LONDON, January 23 (IslamOnline.net & News Agencies) - A British Parliament member, who came under fire for saying that she would consider becoming a self-bomber if she were to suffer as the Palestinians, said she still stood by her statements Friday, January 23.

“While we are arguing about suicide bombers and whether we condone or understand them, I think we should say that we don't condone or understand the Israeli illegal occupation of Palestine since 1997,” Jenny Tonge told Sky News.

Tonge, the former opposition Liberal Democrat spokeswoman for international development, was speaking after her statements sympathizing with the Palestinians drew a fierce outrage among pro-Israel politicians and sparked calls for her party to condemn what she said.

“We shouldn't understand or condone the settlements and the roads that separate the Palestinians,” the MP said.

“We should not condone or understand the security wall,” she added, referring to Israel’s separation wall that intrudes on swathes of Palestinian territories and isolate thousands of Palestinians from their farmlands.

Tonge had told a Westminster rally that if she had to “live in that situation - and I say that advisedly - I might just consider becoming one myself”.

“Many many people criticize, many many people say it is just another form of terrorism, but I can understand and I am a fairly emotional person and I am a mother and a grand mother”.

The MP said that the attacks are triggered out of desperation caused by Israeli aggressions against the Palestinians, including almost-daily incursions and mass detentions.

A spokeswoman for the Israeli Embassy in London claimed such remarks would inflame the conflict by encouraging Palestinian fighters to become bombers.

“We were shocked to hear these remarks which were extremely disgraceful. Her words show something about her moral standards,” she said.

Ellman, a member of the Labor friends of Israel group, also called on “Jenny should be making an apology”.

Kenneth Collins, a former chair of the Scottish Council of Jewish Communities, said everybody understood people being in a difficult situation, but dismissed Tonge’s comments as “irresponsible”.

The waves of outrage, however, revived memories of the attack against Cherie Blair, wife of British Prime Minister Tony Blair, for pro-Palestinian remarks in June 2002.

“As long as young people feel they have got no hope but to blow themselves up, you are never going to make progress," she said, appearing alongside Queen Rania of Jordan at the launch of a charity appeal in London to improve medical assistance for thousands of Palestinians.

Despite coming under heavy fire, Tonge was unrepentant and stood by the comments.

“I dare say if I was in their situation with my children and my grandchildren and I saw no hope for the future at all ... I might just think about it myself," she later told Sky News.

Tonge also told the BBC: “We have to try to understand where they are coming from”.

“I was just trying to say how, having seen the violence and the humiliation and the provocation that the Palestinian people live under every day and have done since their land was occupied by Israel, I could understand and was trying to understand where [suicide bombers] were coming from,” Tonge told BBC Radio 4's Today program.