It documents that it's not hopelessness and despair, but calculated indoctrination from childhood and continuous incitement that's driving people to become suicide bombers.
Posted on 01/23/2004 6:50:25 AM PST by hang 'em
MP slammed over suicide bomb remarks
An MP who said she might have become a suicide bomber if she lived in the Middle East has been accused of giving the green light to terrorism.
Liberal Democrat Jenny Tonge has sparked outrage by saying she could understand the bombers and "might just think about it myself" if she was in their situation.
Labour MP Louise Ellman, a member of the Holocaust Educational Trust, demanded an apology. "She is giving the green light to terrorism at a time when we should all be urging peaceful negotiation to end the tragic conflict in the Middle East," she told the BBC Radio 4 Today programme.
Dr Tonge made the remarks at a pro-Palestinian rally in Parliament on Wednesday. Challenged about them later, she said she did not regret her comments although she accepted they may have upset some people.
"I was just trying to say how, having seen the violence, humiliation and provocation Palestinians live under every day, and have done now for decades, I could understand, I was trying to understand where they come from."
She added: "If I had been a mother and a grandmother in Palestine living for decades in that situation, I don't know, I may very well have become one myself."
The row echoed that over Cherie Blair's suggestion that bombers felt they had "no hope but to blow themselves up".
Lib Dem leader Charles Kennedy distanced the party from her comments.
Dr Tonge, the party's former International Development spokeswoman, is expected to be summoned by the Chief Whip but plans to stand down as MP for Richmond Park at the next election anyway.
© Copyright Press Association Ltd 2004, All Rights Reserved.
Dr. Tonge, Richmond Park MP, is long-time shill for radical Muslims in Britain.
During Kosovo war she was rabid supporter of KLA terrorists. Her rants against Serbs border on racism.
Public attention to this racist is long overdue.
It documents that it's not hopelessness and despair, but calculated indoctrination from childhood and continuous incitement that's driving people to become suicide bombers.
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