Tunisian President Kais Saied addressing members of his country’s armed forces. Photo: Reuters/Tunisian Presidency Handout

Tunisia’s President, Kais Saied, this week offered up a full-throated antisemitic conspiracy theory to explain the recent devastating floods in neighboring Libya, marking at least the second time this year that he has made anti-Jewish comments in public.

Speaking on Monday, Saied claimed that the name chosen for the storm in Libya — “Daniel” — was an example of nefarious Zionist influence as he made a link with the ancient Hebrew prophet of the same name.

“Didn’t anyone wonder why the name Daniel was chosen?” Saied asked, adding: “Because the Zionist movement has infiltrated minds and thinking, we’ve fallen into a cognitive coma.”

More than 5,000 people were killed and nearly 40,000 left homeless by the storm, which devastated entire neighborhoods of the Libyan city of Derna.

The names of storms and other severe weather events are chosen by meteorological agencies from alphabetical lists of alternating male and female names.

Saied’s claim of a sinister Jewish influence behind the storm resulted in strong condemnation from Jewish organizations.

The Anti-Defamation League (ADL) said in a statement that Saeid’s comments “resonate with some of the worst conspiracy theories of Jewish control of the weather,” while the French Union of Jewish Students (EUJF) accused Saeid of having “reiterated intolerable antisemitic comments.”

Saeid also took the opportunity to underline his opposition to peace negotiations between Israel and Arab states.

“Normalization for me is a major betrayal. The rights of the Palestinian people must be exercised throughout the entire Palestinian territory,” he said in a veiled reference to the denial, common in the Middle East, of Israel’s right to exist as an independent, sovereign state.

In May, Saeid provoked outrage when he told a meeting of Tunisia’s National Security Council that a deadly gun attack upon worshipers at a historic synagogue on the island of Djerba was not motivated by antisemitism.

Mocking those “who talk about antisemitism when we are in the 21st century,” Saeid accused those who raised the issue of antisemitism of wanting “to sow division to benefit from this discourse.”

Shortly afterwards, Saied doubled down on his comments during a visit to the Tunis suburb of Ariana, the location of the house of his grandfather, where, he said, “Tunisian Jews fleeing the Nazi forces … found refuge.”

“They speak of antisemitism, while the Jews were protected here,” he stated.

Nazi Germany briefly occupied Tunisia from November 1942 to May 1943. According to Yad Vashem, Israel’s national memorial to the Holocaust, the arrival of German troops in Tunisia resulted in the rapid persecution of the Jewish community, with the arrest of its leaders and the enslavement of 3,000 Jews who were forced to work on fortifications in the north of the country. The capture of Tunisia by Allied forces marked the decisive shift, according to Yad Vashem: “Though the German army was accompanied by SS units who came prepared to implement the Final Solution, the Jews of Tunisia were saved because the fortunes of war favored the Jews; the Germans did not have time to subject the Jews to the fate of the Jews in Europe.”

Saeid also charged that Western countries expressing disquiet over antisemitism in Tunisia were ignoring Israel’s repression of the Palestinians.

“These parties do not hesitate to make false accusations of antisemitism, while they turn a deaf ear when it comes to dealing with the fate of Palestinians who die every day,” he said.