Left-wing extremist Jay Tharappel wins Labor membership

Extreme left activist and former academic Jay Tharappel, who once wore a jacket bearing the slogans ‘Curse on the Jews’ and ‘Death to Israel’, has been allowed to join the ALP.

Jay Tharappel.

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.

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.

In his submission to join the Labor Party, Mr Tharappel says he was previously a member of the Greens “but I literally never turned up to an event. I’ve given them $10 in membership fees.”

Under Labor Party rules a person applying for membership who has been “a member or active supporter of another political party” must provide further information to be considered by the Administrative Committee before a decision is made. It is not known if Mr Tharappel disclosed his political affiliations when applying.

Jay Tharappel. Picture: VK

Official Labor Party policy strongly supports Israel’s right to exist and condemns Assad “who routinely bombs, chemically gasses, and murders his own people”.

Asked by The Australian if membership of the Labor Party was at odds with his previously expressed political views, Mr Tharappel responded: “Not interested.”

NSW Labor leader Chris Minns declined to answer questions about why Mr Tharappel’s application had been accepted, or whether he supported it, referring inquiries to NSW Labor officials, who did not respond.

Mr Tharappel is a protege of far-left “anti-imperialist” academic Tim Anderson, who was sacked by Sydney University in 2019 after a series of serious misconduct findings that included posting an image that featured a Nazi swastika super­imposed on the Israeli flag and sharing a photograph of Mr Tharappel – then one of his PhD students – wearing “Curse on the Jews” and “Death to Israel” slogans.

Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, left, meets with Tim Anderson in Damascus in 2013. Picture: Twitter

Dr Anderson, who once flew to Syria for an audience with Assad, has appealed his sacking through the courts.

Last year he conducted a vicious online trolling of Australian academic Kylie Moore-Gilbert after her release from Iran’s brutal Evin Prison, pushing Tehran’s unsupported claims that Dr Moore-Gilbert was a Mossad agent. Dr Anderson, who was convicted in 1990 over the 1978 Hilton hotel bombing in Sydney but acquitted the following year, runs the Centre for Counter Hegemonic Studies, a network of pro-Assad and pro-Tehran academics, of which Mr Tharappel is described as an associate board member.

Mr Tharappel was investigated by Sydney University in 2017 after launching an attack against News Corp journalist Kylar Loussikian, who is of Armenian descent, as “traitorous scum who desperately wants a second Armenian genocide”. It is understood Mr Tharappel was found guilty of “misconduct” but not “serious misconduct” and issued a warning.

In 2020 Mr Tharappel tried to organise “a mass defection” from Facebook to the Russian social media platform VK, then complained bitterly when Facebook banned him and deleted his account for breaching community standards. “They didn’t even tell me what I did wrong. Not gonna lie, it hurts,” he posted on VK.