Jenny Tonge

Brief Summary

Dr Jennifer Louise Tonge, Baroness Tonge (born Jennifer Louise Smith 19 February 1941, Walsall), also known as Jenny Tonge, is a politician in the United Kingdom. She was Liberal Democrat Member of Parliament (MP) for Richmond Park in London from 1997 to 2005.

Critic of Israel's Occupation Policies

Following her election to Parliament in 1997, Tonge served as Liberal Democrat spokeswoman on international development but was sacked by Liberal Democrat leader Charles Kennedy in January 2004 after saying she could understand why a Palestinian would become a suicide bomber and also that she would consider becoming one were she a Palestinian. Tonge refused to apologise, stating that she did not condone the bombers.

Tonge has been and remains a vocal critic of Israeli disregard for international, UN, Quartet and other agreements calling on Israel to end its Occupation, to uphold international humanitarian law and to disband the settlements, as called for by these agreements.

In September 2006, she claimed in a speech at the Liberal Democrat conference (aired on the BBC Radio 4 programme "Today") that the "pro-Israeli lobby has got its financial grips on the Western World" and on "our party". She was accused of reviving the language of classic anti-Semitic conspiracy theories, and heavily criticised by Norman Lamb MP, spokesman for Liberal Democrat leader Menzies Campbell. Campbell later wrote a letter to Tonge, which was quoted in a Board of Deputies press release, in which he disassociated himself and the party from what he called "her deeply offensive remarks and what I believe to be their clear antisemitic connotations." Tonge has continued to criticize the "oppression" of the Palestinians at the hands of the Israelis and insists that her claim that the "lobby" has its grips on the western world simply constitutes "criticism".

Liberal Democrat Party Conference 2007

The Liberal Democrat rank and file were disturbed however by the hounding out of Tonge by the Party leadership who responded to pressure by the Liberal Democrat Friends of Israel. There was a groundswell for the need for balance in the way the Party addressed the Israeli occupation of the Palestinian Territories thus enabling the Liberal Democrat Friends of Palestine (LDFP) to be formed as an official Associated Organisation. The same groundswell of sympathy at the way Tonge had been treated similarly enabled the tabling a Motion on the Israel/Palestine issue at the National Conference in September 2007. This Motion condemned the Israeli methods of Occupation and called for the suspension of the EU/Israel Association Trade Agreement because of Israeli disregard for Article 2 of the Agreement, which calls on signatories to uphold international humanitarian law. The Motion was passed almost unanimously by the Conference. Tonge is a member of LDFP.