Every now and then, I find myself in the strange position of trying to convince Scottish nationalists not to train their pitchforks on SNP MSP John Mason, who is known for his mercurial pronouncements. This time he has been suspended from the party whip for disputing the assertion that Israel is conducting a genocide in Gaza. In a post on Twitter, Mason said: ‘If Israel wanted to commit genocide, they would have killed ten times as many.’ This was a response to a sharply worded post from former colleague Sandra White. White, who served as a nationalist MSP between 1999 and 2021, apologised in 2015 after reposting an anti-Semitic meme on Twitter, claiming to have done so inadvertently. The image, as described by the BBC, showed ‘six piglets suckling at a sow with the word “Rothschild” and the Star of David on it’.
Mason’s suspension could set a precedent that the SNP will find difficult to maintain
Mason’s post is said to be callous, to insinuate incorrectly that attempted genocide requires a certain volume of casualties, and to downplay Palestinian death and suffering.
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