Australian writers’ festival canceled after booting Palestinian author who lauded Oct. 7

One of Australia’s top writers’ festivals was canceled on Tuesday, after 180 authors boycotted the event and its director resigned in response to the festival disinviting a Palestinian author who praised Hamas’s October 7, 2023, massacre.

Last week, the Writers’ Week festival revoked its invitation to novelist and academic Randa Abdel-Fattah, citing in part the recent terror attack against a Hanukkah event on Bondi Beach in Sydney, Australia, in which 15 people were gunned down by two attackers.

“Whilst we do not suggest in any way that Dr Randa Abdel-Fattah’s or her writings have any connection with the tragedy at Bondi, given her past statements we have formed the view that it would not be culturally sensitive to continue to program her at this unprecedented time so soon after Bondi,” the festival’s board wrote in a statement last week.

In response, a raft of writers backed out of the festival in solidarity, and on Tuesday, the event’s director resigned in protest, leading organizers to cancel the event entirely several hours later.

Abdel-Fattah said the move to bar her was “a blatant and shameless act of anti-Palestinian racism and censorship,” and was a “despicable attempt to associate me with the Bondi massacre.”

She has advocated for making spaces “culturally unsafe” for Zionists and appeared to laud Hamas terrorists who infiltrated Israel on October 7, 2023. In interviews, she has refused to acknowledge the murder of Israelis, and one day after the devastating attack, she changed her Facebook profile picture to a Hamas terrorist in a hang-glider, depicting one of the methods the terror group used to infiltrate Israel.

She also wrote a post on X in October 2024 saying: “The goal is decolonisation and the end of this murderous Zionist colony.”

According to the Australian Daily Telegraph, Abdel-Fattah once wrote: “To hell with you all. Every last Zionist. May you never know a second’s peace in your sadistic miserable lives.”

In an interview on Sky News Australia just days after the October 7 massacre, Abdel-Fattah said that she “does not see Hamas as a terrorist organization,” and that the attack on southern Israel was inevitable after “every avenue of peaceful resistance” had been shut down.

And in February 2024, Abdel-Fattah signed on to a letter calling for the cancellation of an appearance at the same festival by New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman, accusing him of “hate speech” and “racism.” Friedman ultimately backed out of his appearance at the event.

In the wake of the festival’s decision last week to disinvite her, a wave of writers dropped out in solidarity, including former New Zealand prime minister Jacinda Ardern, British author Zadie Smith, Australian author Kathy Lette, Pulitzer Prize-winning American novelist Percival Everett and former Greek finance minister Yanis Varoufakis, Australian media reported.

On Tuesday, Writers’ Week director Louise Adler joined the exodus, blaming the “extreme and repressive efforts of pro-Israel lobbyists.”

“The arts have allegedly become ‘unsafe’ and artists are a danger to the community’s psycho-social wellbeing,” she wrote in an open letter published by The Guardian newspaper.

“But let’s be clear, the routine invocation of ‘safety’ is code for ‘I don’t want to hear your opinion,'” Adler wrote. “In this instance, it appears to apply only to a Palestinian invitee.”

Adler said the board had made its decision to disinvite Abdel-Fattah despite her “strongest opposition.”

In a statement several hours later, the Adelaide Festival board said that its decision was made “out of respect for a community experiencing the pain from a devastating event,” namely the Bondi massacre.

“Instead, this decision has created more division and for that we express our sincere apologies,” the board wrote.

“We also apologise to Dr Randa Abdel-Fattah for how the decision was represented and reiterate this is not about identity or dissent but rather a continuing rapid shift in the national discourse around the breadth of freedom of expression in our nation following Australia’s worst terror attack in history,” the statement added.

The board said that this year’s event, which had been scheduled to begin at the end of February, will be canceled, and that the remaining board members will all resign.