The pro-Israeli lobby has got its grips on the western world, its financial grips. I think they have probably got a certain grip on our party.

...One of the most common forms of myths and stereotypes is that a "Jewish lobby" controls the media, the economy or a political party, as suggested by Tonge Tuesday night.

"Baroness Tonge's comments could have been lifted from the parliamentary inquiry's report as a textbook example of the kind of discourse that so concerned them," said Jon Benjamin, chief executive of the Board of Deputies. "At a time when anti-Semitism is on the increase and everyone should be working to develop communal harmony, I find it despicable that she believed it was appropriate to make comments such as these at a major political conference." ...

Criticism of Israel isn't necessarily anti-Semitic, and Tonge goes on to say that her notorious remark about suicide bombers wasn't that. No, it wasn't; egregious for other reasons, but not in itself anti-Semitic. This time, though, I think she may have edged rather closer, don't you?

...Increasingly cranky “anti-Zionist” conspiracy theory is emerging out of the cobwebbed corners of the left into the mainstream. This is no longer a problem of the left. It is a problem of the political left, right, and centre.

...The party also suffered a snub by Israeli Ambassador Zvi Heifetz, who declined an invitation to the conference after discovering its leader Sir Menzies Campbell had written a letter to the Prime Minister calling for an arms embargo against Israel.

Tonge’s words have sparked fury, coming just months after her colleague Chris Davies MEP, who was also at the meeting, was stripped of the leadership of the Liberal Democrats in Europe after he told a Jewish News reader that he would expose ‘Jewish influence over Western governments’.

The Liberal Democrats have now pledged to take action in response to calls for Tonge’s position in the party to be reviewed...