Veteran British parliamentarian says ‘Israel ignored Ten Commandments’
Jenny Tonge, expelled by the Liberal Democrat party for her anti-Israel activism, made the comments to anti-Israel group Palestinian Return Center.
By JONNY PAUL IN LONDONBaroness Jenny Tonge 390(photo credit: Richard Millett)
LONDON – Israel could have been a force for good had it obeyed “their own Ten Commandments and half the stuff in the Old Testament,” a veteran British parliamentarian claimed at an event in Parliament.Jenny Tonge, a controversial member of the upper house of Parliament who was expelled by the Liberal Democrat party for her anti-Israel activism, was speaking at an event in Parliament hosted by the anti-Israel group Palestinian Return Center.The event, part of the group’s ongoing “Britain, It’s Time To Apologize, International Balfour Campaign,” marked the 96th anniversary of the Balfour Declaration, the plan for a Jewish homeland that became Israel, by having a number of anti-Israel parliamentarians apologize for Britain’s role.Tonge apologized for the declaration and accused Israel of being a “threat to world peace and to itself.”Writing about the event, blogger Richard Millet said that Tonge claimed that Israel is referred to as a Jewish state to help silence its critics.“We must take on the pro-Israel lobby, we will not be silenced,” Tonge said. “We are not anti-Semitic, we are anti-injustice. What happened to the Palestinians is the greatest injustice of the past 100 years.”Tonge said that pro-Israel lobbyists “are clever. They call it the Jewish state of Israel so if you criticize the Jewish state they say you are criticizing Jews and that you are anti-Semitic. But it is directed against the Israeli government, not the Jewish people. Many Jews join us,” she added.Also speaking at the event was Liberal Democrat MP David Ward, who had been suspended by his own party during the summer for comments targeting the Jewish people.He apologized for the Balfour Declaration, as did Labor MP Jeremy Corbyn, who described it as a “historical mistake by Britain.”According to Millet, Ward also claimed in his speech that his suspension was based on something that he did not say.
Ward explained, “I didn’t say Israel shouldn’t exist, but that it should never have been created. I said it was an apartheid state,” Ward said.Millet noted that the anti-Israel MP had made an about-face from a previous viewpoint: “In July, he tweeted that ‘the Zionists are losing the battle – how long can the apartheid State of Israel last?’... And last night he said, ‘Israel is winning. We are losing hands down.’ His main concern was that there is no proper plan to counteract this.”On the eve of Holocaust Remembrance Day in January, Ward questioned how Jews “could within a few years of liberation from the death camps, be inflicting atrocities on Palestinians in the new State of Israel.”Also speaking at the Palestinian Return Center event was Nazir Ahmed, one of the first Muslim members of the House of Lords.In 2009, Ahmed was jailed for causing a deadly road accident while texting behind the wheel. In March, The Times discovered a speech he gave in Pakistan in which he blamed his prison sentence on pressure applied on the court by Jews “who own newspapers and television channels.”Speaking last night, Ahmed said “we have a great moral responsibility” and “a huge burden on our conscience” as a result of the Balfour Declaration.“East Jerusalem is being evacuated slowly, there is ethnic cleansing of Palestinian people,” he claimed.“Whether they are Christian or they are Muslim they are being thrown out of their own country,” he continued.Last year, the Labor Party suspended Ahmed following reports that he offered a £10 million bounty for the capture of US President Barack Obama and his predecessor, George W. Bush.
