We hear a lot of lecturing from the media-political establishment these days about “extremism”. Coincidentally, I’m sure, it’s always “extremism” from their political opposites. BLM and Antifa, for instance, are rarely described as “violent extremists”, despite billions of dollars of property damage and dozens of murders stemming from their “fiery, but mostly peaceful protests”.
Locally, we’re lectured endlessly about the “threat of online extremism”, which only ever seems to refer to people whose “extremism” includes such radical beliefs as that an adult should have the right to decide what medical procedures they can assent to. Extremists who proclaim their racial genetic superiority get a free pass.
Even more heinously, the very people who lecture us about “extremism” are often pretty extremist themselves.
But it’s the right kind of extremism: the sort of extremism more-or-less shared by the Establishment left. So it is that, for the right, what until recently were mainstream ideas are suddenly “dangerous extremism”.
But on the left, real extremism is mainstream — and goes all the way to the governing parties.
Extreme left activist and former Sydney University academic Jay Tharappel, who once wore a jacket bearing slogans that declared “Curse on the Jews” and “Death to Israel”, has been allowed to join the Labor Party.
Read that again — and try to imagine a National or Liberal, let alone ACT or One Nation party member brandishing a similar slogan.
Tharappel’s obviously extreme views are also a damning indictment on the “human rights” industry.
Mr Tharappel, a fervid supporter of Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad and Iran’s despotic religious regime, was granted membership of the NSW Labor Party this year, documents prepared for the party’s State Conference reveal.
Previously a tutor in human rights at Sydney University, Mr Tharappel has written approvingly of Stalin (“most of the claims against him are exaggerated or false”) and espoused the virtues of Kim Jong-un’s North Korea (“a highly organised, egalitarian and energised society”) after a sponsored tour of the country.
The 33-year-old is also a regular “political commentator” for Iranian state television.
The Australian
A “human rights lecturer” who supports al-Assad, Iran, Stalin and Kim might seem an oxymoron — until you realise that his extreme views are pretty mainstream in the human rights establishment. Consider the regimes who sit on the UN’s human rights committee, for example. Or New Zealand’s own Human Rights Commissioner, who sports regalia associated with Hamas, and gifts taxpayer-funded koha to outlaw motorcycle gangs.
Tharappel views on exterminating the Jewish state will probably fit right in with Australia’s governing left.
Foreign Minister Penny Wong has denied Labor has dropped recognition of West Jerusalem as the capital of Israel instead of Tel Aviv after the DFAT website deleted sentences relating to the previous Coalition government’s policy […]
The 2021 Australian Labor Party national platform said Labor supported “an enduring and just two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict”, but also explicitly called on the Labor government to “recognise Palestine as a state”.
The Australian
It’s purely a vicious rumour that they concluded with a vigorous chorus of “From the river to the sea…”
And never forget: it’s not extremism when they do it.
Update:
On the heels of the public revelation of such extremism in its ranks, even Labor has been shamed into acting:
Extreme left activist Jay Tharappel, who once wore a jacket bearing slogans that declared “Curse on the Jews” and “Death to Israel”, has been thrown out of the Labor Party after The Australian revealed that the former Sydney University academic was granted party membership this year.
The Australian
There’s an election looming, after all.