Australia festival faces mass boycott after dropping Palestinian author

Dozens of writers, 4 committee members, and a sponsor person withdrawn from a apical Australian arts festival aft it cancelled an Australian-Palestinian author’s invitation successful the aftermath of the Bondi Beach wide shooting.

The Adelaide Festival confirmed successful a connection connected Monday that the chairperson and 3 members of its committee had resigned aft it disinvited Randa Abdel-Fattah from February’s Writers Week.

Recommended Stories

• list 1 of 3What we cognize astir Ahmed al-Ahmed, ‘hero’ who disarmed Bondi attacker
• list 2 of 3Comparing disapproval of Israel & anti-semitism “dishonest conflation”
• list 3 of 3Praise for radical who died portion trying to halt Bondi Beach attackers

The festival’s enforcement director, Julian Hobba, said the arts assemblage was “navigating a analyzable and unprecedented moment” aft the “significant assemblage response” to the board’s decision.

In summation to the committee members, astir 100 of the 124 participants person besides withdrawn from the festival, which runs from February 27 to March 15, leaving it successful doubt, according to section media reports.

The Adelaide Festival committee had announced connected Thursday that it would disinvite Abdel-Fattah from its February lawsuit due to the fact that “it would not beryllium culturally delicate to proceed to programme her astatine this unprecedented clip truthful soon aft Bondi”.

The shooting, which killed 15 radical astatine a Jewish Hanukkah solemnisation astatine Sydney’s Bondi Beach connected December 14, prompted nationwide calls to tackle anti-Semitism.

Abdel-Fattah, a Macquarie University world who researches Islamophobia and Palestine, responded saying it was “a blatant and shameless enactment of anti-Palestinian racism and censorship”. She said the board’s effort to subordinate her with the Bondi killings was “despicable”.

Mass boycott

The writers who pulled retired of the festival included erstwhile New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern, who had been scheduled to sermon her memoir, arsenic good arsenic erstwhile Greek Finance Minister Yanis Varoufakis, British writer Zadie Smith, Irish novelist Roisin O’Donnell and Russian-American writer M Gessen.

Varoufakis posted a video connected X showing him tearing up his invitation.

Australian-British writer Kathy Lette, who is besides boycotting the event, wrote connected societal media the determination to barroom Abdel-Fattah “sends a divisive and plainly discriminatory connection that platforming Australian Palestinians is ‘culturally insensitive'”.

Leading autarkic deliberation vessel Australia Institute besides denounced the determination of the festival organisers arsenic “pure, disfigured politics”, and announced its withdrawal arsenic a sponsor of the event.

“The motivation spinelessness successful not lone seeking to soundlessness Dr Randa Abdel-Fattah, but to nexus the cancellation to the abhorrent violent onslaught successful Bondi, speaks volumes implicit who is allowed to person a dependable successful Australia,” said Amy Remeikis, main governmental expert of the Australia Institute.

The dropping of Abdel-Fattah stands successful opposition to the organisers’ determination successful 2024 to clasp the pro-Israel New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman, contempt lobbying from a radical of 10 academics, including Abdel-Fattah, who called for his removal implicit a arguable file that compared the struggle successful Gaza with the carnal kingdom.

Friedman yet did not be due to the fact that of last-minute scheduling issues, according to The Guardian Australia.

Abdel-Fattah told the quality outlet connected Sunday that she rejected immoderate allegation of hypocrisy implicit her calls for Friedman’s removal.

“Friedman’s wide criticised NYT nonfiction compared assorted Arab and Muslim nations and groups to insects and vermin requiring eradication astatine a clip erstwhile speech of ‘human animals’ was being utilized to warrant wholesale slaughter successful Gaza,” she said successful a statement.

“In contrast, I was cancelled due to the fact that my beingness and individuality arsenic a Palestinian was deemed ‘culturally insensitive’ and linked to the Bondi atrocity,” she added.

Tougher laws

In the days aft the Bondi Beach attack, Jewish assemblage groups and the Israeli authorities person accused Prime Minister Anthony Albanese of failing to enactment connected a emergence successful anti-Semitic attacks and criticised protestation marches against Israel’s genocidal warfare connected Gaza, held since 2023.

Albanese, who denies the allegations, said past week a royal committee would see the events of the shooting arsenic good arsenic anti-Semitism and societal cohesion successful Australia.

Rights groups accidental anti-Jewish sentiment, arsenic good arsenic anti-Islam and anti-immigration sentiment, are rising successful Australia. Many Australians person besides expressed their concerns implicit a emergence successful right-wing activism successful the country, wherever 1 successful 2 radical is either calved overseas oregon has a genitor calved overseas.

On Monday, Albanese announced that helium would callback parliament adjacent week to walk tougher hatred code laws and authorise a ‍gun buyback scheme.

He said Australians were entitled to explicit antithetic views astir the Middle East, but what they are not entitled to bash “is to clasp idiosyncratic to relationship for the actions of others due to the fact that they are a young lad wearing a schoolhouse azygous going ‍to a Jewish ⁠school oregon a young pistillate wearing a hijab”.

Officials said the projected laws would besides easiness visa denials connected the grounds of radical bigotry and little the threshold for banning hatred organisations, including neo-Nazi groups.