The board of the Adelaide Festival runs as part of the overall event Adelaide Writers Week, the nation’s largest free literary festival .
On January 8 the board announced that they had disinvited Australian-Palestinian writer Dr. Randa Abdel-Fattah from the event. They cited “her previous statements" and the "cultural sensitivities“ surrounding the antisemitic mass shooting at Sydney’s Bondi Beach - even as they admitted her writings don't “have any connection with the tragedy.”
They didn’t cite any specific statements by Abdel-Fatah, but we can safely assume they are to referring to her support for Palestinian rights and her denunciation of the Israeli genocide in Gaza, especially given that her exclusion came as the result of lobbying by the Jewish Community Council for South Australia and South Australia state premier Peter Malinauskus.
The upshot? By January 13, 180 speakers - amounting to about 70% of those invited - had withdrawn as had some sponsors of the event, the Festival’s director had quit, the whole event had been canceled, remaining board members were to resign, and the future of the wider Adelaide Festival was in question.
There is to be a new board, hoping to keep the wider festival, now in its 40th year and a major draw for the state of South Australia, going.
Footnote: The statement announcing the cancellation offered Abdel-Fattah a non-apology apology referring not to the actual decision but only to “how the decision was represented” while claiming "this is not about identity or dissent."
Yeah, sure. Whadevah you say, Mac.
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