National Library of Tunisia
The protest took place at an exhibition at Tunisia's national library. Google Maps

Protesters turned up to a Holocaust exhibition in the capital of Tunisia, tore down posters and chanted anti-Jewish slogans.

Video shows the protest turning ugly with people chanting slogans such as "Free Palestine, out with the Zionists".

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The exhibition at the National Library in Tunis was the idea of professor Habib Kazdhaghli and had been organised well before Donald Trump declared the US would recognise Jerusalem as the capital of Israel.

The exhibition last month was supported by the Holocaust Museum in Washington, UNESCO, the UN and the German Rosa Luxemburg Foundation.

Kazdhaghli said the aim was to expose and denounce Nazi propaganda and was centred around smaller versions of large exhibits at the UNESCO headquarters.

"The negotiations about this exhibition were held months ago. By mere coincidence, the statement by Trump (about Jerusalem) was made now, but this does not change anything.

"The purpose of this exhibition is to make our children love... I'm an historian, but my children don't like history," he said, according to Meem magazine online and translated by the Middle East Media Research Institute (Memri).

But activist Hamida Bessaad said that employees of the National Library, union members, researchers, and readers felt strongly about the exhibition.

"He (Kazdhaghli) is upset that Tunisian children don't know about the Holocaust of the Jews, but he is not upset that the children of Palestine have been going through a Holocaust since 1948 and to this day," she said.

Another activist, Omar Al-Majri, said: "The Holocaust was perpetrated by the Zionist movement in collaboration with the Nazis, in order to transfer the Jews to Palestine".

Video shows the civil society activist Kawthar Chebbi even describe the Holocaust as a "decades-old myth" and a lie.

Political activist Omar Al-Majri said that the Holocaust had been "perpetrated by the Zionist movement in collaboration with the Nazis." The protest took place on 15 December 2017.

Ties between Tunisia and Israel have been strained over the years. Relations were frozen in 2000 after Tunis protested Israel's response to the Second Intifada. Meanwhile Tunisia's tourism minister was criticised for a trip she took to the Jewish state in 2014.

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