Thread by @TheMattWain

A word about racism, language and ultimately antisemitism. There is a difference between conscious active racism and unconscious passive racism. Both are unacceptable, but I would argue an active hatred is worse tangibly worse than an unconscious bias. When I see attacks on the

left I see screenshots of mentions of Rothschilds, Zionists, conspiracies etc. These are often 5 or 6 years old tweets and held as an immovable and inarguable judgement on a person's character. There is antisemitism on the left but there is also a history of big business,

the newspaper industry and right winger politics smearing and supressing the left. If you're getting politically involved with left politics it's easy enough to be led to throw the name Rothschild in with Goldman Sachs, Rupert Murdoch, the Barclay Brothers, Lord Rothermere etc,

In addition there is also the accusation of guilt by association, again being unfamiliar with a person's full history is not a crime, sharing a platform is not necessarily an endorsement of views and a retweet is not a 100% approval of what someone has said or will say. To tar

an entire movement based on some people's opinions is likely to cause as much of a siege mentality and a resistance to constructive criticism. Furthermore the instigators of a lot of these attacks, the gnasherjew collective, David Collier etc, have very little time for any

dissenting views. Collier has recently attacked the idea that Jewish people must be Zionist (whatever his interpretation of that is) or embrace voluntary genocide. The gnasherjew collective attacked the very centrist Wes Streeting for highlighting the destruction of a

Palestinian town. It is hard to seperate the idea that their notion of antisemitism includes anything beyond mild criticism of the Israeli State (the polity). This only helps to dilute the concept of Antisemitism and causes a hostile environment when finesse is required. If you

come out all guns blazing on a group that have been told they've chosen the wrong leader, don't know what they're talking about and are part of a cult, don't be suprised if you become part of the enemy. I think in some cases that was always the intention, for others it's an

unfortunate byproduct. If I see someone talking about Zionists negatively I'll try and pull them up on it as we all should, Zionism is a spectrum of belief which starts with a simple idea that a Jewish Homeland should be established and at it's other end includes the Netanyahu

Extreme end of the spectrum. So to criticise Zionists is to attack a variety of different ideas. I think you can disagree with Zionism, be Jewish and not be antisemitic. It's how these views are expressed that matter, and in delicate situations surgical precision is required. Not

"All Zionists are scum" and not "You said Rothschild 3 times, go to the antisemite sin bin". If you're angry with Rachel Riley pointing fingers, and various pile ons you can't fight fire with fire, you have to beat it by being better. Criticise the Israeli government, army etc

just don't be lazy about it by falling into general phrases around Zionism. Final point: I share a view on drug policy and abortion with the American Libertarian Party, however I don't agree with a lot of other parts of their platform and a lot of their members, guess what?

If two people agree on one area it's not an indication they're 100% going to agree on everything else

If you got this far, look at the gif and remember, try to avoid the arseholes.