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Britain
UK peer blames Israel for extremism
2007-08-17
An Israeli scholar has firmly rejected comments by controversial UK Liberal Democrat politician Jenny Tonge, who recently accused Israel of driving the Palestinians to their current impoverished situation and claimed that this issue was being used to fuel Islamic extremism.

"Ever since 1948, Palestine has been used as a battle cry and a propaganda weapon for Islamists worldwide," she said in a speech in the House of Lords last month. "I have witnessed this in some African countries and, more recently, in Bangladesh. Palestine is what the West does to Muslims. That is the message. The Palestinians have been brought to their knees. A cultured and well-educated society with high skill levels has been reduced to a Third-World country. The statistics are there for all to see."

Tonge also alleged that the IDF was disrupting school exams in Nablus, resulting in a generation of illiterate and unskilled Palestinians.

"Even education is being destroyed as children are terrorized by raids on their schools," she said, claiming that the products of such a system would be "capable of very little except low-wage labor. The economy cannot be rebuilt unless Israel changes its policies."

But Dr. Jonathan Spyer, research fellow at the Global Research in International Affairs at the Interdisciplinary Center in Herzliya, disputed such assertions, which he said betrayed an "appalling ignorance of Islamist movements. Radical Islam is a political idea, some of whose proponents use the method of terrorism. This idea sees world events as shaped by a struggle between the forces of authentic Islam, and those of the non-believers. It uses a long list of supposed Muslim grievances as a way to mobilize support," he told The Jerusalem Post.

He noted that al-Qaida had been formed to overthrow the Saudi Arabian government in opposition to the US presence there in the 1990s. "Al-Qaida hardly mentioned the Palestinian issue prior to 2001."

"The idea that this trans-national idea, which feeds off many local issues, is somehow 'traceable' to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and would be settled by the creation of a Palestinian state alongside Israel - an outcome which the Islamists in any case reject - is an absurd one. It's used by people like Tonge in order to hold Israel to blame for radical Islam's war in the West."

Baroness Tonge was sacked as a member of Parliament and as the Liberal Democrat spokeswoman in 2004 after expressing support for Palestinian suicide bombers.
Posted by:Fred

#4  
Baroness Tonge
Wikipedia's bio on the Baroness

from the bio:
Controversy and allegations of antisemitism

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. [1]

In 2004, Tonge led pro-Palestinian activists and several Lib Dem MPs to stand for a two minute silence in honour of the deceased Hamas leader; Sheikh Ahmed Yassin. Yassin, As leader of Hamas, Yassin presided over numerous deadly suicide bomb attacks targeted at Israeli civilians. By honouring a Sheikh Yassin, some questioned Tonge’s earlier insistence that she did not support terrorism herself. Melanie Phillips was especially critical.[2]

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 it financial grips on the Western World" and on "our party". [3] She was accused by anti-racist groups of reviving the language of classic antisemitic conspiracy theories, and heavily criticised by Norman Lamb MP, spokesman for Liberal Democrat leader Menzies Campbell. Campbell later declared while he agreed with Barroness Tonge that the "pro-Israeli lobby does have its financial grips on the Western World" he did not agree with the assertion that it had influence on the Liberal Democrats.
Posted by: 3dc   2007-08-17 19:29  

#3  Another anti-Semitic Brit that couldn't buy a clue with all the wealth of Africa. I'm sure Baroness Tonge has no idea what the paleostains are "taught" in their schools, or the Arab response to "palestinian" refugees from 1948, or the declaration of the Mufti of Jerusalem that caused most "palestinians" to flee their homes in 1948 and establish those refugee camps. What a worthless piece of unflushed fecal matter.
Posted by: Old Patriot   2007-08-17 13:14  

#2  Gotta blame somebody, and, of course, it's too dangerous, in a personal sense, to blame the Muzzies.... Jenny the T. comes across as a real ditz, but in her defense, is, undoubtedly, the product of a government school system.....
Posted by: OyVey1   2007-08-17 13:07  

#1  Muslims use any reason for war as they dont enjoy the alternative life being married getting a job and bringing up kids etc!!!!
Posted by: Paul   2007-08-17 07:54  

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