After independence from France Habib Bourgiba became President of Tunisia…He was an interesting man, often compared to Ataturk. He was the only Arab leader to protect the Jewish community and refrain from the blood curdling invectives against Israel although he early promoted recognition in exchange for going back to 1949 borders. After the Lebanon war, the idiotic US policy sent the PLO leadership to exile in Tunisia. I visited Tunis and Djerba in the fifties…..there was a beautiful synagogue in Djerba which suffered a terrible jihad attack in April 2002 where 19 people including many German tourists were killed.   Time will now tell if Tunisia will fall to harsh Sharia law…..stay tuned….rsk

By MARGARET COKER http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704323204576083293438152806.html?mod=WSJ_hp_LEFTTopStories

TUNIS—The speaker of Tunisia’s parliament was named interim president and talks started on the formation of a caretaker government Saturday, a day after the first successful mass uprising against an Arab leader in years forced former president Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali to flee the country.

Mr. Ben Ali left Friday for Saudi Arabia amid swelling protests fueled by unemployment, police crackdowns and his 23-year autocratic rule. In a statement read on national television Saturday, the head of Tunisia’s constitutional council said that elections must be held within 60 days and that parliament speaker Foued Mebazaa would act as the country’s president until then.

Mr. Mebazaa started meetings with opposition parties Saturday on the formation of a caretaker government ahead of the elections, according to opposition party figures.

Saturday’s developments offer some clarity about the political situation in the wake of Mr. Ben Ali’s sudden departure from office. On Friday, Prime Minister Mohammed Ghannouchi said he had temporarily assumed power, after Mr. Ben Ali had attempted to dissolve Mr. Ghannouchi’s government.

Uncertainty lingered in Tunis on Saturday. State security agencies showed no signs of weakening. Multiple security police units patrolled central Tunis, and the army was deployed around the city. Authorities kept the public from congregating.

Tanks blocked the boulevard where the Interior Ministry is located. Balaclava-wearing snipers had taken position on the ministry roof. Plainclothes security police armed with wooden batons patrolled, and only residents of the street are allowed to pass through.

But the mood among many citizens was joyful. Many are relieved at the announcement today that passed power into the speaker of parliament’s hands according to the constitution. “Today is the first day I am proud to be Tunisian,” said lawyer Noureddinne Jerbi. “Ben Ali is gone, his family are gone and the rule of law is being respected,” he said.

Air France-KLM and Deutsche Lufthansa AG cancelled their flights to Tunisia Saturday and said they would watch Saturday developments before deciding to resume Sunday. Thomas Cook AG, the German arm of the U.K.’s Thomas Cook Group PLC on Friday organized four flights to take about 230 tourists to Germany, while another 2,000 will leave Tunisia in the coming days.

Tunisian Prime Minister Ghannouchi has temporarily assumed power and President Ben Ali has fled the country following riots in the capital Tunis. Margaret Coker is there and has the latest developments. Plus, Clinton urges China to embrace reform.

Word that Tunisia’s entrenched leader had fallen from power sent shockwaves across the Middle East. Arabs have been transfixed by Tunisians’ rare display of grass-roots power and its culmination Friday in the ouster of the leader in one of the region’s most authoritarian countries. Such an overthrow would be the region’s biggest in decades, since Iran’s 1979 overthrow of the U.S.-backed shah and mass demonstrations that toppled Sudan’s government in the 1980s.

Activists and opposition figures in the wider Middle East say Tunisia’s popular protests and clashes with police forces have broken a psychological barrier in other countries in the region with authoritarian regimes, political repression and a lack of jobs and opportunities. Friday’s demonstration in Tunis, the largest public gathering in a generation, “may well go down in history as the Arab equivalent of the Solidarity movement in the Gdansk shipyard,” said Rami Khouri, an Arab political commentator.

In Egypt, where President Hosni Mubarak has brooked little dissent during his three-decade rule, about 50 people in Cairo danced and sang, “Ben Ali, tell Mubarak his plane is waiting, too.”

There was little official response throughout the Middle East. The Arab League held a hastily called special session on the developments in Tunisia as they met Thursday for a regularly scheduled meeting in Qatar, reflecting concern about the instability there, according to an Arab official.

Friday’s events also marked a new chapter in the U.S.’s relations with Tunisia, whose previous regime received modest amounts of U.S. aid but frustrated U.S. officials. In a confidential 2009 U.S. cable leaked recently by WikiLeaks, an official wrote that Mr. Ben Ali’s rule had degenerated into a “sclerotic” regime. “By many measures, Tunisia should be a close U.S. ally. But it is not,” the cable said.

In a statement Friday, President Barack Obama applauded “the courage and dignity” of Tunisians and called for the government to respect human rights and hold elections soon. His statement came a day after Secretary of State Hillary Clinton blasted governments across the Muslim world for stagnant political orders, saying unaddressed corruption or repression could set the stage for more violence.

Unlike Algeria, Egypt, Libya and others in North Africa, Tunisia has little in the way of homegrown Islamist activity. Senior U.S. officials here say its popular uprising was fueled by an educated young population and a dissatisfied middle class. Protests have crossed class divides, with trade unions, well-known artists and social organizations participating.

Still, many U.S. and European officials remain wary about what could replace the government in Tunisia as well as in other Arab capitals if the democratic tide intensifies. One troubling example is militant group Hezbollah’s use of the political system in Lebanon to increase its power.

“We have no idea what comes next,” said a senior European official. While he said Islamist parties don’t appear to have a major role in the country, he added: “We don’t know what’s hiding in the shadows.”

On Friday evening, Mr. Ghannouchi cited constitutional provisions that stipulate a president who is temporarily unable to conduct his duties should delegate them to the prime minister. “I will, starting from now, exercise the prerogatives of the president,” Mr. Ghannouchi said in the statement. He promised to “respect the constitution, to work on reforming economic and social issues with care and to consult with all the sides.”

Diplomats in the Tunisian capital describe Mr. Ghannouchi, 69 years old, as an able technocrat. He has served as prime minister for approximately a decade and prior to that was the minister for development and international cooperation. He is a member of Mr. Ben Ali’s party but isn’t considered a member of his inner circle, diplomats say.

The nature of Mr. Ghannounchi’s relationship with the phalanx of men who make up the backbone of the police state Mr. Ben Ali built is unclear. It also wasn’t apparent whether Tunisia’s strong security forces and normally apolitical military would intervene in affairs, or whether Mr. Ben Ali would seek to assert himself further in national politics.

Friday’s events left Tunisians joyful and wary about the future. “The taste of victory is indescribable,” said Soufian Ltifieh, a teacher from Tunis. “This is our second independence day.”

Mr. Ben Ali, 74 years old, came to power in a bloodless coup in 1987 and is only the second president in the country since Tunisia gained independence from France in 1956. He and his family held close control over politics and major swaths of the economy, diplomats here say.

Tunisians take to the streets to celebrate the president’s announcement that he will step down from office following recent political unrest, while others demand his immediate resignation. Video courtesy of Reuters and photo courtesy of AP.

Known as a strong-man president, he consistently won elections that were often criticized over their fairness. Most opposition parties were banned under his rule. In 2009, he was re-elected for a fifth five-year term with 89% of the vote.

When he came to power, he was generally popular. Throughout the 1990s, Tunisians witnessed healthy economic growth and the country was the envy of many natural resource-poor countries in the region. The country’s Mediterranean beaches became popular with European tourists, and Tunisia counts itself as a leader in the Arab world for promoting women’s rights and education.

But by the mid-2000s, dissatisfaction had grown. The government did a poor job adapting to the global financial crisis, which has hit its tourism- and manufacturing-dominated economy hard, diplomats say. This failure, these people say, exacerbated the economic imbalances between the capital and the less-developed areas inside the country and the lack of jobs for skilled, university graduates.

Protests over unemployment and police crackdowns erupted in mid-December in the western Sidi Bouzid region and spread quickly across the country.

U.S. diplomatic cables released by WikiLeaks at around the same time underscored existing perceptions of government corruption, some protesters say. In one, an embassy official called the country a “police state” and described multiple allegations of corruption by the president’s family members.

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REUTERSPresident Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali addressed the nation before leaving the country.

“Many Tunisians are frustrated by the lack of political freedom and angered by First Family corruption, high unemployment and regional inequities,” one diplomat wrote.”In the end, serious change here will have to await Ben Ali’s departure.”

The events that immediately preceded the president’s exit, including whether he left of his own volition, remained unclear. On Thursday, Messrs. Ben Ali and Ghannouchi held a private meeting with a small group of opposition leaders who discussed a new governing arrangement, according to a person who was briefed on the meeting.

Tunisians from all walks of life crowded Friday morning onto a central tree-lined boulevard in Tunis shouting for the president to stand down. Common chants included “Get Out, Ben Ali!” and “Ben Ali: Thanks, but Enough Is Enough!”

The crowd broke out singing the national anthem in regular intervals and directed cat-calls to undercover security agents who scrambled across rooftops to record the faces of those who had gathered in the streets. For hours, anti-riot police stood on the sidelines but didn’t interfere with the protest.

By mid-afternoon, however, clashes began and police fired tear gas into the crowd and beat demonstrators after a group of people tried to climb the security gate in front of the ministry building. The streets cleared quickly, with parents sweeping up their children and young people melting back down side streets.

Mr. Ben Ali declared a state of emergency and a nationwide curfew. He dissolved the government and promised new legislative elections within six months.

But Mr. Ben Ali also spent part of the day Friday on the phone with some Arab leaders seeking safe places for a temporary exile, according to one person familiar with the situation.

Within an hour of his emergency declaration, military vehicles took up position at the airport and the presidential airplane departed, according to two officials. State television reported that Mr. Ben Ali was heading for Malta. According to Al Jazeera network, the plane continued to France. A French officials said, however, that Paris didn’t get a request and doesn’t wish to host Mr. Ben Ali. He landed eventually in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, according to a person familiar with the situation.

Within hours, the nation was abuzz with a sense of optimism about the future. “It’s our hard-won victory,” said Zied Mhirsi, a 33-year-old doctor.

—Keith Johnson, Summer Said, Jay Solomon and David Gauthier-Villars contributed to this article.