There’s been some derision (justified, in my view) aimed at Baroness Jenny Tonge of the House of Lords for her June 8 letter to The Independent — in which she argues that Israel’s separation wall is forcing Palestinian militants to “export themselves” to wage jihad in Iraq. The letter also makes reference to “the USA and its military base in the Middle East called Israel.”
OK then. Tonge was previously a Liberal Democrat MP; party leadership sacked her as “children’s spokeswoman” in early 2004 after she addressed a pro-Palestinian group and said: “If I had to live in that situation [occupation] — and I say that advisedly — I might just consider becoming [a suicide bomber] myself.”
Routine stuff, this. But there’s an interesting corollary to the Tonge affair. In late March of this year, George Monbiot, left-wing columnist for the Guardian, skewered Baroness Tonge for comments she made about the Gana and Gwi bushmen of the Kalahari. The bushmen are resisting the Botswana government’s attempts to evict them from their land at the behest of the diamond industry. The Monbiot-Tonge Guardian exchange is reproduced in full here. (Monbiot’s final rejoinder is priceless.)
In the case of the bushmen, who to my knowledge have never harmed a soul, Lady Tonge shills for their oppressors. In the case of Palestinian suicide bombers, who deliberately target civilians and exult in doing so, Lady Tonge feels their pain.
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