Has Clegg bowed to Zionist pressure to sack Jenny Tonge?

Liberal Democrat leader Nick Clegg has sacked Baroness Jenny Tonge as his party’s health spokesperson in the House of Lords. Ostensibly over a reported remark about allegations of human organ harvesting by the Israeli Defence Forces in Haiti, it is suspected that Clegg has acted to protect his party from attacks by the powerful Israel lobby in Britain.

The belief that the sacking took place under Zionist pressure on Nick Clegg has credibility when you consider that Jenny Tonge has called for an inquiry into the allegations in order to clear the name of IDF personnel. According to the Jewish Chronicle, the LibDem peer praised the efforts of the IDF relief mission in Haiti before adding, “To prevent allegations such as these going any further, the IDF and the Israeli Medical Association should establish an independent inquiry immediately to clear the names of the team in Haiti.”

Astonishingly, therefore, Jenny Tonge has been sacked for calling on the IDF to clear its name. According to the website of Friends of Al-Aqsa, “following discussions with the Baroness it appears that her words have been taken out of context by some members of her party and imbued with double meaning where none was intended”. It takes a real stretch of the imagination to think that Baroness Tonge’s remarks are in any way offensive, and yet she has lost a front-bench role for the second time because of her openly-expressed concern for all who are wronged in the Israel-Palestine conflict.

Under Nick Clegg’s leadership the Liberal Democrats have shown a great deal of balance on the Israel-Palestine issue, perhaps too balanced, and that has been due in large part to Jenny Tonge’s humanitarian concerns. In the run-up to the British General Election, is the Israel lobby pushing Mr. Clegg to take a more openly pro-Israel stance? This is not beyond the realms of possibility, and the inclusion by the Jewish Chronicle of a quotation from a LibDem parliamentary candidate in a north London constituency suggests that Clegg has made what he hopes will be a vote-winning decision.

Similar allegations have been made against the Israeli Defence Force before, when the IDF rejected strenuously claims that its officers harvested the organs of dead Palestinians in the 1990s.