser Arafat.
His statement to the camera obviously doesn't bear that out; it is obvious he is speaking to a Jewish audience. But he knows more than most how Arab Islamists could act.