Baroness Tonge and Hamas: from understanding to praise

The list of speakers at IslamExpo last month reads like this blog's Most Wanted list. Comrades Steele and Milne of al-Grauniad were there, arm in arm with Gorgeous George, as was their colleague Maddy of the Sorrows. Tariq Ramadan, Rowan Williams' favourite Muslim intellectual, was there, and, talking of the Archbishop, Sarah Joseph was there. Ilan Pappé was there, assuredly with the blessing of his fans in the Deutsche Volksunion.

Sorry if I'm doing them an injustice, but I can't picture any of these characters as innocents abroad who, expecting to encounter 'Europe’s largest celebration of Islamic culture, tradition, innovation and art', were horrified to discover they had stumbled into a Hamas/Muslim Brotherhood rally. If I discover that any of them used it as a platform to denounce Hamas as an anti-Semitic terrorist organization, he/she will get a fulsome apology from me. But I'm not expecting to have to take the trouble.

I certainly won't in the case of the speaker who said this:-

“I would like to say a thank you to the three speakers before me…I hope you (audience) realise how much guts it takes to speak like they have…they are very brave and deserve a tribute from all of us.”

The immediately preceeding speaker was Azzam Tamimi, Hamas's Special Envoy and as such, unsurprisingly, an open supporter of suicide bombers. The tribute came from former Christian Aid trustee Baroness Tonge. Stephen Pollard, from whose blog the quote comes, comments:-

'Let there be no doubt now about what Baroness Tonge believes. She no longer even bothers hiding behind the ambiguity of ‘understanding’ why people become suicide bombers. As her remarks at IslamExpo show, she now thinks that those who explicitly praise and honour suicide bombers “are very brave and deserve a tribute from all of us.”'

David T of Harry's Place says simply 'He's right, isn't he?' He is indeed.

More about the Baroness to come.