🧵 I don’t think many people protesting about the slaughter in #Gaza would have a problem with criticisms of Hamas. Few pro-Palestinian protestors would have any serious political allegiance to them & the vast majority deplore the targeting of civilians in any situation. 1/13 It’s just the idea that they are the origin point of the violence we are now seeing in #Gaza (and the West Bank) that people have an issue with. That is a complete inversion of both the current situation & a long history of oppression, occupation & displacement. 2/13

🧵Obviously it’s difficult to explain to someone who hasn’t followed these things, that CAA (Campaign Against Antisemitism) isn’t what it seems. There’s a load of documentation around this, but not much of it has penetrated the public consciousness - because why would it? (1/6) It’s the hardest thing to ask people to accept that an organisation that has billboards over the UK asking for you to be concerned about the safety of Jewish children (and students) is not doing it for anti-racist objectives, but quite the opposite. (2/6)

🧵 Every time anyone posts about the extraordinary #Gaza demos, there’s always a group of people who pipe up, ‘and what does it achieve?’, often followed by ‘why don’t you go to Gaza to demonstrate if you feel so strongly about it?’, then ‘we don’t want you on our streets’. 1/12 They give themselves away by the end of their response, of course. Because I think most of them are not interested in the answer & much more interested in silencing us. It annoys them to see & hear us. But let’s take it at face value, because it is a good question. 2/12

🧵Genuinely infuriating to listen to a certain “common sense” that’s emerged over the bombing in #Gaza. It goes like this: Hamas started a “war” 8 weeks ago (inexplicably, people even talk about a ceasefire being broken then). Israel’s attack is therefore merely a response. 1/16 That’s deluded. Firstly, there’s the long history: which includes the Balfour Declaration of 1917, the Nakba (forcible eviction & displacement of 750,000 Palestinians from their homeland), followed by decades of occupation, indiscriminate violence & settler colonialism. 2/16

[thread 🧵] We have a poisonous habit in this country of blaming or sanctioning people who speak up. Activists are often punished for pointing out the immorality of politicians or other ‘leaders’ for their appalling lack of principles or silence in the face of injustice. (1/9) Because let’s just be honest, so many public figures have had very little to say about the killing of civilians in #Gaza. And when they’ve said something, it’s often been ahistorical, weak or just too late. I’m not just talking about MPs, but right across civil society. (2/9)

🧵 Just to recap what happened over the weaponisation of antisemitism in @UKLabour, because highly relevant now.

So, there were, indeed, a very small number of cases of antisemitism in Labour between 2015-19, estimated at 0.3%* in one study. * not all these were proven. (1/12) The exact figures isn’t what this post is about (I have spoken about them elsewhere), but suffice to say that it has been agreed by most respected academics that the instances were not just small, but lower than in other parties & in wider society. (2/12)

🧵 We’ve seen an ‘authoritarian turn’ in British politics far exceeding that of Thatcher, partly because it encompasses the whole of the political class. There’s now little space in mainstream politics for anyone who speaks up for international law, peace or human rights. (1/13) Yesterday the Tories sacked Paul Bristow from his PPS role for calling for a ceasefire, hardly raising an eyebrow. Because this Govt have spent the last two years legislating to increase police powers, to stop legitimate protest, to outlaw strikes & proscribe boycotts. (2/13)

🧵 It’s good to see a handful of Labour MPs calling for a ceasefire in Gaza. I won’t be celebrating that, however. Why? Because: (1/12) (a) they should have been doing that from the start. Israel’s response to Hamas was never proportionate or justified & always likely to punish people who had nothing to do with the attacks. It was, like Israel’s violence over decades, a collective punishment & a war crime. (2/12)

🧵 At school, most of us will have been taught about something called the Arab-Israeli conflict. We might have learned that the main protagonists were Israel & the Palestinians, but we wouldn’t have learned any detail about the Nakba, or the occupation, or the Intifada. (1/9) On the news & in school, it was presented as a conflict between irreconcilables & that there were “bad things” that happened on both sides. The peace negotiations came & went & again the “conflict” became a confusing mass of claim & counter-claim, terrorism & response. (2/9)

[thread 🧵] It’s a remarkable mess that @Keir_Starmer has got himself into, along with his front bench. Here we have an ostensibly “democratic socialist” party now condoning actual war crimes. As the public are witnessing them in real time, the penny is dropping for many. (1/4) Of course, Starmer’s stance on Israel & it’s ethnic cleansing doesn’t stand in isolation - it’s part of the same mindless politics that wraps itself in the flag, purges socialists & smears anti-racists - cheered on my some of the most spiteful, petty people in politics. (2/4)

[🧵thread] I think quite a few left people are struggling with the situation in #Gaza, especially with the fact that the violent response from Israel - bombing that will soon be followed by a ground offensive - appeared to be triggered by a Hamas attack on Israeli civilians (1/9) There is a long tradition of non-violence amongst much of the global left. Acts of violence that target civilians is something most people within that coalition feel a revulsion at. Even where socialists attempt to understand that violence, it’s different from condoning it (2/9)

Thinking again about @KenLoachSixteen’s ‘The Old Oak’, I can now understand why it got a 15 minute standing ovation at Cannes. I don’t say this lightly, but I think is one of the greatest anti-racist films of the last couple of decades. (1/5) I’d call it that because it captures the true essence of racism as it exists in our communities now & treats it in an adult way, in the context of deprivation & poverty without the lazy cliches that we often see in the media & amongst the political class. (2/5)

[thread 🧵] For several years now, there has been a sustained witch-hunt against people on the left, who have been described as racists & antisemites. This attack was pivotal, in my view. Let’s just take a quick look at this story & how it developed. (1/14) Firstly, the accusation was made against people who, as a whole, had seen themselves as exactly the the opposite. Many of them actively so - in anti-racist, pro-migrant campaigns. That, of course, made the accusation that much harder to stomach. (2/14)

“Zionism was and is a nationalistic and political movement to establish a Jewish homeland. But there were people already settled on that bit of land…” (1/5) “…The outcome has been a steadily escalating programme of discrimination, dehumanisation and violence against the Palestinians that has outraged many people round the world. Even many Jews, such as myself…” (2/5)

[thread 🧵] We should be worried about free speech, but we should also be worried about the erosion of free thinking. We don’t learn, as socialists, by taking a line, we learn by engaging with those who disagree with us, inside or outside the left. That culture is being lost. 1/8 I think social media has played a large part in this. Because it’s possible (and sometimes popular) to shut down your political opponents - in a variety of ways - and because people look for simple solutions to their problems, we end up building a mono-culture around us. 2/8

I like Joe Glenton & I’m not saying I disagree with everything he says here, but this doesn’t touch the sides of what a serious analysis of Corbynism or what we do next might look like. Saying ‘we’re bored now, let’s move on’ isn’t it. There are important lessons to learn. (1/8)

https://twitter.com/thecanaryuk/status/1672318610122096640

I think it’s very tempting for those who came into it from a established “outside left” position to long for an end to what they see as a nostalgia for 2015-19 or hero worship of Corbyn. I think both of those notions are serious over-simplifications. (2/8)

[thread] In March 2019, as part of research for their new book, ‘Bad News for Labour’, Greg Philo & Mike Berry commissioned a national survey by @Survation, looking at public perception of the antisemitism crisis within @UKLabour. It’s fascinating & important in my view. (1/9) The survey asked the public to estimate the percentage of Labour members had been accused of antisemitism. Overall, the result was 34%. The sample of the British public in this survey, thought that over one third of @UKLabour members had been alleged to be antisemitic. (2/9)

@billybragg @wesstreeting @glastonbury Firstly, what people say the film is about or any theories people promulgate on here is separate from what the film explains (I think, very carefully). Let’s stick with that, because it’s the film that’s being cancelled not individuals on Twitter. @billybragg @wesstreeting @glastonbury Secondly I have worked in Parliament & been an anti-racist activist all my adult life. I’m not naive about these things. I watched the film very carefully for anything that could be deemed antisemitic. The idea that it implies a “Jewish conspiracy” defeated Corbyn is a distortion

[thread 🧵] The reality of antisemitism (or any kind of racism) is horrific. It blights lives, creates fear & misery, hurt & pain. It’s a stain on our society which we should work towards ending, through opposition, exposure & education. Let’s go through the layers: (1/14) 1. Someone who expresses antisemitic views (i.e hatred towards Jews for being Jews) is committing a hate crime. They should be opposed, by exposing their hatred, organising against them & defending those they target. This is standard anti-racist practice. (2/14)

[thread 🧵] When I worked for @LauraPidcock, we used to get the Jewish Chronicle delivered to the constituency office (every MP gets one delivered for free). I would read it every Monday, first thing before I started work. 1/25 A lot of it was great - articles showing the diversity of the community, wonderful recipes, even sports reporting. A proper community newspaper. 2/25

🧵 6 years ago today, I was carrying out a few last minute tasks as part of @jeremycorbyn’s #GE2017 social media team before hunkering down at Southside, Victoria Street (Labour HQ) waiting for the exit poll, with a strange sense of euphoria. (1/7) Just a few weeks earlier, we’d been 20-25 points down in the polls & hadn’t been given a chance. The Tories (& some on our own side, it seems) we’re rubbing their hands at the thought of teaching us socialist oiks a lesson, to prise our hands off the levers of power. (2/7)