Jenny Tonge, Baroness Tonge

Tonge was elected as the Liberal Democrat MP for Richmond Park in 1997 and held the seat until 2005.[1] During her time in the Commons she served as the party's spokeswoman on children's issues, a role she lost after the Liberal Democrat leadership distanced itself from remarks she made justifying Palestinian suicide bombings.[3] Israel's ambassador in London at the time, Zvi Shtauber, later described her as a Liberal Democrat parliamentarian and physician who had justified suicide bombings, and noted that party leader Charles Kennedy had explicitly distanced himself and the party from her statements.[3]

In January 2004, at an event with a pro-Palestinian lobby group, Tonge said: "If I had to live in that situation — and I say that advisedly — I might just consider becoming [a suicide bomber] myself."[4][8] The remarks drew controversy, and her party later removed her from her spokeswoman role.[3] She was also reported to have compared Arabs in Gaza to Jews in the Warsaw Ghetto, a comparison that contributed to her being back-benched before her elevation to the Lords in 2005.[2]

After entering the House of Lords, Tonge's remarks continued to attract controversy. In September 2006, speaking at a Palestine Solidarity Campaign meeting, she declared that the "pro-Israel lobby" had "got its grips on the western world, its financial grips."[2] The Liberal Democrat leadership sharply rebuked her, describing the remarks as carrying "clear anti-Semitic connotations," in part because she had implicated her own party in the allegation.[2] She subsequently resigned as a trustee of Christian Aid, a position she had held alongside her parliamentary activities, after defending the comment.[8]

In February 2010, Tonge called for an investigation into whether Israeli medical rescue teams operating in Haiti after the devastating earthquake had been trafficking organs from victims.[9] The allegation had originated in an article published by The Palestine Telegraph — a newspaper that listed her as one of two members of its board of patrons — which in turn cited a report from Hezbollah's Al-Manar television.[10] Liberal Democrat leader Nick Clegg called her comments "wrong, distasteful and provocative" and removed her as the party's health policy spokeswoman in the House of Lords, while also stating that he did not believe she was antisemitic or racist.[4] Tonge apologised "unreservedly" for any offence caused.[4] The Board of Deputies of British Jews condemned her support for an investigation as "outrageous and a calumny" and warned that further antisemitic rhetoric should result in her expulsion from the party and loss of the whip.[4]

In 2012, at a discussion hosted at Middlesex University, Tonge warned: "Israel is not going to be there forever."[5][11] She also claimed that the United States would eventually tire of providing Israel with what she described as $70 billion a year, characterised the country as "an American aircraft carrier in the Middle East," and predicted that the American public would tell the "American lobby" that enough was enough.[11] Nick Clegg, by then Deputy Prime Minister in the coalition government, called her words "offensive and wrong" and said they did not reflect Liberal Democrat values.[11] Tonge resigned the whip, subsequently sitting in the Lords as an independent Liberal Democrat while remaining a party member.[6] She left the party entirely in October 2016 following a further suspension.[6]

Tonge was a prominent supporter of the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement against Israel.[12] In 2009 she co-led, alongside Conservative Lord Sheikh, a Palestinian Return Centre-hosted parliamentary delegation that visited Syria and met President Bashar al-Assad, a group that also included Jeremy Corbyn and several other MPs.[13]

In October 2016, she chaired a House of Lords event organised by the Palestinian Return Centre to launch a "Balfour Apology Campaign," which called on the British government to apologise for the 1917 Balfour Declaration.[13] During the event, an audience member made remarks comparing Israel to Islamic State and blaming Jews for the Holocaust. Tonge later said she had not heard much of the "rant" and that challenging such speakers only caused them to "go on and on."[14] The Palestinian Return Centre disputed media accounts, stating that the speaker was a Jewish audience member from Neturei Karta whose identity had not been made clear, and that the organisation disagreed with the remarks and did not tolerate antisemitism or Holocaust denial.[14] In December 2016, the House of Lords Commissioner for Standards opened an investigation into allegations of failure to act on personal honour and breach of rules on House facilities. Jewish News reported at the time that whether the inquiry was connected to the event was unknown, and it reported no findings.[6]

In a 2017 debate on international aid, sitting by then as a non-affiliated peer, Tonge argued that UK aid money was helping to sustain what she characterised as Israel's occupation of Palestine, making Britain "complicit" in breaking international law.[15] That same year, in a televised interview, she apologised for her 2006 "financial grips" language, calling it "over-the-top" and "exaggerated." She nevertheless maintained that money influenced political processes and suggested without evidence — an absence she herself acknowledged — that BICOM might be channelling funds into British politics.[16] She also stated in the interview that she supported Israel's right to exist and wished it success, while sustaining her criticism of Israeli policies toward Palestinians.[16]

In 2020, during a Lords debate on Donald Trump's Middle East peace plan, Tonge said Britain must not fall "under the shadow of the United States of America and its puppet master, Israel."[17] The Board of Deputies president Marie van der Zyl and Lord Eric Pickles condemned the remark as antisemitic; Tonge declined to comment to the press.[17] She also posted on Facebook an article about Israeli military action in Nablus with the caption "All to celebrate the Passover?" — a remark that CAMERA characterised as evoking the blood libel.[12]

Tonge retired from the House of Lords on 19 February 2021, explaining that she had promised herself and her family she would retire at eighty.[7] On departing she stated: "I shall continue to campaign for justice for the people of Palestine."[7] Prior to her retirement she had stood down as a patron of the Palestine Solidarity Campaign following controversy over a Facebook post she made after the October 2018 Pittsburgh synagogue massacre, in which she condemned the attack as an "appalling criminal act" but asked whether the Israeli government's actions toward Palestinians might be "reigniting anti-Semitism."[7] She subsequently posted what was described as a "quasi-retraction."[7]

Tonge was repeatedly accused of antisemitism by Jewish community organisations, advocacy groups, and members of her own party across a period spanning more than two decades. Her defenders, including Tonge herself, rejected the characterisation. In a 2019 Lords debate on antisemitism, she stated: "I have never ever been antisemitic and I never will be… I am anti-injustice."[18] She acknowledged a rise in antisemitism but argued that Islamophobic incidents had increased more sharply over the same period, and contended that antisemitic attacks had surged during and after Israeli military operations in Gaza in 2014 because some perpetrators did not distinguish between Jewish people and the Israeli government.[18]

Jewish community and advocacy organisations documented her statements and attributed antisemitic rhetoric or imagery to some of them. The World Jewish Congress reported the Board of Deputies' description of her Haiti comments as employing classical anti-Jewish themes, while CAMERA characterised her Passover caption as evoking the blood libel.[4][12] The Anti-Defamation League discussed the Haiti allegation in its account of organ-harvesting conspiracy theories, and NGO Monitor documented her "financial grips" remark and subsequent resignation from Christian Aid.[10][8] An academic account noted that Liberal Democrat leaders described the 2006 remarks as carrying "clear anti-Semitic connotations."[2] Whether her remarks reflected antisemitic intent remains contested: Nick Clegg said in 2010 that he did not believe she was antisemitic or racist, while Tonge consistently maintained that her objections were directed at Israeli government policy rather than Jewish people.[4][18]