Thread by @shaunjlawson

Plenty of my followers will currently be thinking "what has happened to Shaun? Has he been hacked? Has he had a bang on the head? Why is he saying all this stuff?" This thread - which will be my last thread for a few days - will hopefully provide an explanation.

There's this thing I do. Always have, always will... and without fail, it infuriates the hell out of loads of people. Specifically: I am always questioning and challenging my own views. Always trying to compare them with what the evidence says.

Last month, we didn't just lose an election. We got thumped. A disaster for all those who depend on us to get it right.

My thought process was as follows:

1. Why did we lose?
2. Why don't people trust us?
3. How, in future, do we win?

Everything I've written on here since is based on that foundation stone. Because if we don't find out why we lost or why people don't trust us, we can't win in the future.

But there's something else too. In 2014, as missiles reined down on Gaza, I had an absolutely furious row online with someone I used to know at school. He's Jewish; he lives in Israel. We were at absolute loggerheads, and I could not understand his point of view.

Instead of just shrugging my shoulders, wallowing in self-righteousness and doing no critical thinking whatsoever, I suddenly thought to myself: "Shaun, you've been interested in this conflict for decades. When have you ever looked at things from Israel's point of view?"

Which was what I then did. I want peace and justice for both Israel and Palestine. Yet I was so arrogant, I'd spent heaven only knows how many years only looking at it from the Palestinian perspective. Much of the left is guilty of that.

My father spent several years in Israel in his late teens. It was a very different place back then. Yet when I was in my teens, and would rage about this or that about Israeli policy, he'd say: "Shaun - you have to live there to understand it. It's hemmed in from all sides".

And after that row with my former school acquaintance, I finally tried to make good and truly understand it. And as I did, I slowly learned that the history is far more complex than many like to insist; and that the fault lies on very many sides.

This didn't change my view that the Palestinians were victims of an historic, ongoing injustice at all. But it did help me understand the point of view of Israelis: their fears, their experiences, their pain, and their total lack of faith in the Palestinian leadership.

Of course, you're all familiar with what I've argued about the weaponisation of antisemitism against Corbyn and the left. I stand by that totally. But last year, I had a pretty revealing conversation with someone I know.

ME: Corbyn's not an antisemite and this stuff is drivel.

THEM: I don't think he is either, but I also don't think he understands antisemitism or has ever paid much attention to it.

ME: That's not fair...

THEM: Shaun, think about it. He's spent his life fighting racism. The idea that Jews can be and still are oppressed today won't have occurred to him, because he probably thinks most Jews are white, privileged and therefore protected.

That's not because he's a bad person. It's just not on his radar.

Then we spoke about Corbyn's supporters: many of whom are among my followers. I said:

"And this idea that they're antisemitic in any way is disgusting. These are some of the most amazing, kind, gentle people..."

Then they replied with something which really made me sit up and listen.

"Jewish friends of mine used to be Labour members. Labour is fine with Jews: as long as those Jews agree with them on Israel. If they don't, the nastiness is unbelievable. They left because it was too much"

The perspective of those former members - who were, as my friend went on to tell me, made to feel totally unwelcome because they had a different position on Israel, cannot be ignored. It's important. It isn't acceptable at all.

At that point though, as I was looking at it all through my lenses of "this has been whipped up by the media... there's a huge amount of bad faith... Tory antisemitism is totally ignored", and my other one of "anti-Zionism is not antisemitism", I didn't really broach it further.

Until, just a few days ago, it came back to me. At which point, I asked myself the following:

"Shaun - you're in a minority among British Jews. What do they see which you don't? If you don't even try and find out, how will trust be restored? How will any healing occur?"

Because there's a problem. What do I think of the media totally ignoring - silencing - the views of pro-Corbyn, left wing Jews? I think it's appalling. But to take an approach of "the only view that counts is the minority one" isn't just ridiculous. It's unbelievably self-serving

Taking that position allows so many to just carry on without doing any thinking or reflection whatsoever. Taking that position means that no-one actually reaches out to the vast majority of British Jews who disagree with us completely, don't trust us at all, and are scared of us.

Imagine if a majority of Muslims talked about Islamophobia, while a small minority said "that's not racism! Stop lying about our party". Who would we listen to first? The minority or the majority?

See also: black people. See also: the LGBTQ community. Etc etc etc.

To carry on telling ourselves "no antisemitism here, it's all just a smear campaign" and base that view on what a (fairly small) minority of British Jews think, while ignoring what the large majority think, isn't even grown-up.

That doesn't mean that minority doesn't have a point. Very often, it does. The hypocrisy around this whole issue from the right and centre has been mindboggling at times.

But it also doesn't mean we should ever ignore the majority. And it's disgraceful that we have.

That's why Corbyn going to meet Jewdas was a bad look. Not because Jewdas are "the wrong kind of Jews" or something. Jewdas are absolutely brilliant: if you're not already following them, do so.

But because he just stayed in his comfort zone.

The same comfort zone in which, for most of his career, he's been surrounded by people who say what he already believes on any particular issue: confirming him in that.

The same comfort zone in which he's appeared alongside so many pro-Palestinian campaigners; hardly any pro-Israel campaigners. And to return to that conversation I had with my friend, she told me how incredibly unwelcome even pro-Palestinian Jews feel on marches and protests.

So Corbyn, like much of the left, hasn't bothered educating itself on this conflict. It's just taken the bits it wants to hear and ran with them. It has no interest in informing itself comprehensively - because that would challenge its preconceptions.

And by the way, when I say 'informing itself properly', I don't mean:

"Read one book by Ilan Pappe which confirms all your preconceptions and then consider yourself an expert".

Pappe's work is brilliant. But so is that of many others: not all of whom are where you are on this.

Thinking he is somehow the final authority on this is every bit as flawed as thinking Dave Rich is when it comes to antisemitism on the left. It's just one perspective. There's plenty of others. Good, valuable ones too.

And personally, I think what's most valuable is when we DON'T read things which confirm what we already believe, and actively seek out work which, as long as it's rigorous and evidence-based, challenges our position and makes us think more deeply.

Why do I think there's been such a concerted campaign against Corbyn and Labour on this? What do I think so many British Jews have seen which I didn't see?

I think it's because there has never been a major political party so implacably opposed to almost everything Israel does.

By which I mean: vehemently opposed. Furiously opposed. Barely making any mention of Israel's right to exist; never discussing the behaviour of Hamas at any point at all; always rooting its critique in the same, wildly over-simplistic one of anti-imperialism.

And incidentally, that there's only one country on the face of the Earth whose right to exist is routinely challenged and called into question really ought to tell you something. The level of demonisation Israel faces is itself wildly disproportionate.

It's wildly disproportionate because no other country involved in a protracted conflict is demonised in such a way; because the treatment of Palestinian people in Arab or Muslim states is totally ignored; and because awful things happen all over the world under many awful regimes

If the response to this is "but Israel calls itself a democracy, and must therefore be held to higher standards", I have a question for you. Imagine if tomorrow, Israel declared it was no longer a democracy. Are you telling me the opprobrium towards it would suddenly vanish?!

Also: for all those who refer to it as an 'apartheid state' and automatically compare it with apartheid South Africa:

1. In what kind of 'apartheid state' are there Arab judges, Arab doctors, Arab professionals of all kinds, and more rights for Arabs than anywhere else in ME?

2. Exactly how welcome do you think Jews are in much of the Middle East and majority Muslim world? Answer: not very. Once thriving Jewish communities have vanished across large swathes of the region: partly because of Israel, partly because they no longer felt welcome.

None of that is to justify the Palestinians' deplorable treatment at all. Their appalling injustice continues; Israel bears most responsibility for that. But others do too: their historically useless leaders, Fatah's corruption, Hamas' cruelty and grotesquely cynical strategy.

And as I mentioned earlier, so many neighbouring states: who themselves weaponise the Palestinians not to actually help them, but to shore up regime support by blaming all their people's problems on Israel, Zionism, and/or the US.

In the end, in practice, the Palestinians are almost friendless. I don't think there's ever been another people who've been so betrayed by so many for so long. Their plight is beyond words, and so many bear responsibility for it.

But that plight isn't going to be improved one iota by us just screaming and shouting into the ether non-stop about Israel. All we've managed to achieve by doing so is alienate so many Jewish people. It'll take years and years to rebuild trust with them.

British Jews, like all Jews, live with real fear. That fear is "it's happened so many times to us in the past. Why wouldn't it happen again?"

And if it happens again, there's only one safe place they can go. The very place so many on the left constantly demonise.

That's a problem: a huge one. Face up to it. Engage with it. And realise that if you want to make a difference on this conflict; if you want peace like so many of us do, and if you also want a Labour government sometime before hell freezes over, our approach isn't helping.

That doesn't mean "don't talk about Palestine" or "don't criticise Israel". It does mean keeping your emotions in check, and recognising that there are very differing points of view out there which are legitimate and must be heard.

It means, above all, what the left is supposed to be good at but too often is not. EMPATHISING WITH OTHERS.

Put yourselves in their shoes, Walk a mile in their shoes. Look at things, truly, from their point of view, not just the one you instinctively sympathise with.

No, that is not 'selling out'. That is trying to build as big a picture and reference point as possible on an issue which clearly energises extraordinary numbers of people. But if the very idea of doing that scares you, and you just personally attack those who try, then well...

I'll be away from this place for a few days now. Hopefully this thread is taken in the spirit intended. And apologies, genuinely, to all those whose timelines I've bombarded over recent days. I've been on here too much lately, and need a break. For your sakes as much as my own.

Be good while I'm gone everyone! 👍