The Jews have claimed, especially since 1881, that they needed their own separate homeland. The land they claim is the land that they have occupied since about 1406 BC when Joshua led the children of Israel into God’s Promised Land.The Jews have lived there continuously, and in large numbers ever since. All sorts of empires have conquered and ruled them. The Assyrians, the Babylonians, the Medo-Persians, the Greeks, the Romans, the Byzantines and finally the Ottoman Empire. In about 635 AD the Arabs came as the latest conquerors of the Promised Land. But those Arabs didn’t stay there for very long. They were replaced by an enormous mix of different peoples, mostly connected with Islam, but including Christians. Many Muslim dominated cultures then ruled the Promised Land, with the exception of the time that the Christian Crusaders ruled the land for about 88 years between 1099 AD to 1187 AD and for other short periods. Then they were replaced by the Mamaluks, initially Muslim slave soldiers, but they became rulers of their own empire. Then the Ottoman Empire replaced them in about 1516 and after that ruled there continuously until the First World War saw their empire destroyed and new nations created out of their territory in the Middle East, including land that was intended to become Israel – modern day Israel and Jordan. The Jews got their own land and the Persians got back their lands of modern day Iran.The Jewish claim to their own homeland began to be agitated for by the Zionists (the movement for the Jews to get their lands back) from about 1881. The Zionists got their biggest boost with the British Balfour Declaration in November 1917 which promised what the Zionists wanted – a homeland for the Jews. The land that they had owned, or at least never ceased to live on, since 1406 BC – so for nearly 2,500 years. In fact the territory that formed Jewish lands in their day were much bigger than what the Jews were finally given as Israel.But the Muslims, who were trying to get their own states carved out of the collapsing Ottoman Empire, just like the Jews were, say that there never was a need for a Jewish homeland because they always lived in peace and harmony with the Jews.My last programme didn’t support that argument – at all. Since North Africa and the Middle East has been under Muslim rule, the Jews have suffered the unsufferable, at least in the countries that I looked at last time, which were Yemen, Iraq, Morocco, and Algeria. Well there are other Arab countries besides these so in this programme that finishes looking at Muslim countries in North Africa and the Middle East, I’ll see whether the Jews lived in contentment and harmony in those other countries. I’m going to start first with Tunisia.Tag words: Israel; Arabs; Muslims; Jews; Promised Land; Joshua; Christian Crusaders; Mamaluks; Ottoman Empire; First World War; Zionists; Balfour Declaration; dhimmi; Anselme Adorne; Al-Jannabi; Saad Dynasty; Morocco; Tunisia; ghettoes; hara; mellahs; Muhammad Bey; Salomon Garsin; Yom Kippur; A Taninos; Syria; Damascus; Arab Conquest; Albert Hourani; Abd al-Rahim al-Jawbari; Koran; Hayyim the Jew; JL Burckhardt; EBB Barker; HL Bodman; Lebanon; Druse Rebellion; Dir-el-Qamar; Libya; Byzantines; Almohads; Ali Gurzi Pasha; synagogue; Zliten; David Littman; Jews Under Muslim Rule in the Late Nineteenth Century;