Lynne Featherstone has a balanced piece in the Jewish Chron this week:
In Hornsey & Wood Green in North London, there is a strong pro-Israel lobby and a strong pro-Palestinian lobby. When Jenny Tonge made her disgraceful and ignorant comments in the JC, calling for an inquiry into Israel taking organs in Haiti, I got emails from the pro-Israel lobby saying that the Liberal Democrats were pro-Palestinian.
When Nick Clegg then rightly sacked Baroness Tonge from the front bench, I received emails claiming that he had only done so because the “Zionist conspiracy” had got to him. Both were symptomatic of the polarization by the two sides in the Middle East conflict.
The only side the Liberal Democrats are on is the side of peace. We condemn all acts of violence and urge all parties to negotiate a lasting settlement to this crisis. A sustainable solution will only be achieved with two separate Israeli and Palestinian states, mutually recognized and internationally accepted, within secure borders based on the situation before the 1967 conflict.
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17 Comments
It’s amazing what a whiff of power can do to focus minds. I hope there’s discomfiture in the Party apparatus about the Lord Wallace’s equally disgraceful and sinister remarks. Bit embarrassing that they came right before Tonge’s newspaper was found to be promoting David Duke, ain’t it?
This haughty desire to be above reproach is the root of the problem. That anyone in Blighty should think it’s their position to take a view on a regional conflict at the eastern end of the Mediterranean smacks of the meddling they’re likely to be just as keen to decry in others.
One hundred years ago it was, “I’m British! Let me through! Reason for visit? Imperialism!”. Now, just replace “British” for “liberal”, and “Imperialism” with “peace activism”, and the attitude remains.
Tonge’s original sacking (sugared with an elevation to the Lords) were about what she’d do as a Palestinian woman. Not what she’d do as a European woman. “Cos Arabs are more inclined to violence: just as Wallace said that non-Europeans shouldn’t be held to as high a standard as the rest. These are international affairs advizors!
Please, just leave the Israelis and Palestinian Arabs alone. They’ve had enough of the world’s attention.
Jenny Tonge did not make “disgraceful and ignorant comments” – her mistake was to walk into a trap set by the Jewish Chronicle (whose editor is a Tory supporter, by the way).
I am fed up of the way the Israeli lobby endlessly pursues vendettas against Jenny, Chris Davies and anyone else who dares make any criticism of Israeli policy. I realise there’s an election on but there is right and wrong here, and Lynne should get off the fence instead of trying to appease everyone.
Ah, you’ve been listening to Wallace. The ‘trap’ was set because her newspaper had published the calumny! Any responsible journalist should ask pointed questions.
It was not “criticism” which Wallace said the Likud leadership (eliding the difference between Likud and Israelis and now plain-old Jew) but a baseless lie which, as a medical doctor, Tonge should have known was impossible: and which relevant only in the context of historical antisemitism.
If someone had called for the Jamaican Government to conduct an ‘investigation’ into allegations, read on Stormfront, that white women were being preferentially raped on the island, I think we all could recognize the racist subtext.
Yeah, so? One way to avoid such criticism would be to stop peddling unfounded, antisemitic-based lies and associating with promoters of David Duke. D’you even know who he is?
Has anyone noticed how full-frontal criticism of Israeli policy, up to and including full-scale riots are never off our screens? Good, let’s move on.
Simon, neither you nor Tonge and Davies are the heroes of this discussion.
I should add that in December, Tonge was prepared to appear alongside Kristina Morvai, a well-known Hungarian fascist.
I am sorry that Lynne describes Jenny’s comment as “disgraceful and ignorant.” I could point out that her comment was issued as an official Liberal Democrat press notice.
Whatever Jenny may be she is not ignorant about the Israel Palestine issue. Just because you disagree with her does not make her ignorant.
Tony Greaves
Malintentioned, then.
FFS, come on! If you don’t hate Israel you should see the obvious. For us it is obvious that people with that kind of venom against Israel are simply sick.
Good grief, I didn’t know that! Where?
There is nothing inimical about being “pro-Israeli” and “pro-Palestinian”. The causes Tonge attaches herself to, however, are anti-Israel.
She has said that as a Palestinian Arab woman she would become a suicide-terrorist: not as a European woman whose home [supposedly] was under attack. She’d definitely not empathize with Israeli women whose children were being deliberately targeted.
She has recycled calumnies about Israel rooted in European antisemitism.
She has been prepared to appear alongside Hungarian neo-Nazis.
Her newspaper has promoted David Duke.
If the above are acceptable, then her position is to be considered, at the very least, supportive of targeted mass-killing of Israeli civilians (a war-crime) and consanguineous with antisemitism: which I’m sure you’re about to tell us is not your intention.
Anti-Zionism and trenchant critics of Israel are not necessarily antisemites, but they have a habit of stumbling into antisemitic politics.
After her first sacking, she traveled to Israel and listened to a surgeon treating mutilated and traumatized Israeli children who bewailed the fact that the kingpin of such attacks was a paediatrician. She listened and nodded, then returned to Britain and continued with her wretched remarks.
She is without empathy for Israeli misfortune. With friends like this, the Palestinian Arabs don’t need enemies.
No-one said it does. So stop being disingenuous. There is no room for ‘disagreement’ on the organ theft story. It’s a lie.
Why are you not responding to my Jamaican analogy?
This thread and seemingly any discussion held on Israel Palestine in these isles is “symptomatic of the polarization by the two sides in the Middle East conflict”…
“This thread and seemingly any discussion held on Israel Palestine in these isles is “symptomatic of the polarization by the two sides in the Middle East conflict”…”
You know, that would be true only if I just started saying that British people are pirates by birth and can only succeed by sucking other people’s riches. Then you would be correct in saying there is polarization. But presently I can only see one side making outrageous remarks about a whole country and its people, and the side is not the Israeli.
So I guess the correct way to look at this is that there are some British people who are comfortable denigrating Israel using antisemitic topics and those people are the extremists. You are projecting on us your own problematic attitudes.
http://www.thejc.com/blogpost/follow-money#new
What influence has Nadhmi Auchi’s Anglo-Arab Organisation had on the LibDems’ Middle East policies?
Not from me. The most painful experience possible for both Israelis and Palestinian Arabs is to be told that their conflict is at the fulcrum of world events and *must* be solved… then, when the inevitable failure to achieve this occurs, the disappointment is all the more crushing.
Jonathan Hoffman raises a point about the influence of Arab magnates and their partisan opposition to one side in the conflict (‘cos one can be both pro-Israel and pro-Palestinian, it ain’t a zero sum game).
There are Arabic and Farsi language newspapers and broadcasters operating within this country and promoting an overtly anti-Israel and often antisemitic line.
There are foreign Governments funding similar domestic organizations in Britain.
Well-known neo-Nazis are able to goose-step onto the guest list at ‘solidarity’ events.
There are mass-protests whenever something goes down over there – contrasted to the lack of response during the Sri Lankan Government’s assault on the LTTE and Tamil civilians – and full-scale riots in which Police are assaulted.
Israeli politicians are pursued through legal loopholes by lifestyle activists. Even cultural events are interrupted on air.
There are Parliamentary and Church and trade union and media figures who regularly take a partisan position.
Compare to all that, Tonge isn’t allowed to call for the Israeli Government to investigate a lie which appeared in her newspaper, and Wallace insists she wasn’t antisemitic: just incredibly, incredibly thick in falling for an obviously loaded question.
Plus, he called her “overly emotional” on the issue… is it me or was there a hint of sexism,dismissal of the distaff side’s temperament here?
Perhaps it would be better to discuss Baroness Tonge’s borderline and racist comments and why the Lib Dems can’t bring it upon themselves to expel her ?
That’s an easy one. If the party went around expelling everybody who might hold an opinion you object to, then it could hardly claim to be a Liberal party. One of its core values is the right of everybody to have whatever opinions they want and associate with whoever they want, and another is the right of everybody to be judged fairly on the basis of evidence, not persecuted on the basis of rumour and association. If you think it should do this thing, all that really tells us is that you’re not a Liberal.
As for the rest of this comment threat, it looks like Lynne called it perfectly. Her article is an accurate description of what I see here.
Why not? Even lower-case liberalism is not permissiveness and libertine. But, there is no question if Tonge holds these views. She does. And uses her Party position to add credence to them.
Plus, she is on record as claiming the “Zionists” have gained control of political structures, even within this Party. Vovchik has gone one step further, I admit, but given that Tonge has not had problems with associating with people who believed the Nazis were best for Europe, she’s not far behind.
What is it about contemporary anti-Zionism which always tends towards encouraging neo-Nazis?
“f the party went around expelling everybody who might hold an opinion you object to, then it could hardly claim to be a Liberal party.”
A strawman, we are talking specifically about Baroness Tonge’s known and articulated views, not other people.
Do you believe that someone who thinks “the western world is in the grip of Zionist control” is a suitable candidate for LibDem membership ?
Or that someone who contributes to the pushing of the Offal libel is fit for LibDem membership ?
Well?
Are you seriously suggesting that there are forms of liberalism which can tolerate persecution based on rumours about a person’s opinion? I find this unlikely. Such persecution is the very opposite of everything liberalism stands for, so far as I can see.
In any event, the preamble to the federal constitution is the closest thing that the Lib Dem party has to a credo, and it states:
So, yes. It is those who object to freedom of conscience – the right of every person to have any viewpoint or thought – that are unwelcome in the party. It’s right there at the top of the constitution. If you don’t accept that as a fundamental right then you’re probably not a liberal, but you’re definitely not a Lib Dem.
I’m questioning it, right now. Show your evidence.
Show this record. (Protip: if it was the libellous misquote that I debunk later in this post, the next thing you write had better be a retraction of this allegation)
Show your evidence – although even if you had any, persecution based on association is absolutely unacceptable.
Show your evidence.
That is not an accurate quote; misquoting to an extent as extreme and perfidious as you use here would normally be considered libellous, even for a pseudonymous author. Certainly it would result in maximal fines if published in the mainstream media. What she actually said was:
Citing her source as “The Israel Lobby”, Mearscheimer and Walt, London Review of Books 2006 (well-known anti-semitic outlet, right?). An article which went on to become a New York Times
(I heard they fed Hitler’s dog!)bestseller, was written by two respected professors at Chicago and Harvard(neo-Nazi training centres!), and does support her claim that Israel is a major world power with significant influence on US foreign policy. It was later disputed by other scholars, but that was the following year; she could not have known about it at the time.I do not think that citing such an article is grounds for expulsion from the party, even if it is later discredited; indeed, I would welcome more members who were capable of citing reputable sources and showing evidence for their statements.
She has been very clear on this point:
Hence, any attempt to claim she meant otherwise would be an obvious lie, and I am not ashamed to call you a liar for doing so.
Google indicates that the only person on the entire internet who talks about “offal libel” is you, even if you do spend a remarkable amount of time posting vague references to it on every blog you can find. I don’t think the rantings of a lone pseudonymous author need any further response (or any effort to figure out what they’re ranting about, although you’re welcome to present any actual evidence of wrongdoing of any kind).
I will not tolerate persecution based on rumour and lies. That is a bad thing, and must be stamped out wherever it appears.
At present, the only thing I really know about Tonge’s personal opinions is that (a) a quick check on google and wikipedia reveals no support for any of these claims, (b) the last time she came up here, nobody had any real evidence to show for their claims, and (c) she is fervently hated by a handful of rumourmongers, liars, and kooks. On the basis that a good measure of a person’s character is the quality of the enemies they make, she’s seeming like a decent sort of person so far.
Andrew Suffield,
I applaud your desire to support a fellow party member, Baroness Tonge, to the hilt.
It’s not an untypical attitude, often found in politics across the political spectrum.
If you wish to put a charitable spin on Baroness Tonge’s questionable remarks then I doubt there is anything anyone could say that will convince you otherwise.
However, I do wonder what you will say when she next makes a borderline comment? As surely she will.