The Liberal Democrat Friends of Palestine are actually trying to suggest that Jenny Tonge’s views were taken out of context. If anything, the context they were in made them worse…

In a press release, they fully endorse her views and criticise Clegg’s action:

“This partial quotation would seem very possibly to be deliberate, and has had the effect of fostering a misinterpretation of her views.”

As they note, in the video we put up showed, Tonge did say:

“Israel is not going to be there forever on its present performance”.

This is the only quote that the LibDem group choose to use though. Somehow they miss out the fact that thirty seconds later Tonge said:

“It will not go on forever, it will not go on forever. Israel will lose it’s support will lose its support and then they will reap what they have sown.”

This is the section we were quoting, but there’s not a peep out of them about it, despite them having the cheek to accuse others of misquoting. As Nick Cohen says in Standpoint today, there is a dark core within the LibDems, and they seem to have broken cover again today…