Here is an in-depth article about the kinds of people pushing this behaviour forward.
Twitter of the owner. At least they seem to not be backing down. From what I’ve seen there’s nothing in their history that is anti-Semitic, only pro-Palestine and anti-Israel. Yet the framing of the issue by news media is consistently calling them racist, anti-Semitic etc. Fuck Toronto Sun.
Bad optics. Independent leftist social media site should be sensible enough to know what will and won't be spun against it. The anti-semitic attack works among the masses so we should be careful not to reinforce it. Whether the attack is correct or not is irrelevant if it is effective at turning people against the left.
Here's the thing though, it seems like any and all criticism of israel eventually gets slapped with the antisemitism label, no matter how tepid it is. Burning an israeli flag, yeah, that's going to look bad and be red meat for zionists but what about getting called an antisemite for simply stating the plain facts about the government's treatment of palestinians? It's so tricky. Isn't this what happened to Corbyn?
Yeah I think that backing down from this hurts the Palestinian cause in the big picture. People live in total fear of being called an antisemite, as if this trait has nothing to do with their actual understanding and intention. We shouldn't be afraid to separate Israel from Judaism in our rhetoric. Maybe we can burn the word Zionism?
Combination of that and being physically at a number of events with Hamas and other groups that could be used as fodder for him "loving terrorists". This was mainly effective because of his IRA work and support. Regardless of our views on the IRA in the left they are viewed very negatively in the UK basically everyone except the extremely informed left, it was baggage easily leveraged against him.
We have Stalin emotes.
If you see an Israeli flag, burn it if you can.
You won't get remotely the same negative consequences for saying you like Stalin compared to being labelled an anti-semite. MPs can defend Mao on live TV in the UK and while they may get crucified by the presenters and news dickheads it will not affect their voter support. Getting labelled as an anti-semite will though.