Shalom is due in Tunis on November 10.

TUNIS, October 24, 2005 (IslamOnline.net) – Tunisian high and preliminary school teachers will stage a strike on November 10 to protest a planned visit by Israeli Foreign Minister Sylvan Shalom to the country to attend the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS).

"The strike comes to protest normalization of ties with the Zionist entity," the country’s Syndicate of Teachers said in a statement issued Sunday, October 23, reported the London-based Al-Quds Press news agency.

Tunisia has invited some 100 government leaders including, Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, who accepted the invitation but it is not clear yet whether he would lead the Israeli delegation to the two-day summit, due to start on November 16.

"We condemn the open-arms policy of the Tunisian government with the Zionists," said the statement.

"Our pleas to retract invitations to the Israeli officials have fell on deaf ears."

The Tunisian opposition warned the government of a "public uprising" if it did not retract the Sharon invitation.

Tunisian-Israeli ties date back to 1957, when the Republic of Tunisia was declared after the evacuation of French troops.

Then prime minister Habib Bourguiba met secretly at the time with Alec L. Easterman, head of The World Jewish Congress ( WJC ) political bureau in London, and assured him that his country would join the Arab League but would not necessarily follow its policies.

In march 1965, Bourguiba surprised the Arab world by publicly urging Arab leaders, in a famous speech in Jericho, to recognize Israel in return for negotiations in the spirit of UN resolutions 181 and 194.

The Arab League decided in 1966 not to normalize ties with Tel Aviv unless it abided by UN Security Council resolutions related to the Palestinian cause.

Egypt and Jordan were the sole exceptions because they have peace agreements with Israel.