When Jews see a protest where even a small minority has placards or slogans that express racism towards them, many will worry and object.

But lots of people on Palestine demos oppose it too and can be allies against antisemitism.

Find ways to make links! 🧵 This is not a matter of PR/optics. The reason to oppose even small pockets of antisemitism on demos is not because it makes the cause “look bad.”

It’s because the presence of antisemitism in any movement is toxifying. You can’t fight for equality whilst tolerating bigotry.

Some thoughts on David Miller’s latest pearls of wisdom about (((them))):

1) Not being socioeconomically oppressed does not mean you can’t experience racism or discrimination. Not all racialised bigotry is impelled by the state or linked to class exploitation.

🧵 2) Metrics about representation of a minority group in positions of power often don’t tell you much by themselves. The richest person in Britain is Indian. Does his “disproportionate” power protect all Indian-background people from experiencing racism?

Claims that “the Israel lobby cancelled Corbyn” and that a UK MP is being controlled by “his masters in Tel Aviv” are not instances of misstated “support for Palestine”. They are claims that a hidden (Jewish) power controls world affairs. That’s antisemitism. You don’t have to believe that Jews are racially inferior to non-Jews, the racialised antisemitism of the Nazis, to think in those terms. In fact, you can be a sincere opponent of that kind of antisemitism whilst still recycling other forms.

Far-right antisemitism is certainly more “dangerous”, in the sense of immediately imperilling Jewish safety. But that doesn’t mean other forms of antisemitism aren’t “real”. 🧵

https://twitter.com/raffimagarik/status/1597280669964865537

The threat posed by left antisemitism isn’t that its adherents are likely to start physically attacking Jews, but that by accepting, even implicitly, antisemitism’s “pseudo-emancipatory” claims, it can mislead and poison attempts to develop a *genuinely* emancipatory project.

One of several risks in aftermath of the #FordeReport is that discussion around antisemitism, and other bigotries, in the party/movement yet again gets lost in weeds of process, procedure, and bureaucracy, rather than being about a political confrontation with reactionary ideas. The most robust and efficient complaints procedure in the world is not going to uproot bigoted or reactionary ideas. Obviously those procedures should be improved (although “make it easier to expel people” shouldn’t be the aim), but changing ideas requires political education.

There’s a lot about “lockdown spirit” (icky term but indulge it as a shorthand) that was very admirable, emerging from a sense of social solidarity that impelled us to make major personal sacrifices for the sake of the greater collective good. (1/4) But the same period also gave rise to a lot of petty, embittered, curtain-twitching social spite that saw the whole experience as an opportunity to snitch on and do down other people: the exact opposite of appealing to a sense of social solidarity. (2/4)

Starting a thread of articles, interviews, and exchanges I’ve had around left antisemitism and related issues since the publication of my book ‘Confronting Antisemitism on the Left: Arguments for Socialists’. Links are also available at: dev.nopasaran.media/daniel-randall 🧵 “Confronting antisemitism on the left: anti-authoritarian perspectives”

A discussion with @joeyayoub on his excellent @FireTheseTimes podcast:

Flattered to be mentioned positively in this @Dorianlynskey article. I have thoughts on it, but for now I’ll say that IMO points of overlap btwn left & right stem from abandonment of left-wing principles rather than an inevitable convergence of extremes. unherd.com/2022/03/why-th… I’m not trying to “No True Scotsman” the real issues @Dorianlynskey is speaking to out of existence: Stalinism is largely an “organic” problem for the left, so to speak, not an incursion from the right, which we (anti-Stalinist leftists) have to confront within the left…

If you don’t like Paul Mason calling attention to the influence of Stalinist-inspired ideas on the left because you don’t like Mason, fine. But there are many others who’ve been calling attention to the phenomenon for a long time. Here are a few… Rohini Hensman wrote a whole book about it (read it, it’s very good): haymarketbooks.org/books/1164-ind…. Is Hensman simply “smearing the left”?

There’s an exchange ongoing On Here™ on whether pro-Putin, or Putin-apologist, views are influential on the left. Some say they’re completely marginal and irrelevant, so much so that even mentioning them feeds into right-wing smears against the left as a whole. Alas, if only. 🧵 Clearly we can’t poll a representative sample of all the individuals who consider themselves “on the left” to get “data” on this. We have to go on a) the positions the organisations of the left have adopted, and b) the views that prominent and influential individuals promote.

“No war but class war” expresses an admirable spirit, but it’s politically wrong. Wars of national liberation, or of self-defence against colonial conquest are also legitimate, aren’t they? On top of which, surely very few of those who use the slogan actually mean it literally. Even most anarchists, in my experience, do actually support anti-colonial/national liberation struggle, even where it has a “cross class” character. So why use a slogan you don’t mean?

Thanks to @Plus61J for publishing this review of my book: plus61j.net.au/jewish-world/h… There are several issues in the review I’d like to take up, but I am wary of getting into a habit of replying to every review that’s written, which seems a) unsustainable and b) slightly arrogant…

Supporting striking security guards on their picket line/strike rally at Great Ormond Street Hospital. @UVWunion Striking security guard Samuel addresses the rally at @GreatOrmondSt.

@UVWunion

Thread. One of the biggest missed opportunities of the “Corbynist” left surge was the failure to translate that into any equivalent surge in the industrial movement. Corbyn-led Labour could’ve made itself the party of strikes. It didn’t. More (from 2017): theclarionmag.org/2017/06/24/par…

https://twitter.com/libcomorg/status/1484130307188133893

I know @libcomorg comrades would contest both the possibility and desirability of attempting to make Labour the “party of strikes”; I don’t intend to get into that here, my point is that people who did, on paper, think it possible and desirable largely failed to even attempt it.

Seen a few versions of this dunk over the past few days, which seems to overlook the pretty fundamental difference between a party rooted in the labour movement with liberals in it (where their politics can be directly contested) and a formal alliance with liberal parties.

https://twitter.com/willuminare/status/1472242416476434436

I think all of this stuff really comes back to an ends/means issue. If the “end” is just “progressive political reform”, then the “progressive alliance” perspective makes sense. But if the end is such reform *as part of* a struggle to overthrow capitalism and replace it >

It’s worth picking apart these comments from @SadiqKhan. He’s right that the Tories’ abolition of TfL’s grant creates challenges. But this the choice every municipal authority is faced with when national governments make cuts: do you pass the cuts on, or do you resist? 🧵 The implication here is that cuts are being imposed on TfL from above. The demand to make cuts might be, but TfL bosses are making choices about how to respond. To give one crude illustration, they are cutting frontline jobs rather than management roles. That’s a choice.

Where to start with this? Firstly, as clarified, the @RMTunion ballot is not solely about cuts to station staff, it’s about a whole raft of issues which affect all LU workers, and was announced before the news of today’s cuts. 🧵

https://twitter.com/ShruggedAslef/status/1468213767783788551

Secondly, @RMTunion doesn’t “ask” anyone to strike; we take decisions, through democratic structures, to hold ballots, and we vote to strike, collectively. The decision to strike is made by members; @RMTunion gives us structures through which to make and carry out that decision.

Some thoughts on “asking Jews where they stand on Israel”, notions of collective responsibility, and dual loyalty, prompted by some recent discussions on this I’ve seen in my timeline. 🧵 The David Miller perspective on this, which is reproduced in softer forms more widely, is roughly: “You say Jews can’t be held collectively responsible for the actions of Israel, but your synagogues and communal organisations are often affiliated to Zionist bodies, some with >

Jamaal Bowman’s position on Israel/Palestine - opposition to occupation, support for a Palestinian state alongside and with equal rights to Israel, opposition to blanket boycotts - is the same as the one held by the majority of left-minded Jews (and, FWIW, Jeremy Corbyn). 🧵 Those demanding his expulsion from DSA effectively tell those Jews: the organised left isn’t for you. Until you accept a “maximal” anti-Zionist programme (no Israel in any form; root-and-branch boycott; “anti-Zionism” as a point of departure), you’ll be shunned in our spaces.

There’s lots of useful stuff in this thread, and it’s a good-faith attempt from a leading JDA signatory to defend the JDA against the QC’s (mis?)use of it to exculpate Miller. But… 🧵

https://twitter.com/yairwallach/status/1465657622732984321

…I think JDA’s “core definition” (which after all, is the bit of JDA where the text unambiguously says, in effect, this is what antisemitism actually is, beyond doubt or interpretation) with its reference to antisemitism necessarily targeting “Jews as Jews”, is flawed.

Quick thread on today’s #TubeStrike, from an @RMTLondon rep (I’m not directly involved in the dispute, as I work on stations, but I’m in full support of my train operator comrades)… The basic issues in the dispute are simple. When Night Tube was first proposed, LU said existing staff would work the night shifts. We (drivers, station staff, and others) said… no thanks. We struck, and won an agreement…