British MP Jenny Tonge was also the Liberal Democrats' spokeswoman for children, until she was removed for suggesting that if she lived in the PA, she'd become a suicide bomber too. It is refreshing that this astounding example of moral confusion was not met with supine dhimmitude from Liberal Democratic officials. The report is from the Guardian, with thanks to nevermindlv:
Charles Kennedy has asked Jenny Tonge to step down as the Liberal Democrats' spokeswoman for children following her claim that she might consider becoming a suicide bomber if she lived in the Palestinian territories. The MP made her remarks at a meeting of the Palestinian Solidarity Campaign [PSC] on Wednesday, and has subsequently insisted she did not mean to condone suicide bombings.Yesterday the party distanced itself from the MP, with a spokesman saying: "Jenny Tonge was expressing her personal views. The Liberal Democrats do not condone terrorism."
But Dr Tonge and the Lib Dems have continued to suffer a barrage of criticism, including a demand from the shadow foreign secretary, Michael Ancram, that Mr Kennedy condemn his colleague.
Mr Ancram claimed the party's response to Dr Tonge's remarks was "fainthearted" and asked the Lib Dem leader whether he believed it would "satisfy those who have suffered at the hands of suicide bombers".
"I urge you to personally intervene by distancing both yourself and your party from Dr Tonge's comments as a matter of urgency," he demanded.
Dr Tonge has also been condemned by a spokesman for the Israeli embassy, who said: "We would not expect any human being - and surely not a British MP - to express an understanding of such atrocities."
The Labour MP Louise Ellman, a member of the Holocaust educational trust, also demanded that she apologise for "giving the green light to terrorism".
Dr Tonge told the PSC: "This particular brand of terrorism, the suicide bomber, is truly born out of desperation.
"Many, many people criticise, many, many people say it is just another form of terrorism, but I can understand and I am a fairly emotional person and I am a mother and a grandmother. I think if I had to live in that situation, and I say this advisedly, I might just consider becoming one myself.
"And that is a terrible thing to say."
This morning she sought to clarify her remark, telling BBC Breakfast: "That doesn't mean to say I condone suicide bombers, I don't. "I think it's appalling and loathsome. But we have to try and understand where they are coming from and understand the situation in which they live."
This is now utterly garbled. If it's appalling and loathsome, what exactly does understanding the situation add? Does it make it less appalling and loathsome?
This is a copy of a letter I sent to Dr. Tonge and to Charles Kennedy MP, leader of the Liberal Democrat Party ...
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Dear Dr. Tonge,
I was interested in your recent and much-publicised comments that "you can understand where [suicide bombers] are coming from". Now if I follow it correctly, I believe that your argument seems to be that because of the injustice and oppression that the Palestinians face on a daily basis, the steady stream of suicide bombers is wholly understandable, albeit it in no way justifiable. I hope that I have the gist of your argument.
However, what puzzles me is that the Palestinians are not the first to face injustice and poverty, either historically nor in terms of the contemporary world situation. For example, right now one could list Tibet, Burma, Zimbabwe, North Korea, Sudan, Saudi Arabia and Tajikistan as just a few of the many countries in the world where one group is experiencing oppression at the hands of the ruling powers. If we were to speak of poverty, one could give a long list of countries whose citizens find themselves daily struggling for survival. If one was to turn to recent history, the terrible cruelty faced by black South Africans during the apartheid era would be just one example. But in each case the oppressed or poverty-stricken group did not turn to "martydom operations", strapping bombs to their bodies and aiming to blow civilians to pieces. (To the best of my knowledge, the Dalai Lama has not yet asked his followers to blow themselves at civilian targets inside China). Thus your thesis that poverty and/or oppression is the driving force behind Palestinian suicide bombings seems to lack explanatory scope.
Thus we are left with only three possibilities as far as I see things:
(a) One has somehow to argue that the Palestinians face *more* poverty and *more* oppression than any other group ever has done.
(b) That the Palestinians are somehow predisposed to violence.
(c) That some other ideology, be it political or religious, is actually the deciding factor.
I think (a) can be dismissed fairly easily when one looks at the list in my second paragraph. Whilst (b) is nothing short of racism and is a position I presume even the infamous Mr. Kilroy-Silk would find it hard to argue for. Thus we are left with (c), a theory that perhaps gains in explanatory scope when one looks at other groups who are prepared to condone suicide operations; what they all have in common is a radical Islamicist ideology. It is this, I suggest, not poverty or oppression (which no-one denies the Palestinians face) that is the deciding cause.
This morning I was tempted to dismiss your comments as being of the same ilk as the aforementioned Mr. Kilroy-Silk. With reflection, I am now finding it hard to decide whether:
- You are extremely shrewd, realise the problem is indeed radical Islam, but feel unable to say so in today's political climate and thus made your comments knowing that somebody would try to follow through the rationale and end up with (c) above
- You are extremely naive and hadn't actually explored the implications of what you said.
Given your excellent track record as a leading Liberal Democrat MP, I can only assume that the former is true. In which case, let me congratulate you on attempting to raise the issue of radical Islam and may I encourage you to articulate this more clearly in the future. The Palestinians are a proud and noble people but sadly, like many in the Muslim world, many of their number are saddled with a radical Islamicist ideology that does not simply see Israel as the enemy but the whole of the non-Muslim world. (If you don't believe me, simply skim-read a Muslim writer such as Qutb or Mawdudi). It is this ideology that will need to be overcome if the Palestinians are to achieve a lasting and peaceful destiny, and if the Muslim world as a whole is to achieve political reform.
Yours sincerely,
Andy Bannister
Doctoral Student in Islamics
Andy Bannister
Very well argued - I've nothing to add except that I believer there is a free speech issue here and people shouldn't be sacked for saying what they think. Instead, those opinions should be challenged, or in some cases ridiculed.
Jenny Tongue needs an eye-opening lesson in the last one hundred years of Arab (Palestinian) rejectionism. They could have had peace and prosperity if they had simply accepted any of the reasonable plans put forward since the Faisal-Weizmann accord at the end of WW1. Their "plight" is down to their own violence.
BK