Antisemitic Australian columnist uses the sort of hate speech that Leftists condemn in others

Mike Carlton has always been a hate-filled extreme Leftist.  Abuse is his modus operandi.  And he seems to loathe Israel most of all



The issue at stake here is not whether fallen Fairfax columnist Mike Carlton was right or wrong about Israel. The only issue is that he has been deemed to have responded inappropriately to readers on email and social media, unleashing all sorts of put-downs and expletives.

On this issue, his bosses were clear.  “You just can’t do that,” Fairfax business publisher Sean Aylmer said on radio. The language was “not acceptable in the workplace.  “No one has the right to treat readers that way.”

The thing to remember about Carlton’s tone is that he is on the political left. This is the same side of political opinion which for years has campaigned for moderation and sensitivity in language. Many on the left reckon that the old adage of “sticks and stones may break my bones but names will never hurt me” doesn’t always apply.

The left has for many years made a big thing of encouraging, nay DEMANDING, the use of sensitive language in relation to women, the disabled, minorities and others.

But Carlton has been the opposite of sensitive with his language. Again, this is not about Israel. This is about decency, about not vilifying others with words as weapons.

What really rankles with this drama today is the people lining up on social media to support him. Effectively they’re saying “hey, no one has the right to use insulting language, unless of course they’re my good mate Mike”.

As you read this, Carlton is already receiving job offers on social media from a raft of people whose print and/or online publications wouldn’t dream of insulting and abusing strangers. Why the double standard? It doesn’t even begin to make sense.

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An excerpt from Carlton's original column:  "The onslaught is indiscriminate and unrelenting, with but one possible conclusion: Israel is not fighting the terrorists of Hamas. In defiance of the laws of war and the norms of civilised behaviour, it is waging its own war of terror on the entire Gaza population of about 1.7 million people. Call it genocide, call it ethnic cleansing: the aim is to kill Arabs."