{"id":513011,"date":"2026-03-02T02:34:10","date_gmt":"2026-03-02T02:34:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/513011\/"},"modified":"2026-03-02T02:34:10","modified_gmt":"2026-03-02T02:34:10","slug":"randa-abdel-fattah-appears-at-alternative-adelaide-writers-week-event","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/513011\/","title":{"rendered":"Randa Abdel-Fattah appears at alternative Adelaide Writers’ Week event"},"content":{"rendered":"

Palestinian Australian author Randa Abdel-Fattah has appeared at an alternative Adelaide Writers’ Week event, telling a sold-out crowd journalists “muted” and “censored” Palestinian people amid the Gaza war.<\/p>\n

The public conversation with Louise Adler \u2014 the former director of Writers’ Week<\/a> \u2014 came after weeks of furore in January over the decision to disinvite Abdel-Fattah from the event<\/a>, which was cancelled when dozens of authors joined a boycott<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Speaking with Ms Adler at the Adelaide Town Hall on Sunday night at the one-off Constellations: Not Writers’ Week festival, Abdel-Fattah said journalists should have “believed brown bodies as reliable witnesses” earlier in the Gaza conflict.<\/p>\n

“What I’m angriest about as a Palestinian is all of this was preventable,” the author, lawyer and activist said, referencing the “hundreds of thousands” of Palestinian adults and children who have been killed in the war.<\/p>\n

“The blame for that, the accountability, is on the media, which manufactured consent for this genocide.<\/p>\n

“It’s on the journalists who dared to mute our political language, who dared to censor us, who dared to say that what we saw was not testimony, or we weren’t reliable witnesses.”\"Abdel-Fatteh<\/p>\n

The former Adelaide Festival board rescinded its invitation to Abdel-Fattah over her previous comments about Israel and Zionism. (ABC RN: Jennifer Wong)<\/p>\n

The event, which was attended by about 950 people, was part of the Constellations festival organised by South Australia’s literary community<\/a> following the cancellation of this year’s Writers’ Week.<\/p>\n

The literary event was scrapped in the fallout of the former Adelaide Festival board’s decision to rescind its invitation to Abdel-Fattah over her previous comments about Israel and Zionism, <\/a>including that Zionists “have no claim or right to cultural safety” and a 2024 social media post in which she wrote: “The goal is decolonisation and the end of this murderous Zionist colony”.<\/p>\n

South Australian Premier Peter Malinuakas backed the decision, writing in a letter to the former board<\/a> that the festival would open itself up to “accusations of hypocrisy” and “legitimate public ridicule” if it did not cancel Abdel-Fattah’s appearance.<\/p>\n

The eventual axing of Abdel-Fattah from the Writers’ Week program prompted the mass boycott of authors, Ms Adler and the entire festival board’s resignations, and the appointment of a replacement board.<\/p>\n

Former festival director lambastes ‘fact-free’ reporting<\/p>\n

On Sunday, Ms Adler accused the media of “extraordinary” disrespect towards Abdel-Fattah, claiming uncited outlets had referred to the author as “that woman” and “radioactive”.<\/p>\n

‘Trashed’ Writers’ Week a ‘watershed moment’<\/a><\/p>\n

The former Adelaide Writers’ Week director takes aim at lobby groups and the SA premier during an intense appearance on 7.30 in which she says the event’s reputation has been “trashed”.<\/p>\n

The former festival director also accused the media of “fact-free” reporting and spreading “wilful misinformation” as the controversy over this year’s Adelaide Writers’ Week unfolded.<\/p>\n

“I’m sure you’ve heard the confected outrage, the acres of column inches ironically devoted to the lament of self-published and self-aggrandising writers: ‘Why am I being silenced? Where are the Jewish invitees?’ they demand,” Ms Adler said.<\/p>\n

“But curating a festival entails choosing who will and who won’t be invited.<\/p>\n

“It’s not hypocrisy to choose some writers and not others.<\/p>\n

“Not programming someone who believes they should be invited is not an act of censorship.”<\/p>\n

\"Louise<\/p>\n

The pair spoke in front of a packed audience at the Adelaide Town Hall. (ABC News: Stephanie Richards)<\/p>\n

Ms Adler, who is on the Jewish Council of Australia’s advisory committee and is the daughter of Holocaust survivors, added that she had planned to include three Palestinian and 12 Jewish writers in this year’s Adelaide Writers’ Week line-up.<\/p>\n

“Given the importance that Israel and its loyal diaspora advocates place on demographic calculations, it’s instructive to think about the relationship between the significance accorded to the speech of a single Palestinian writer and academic and the worthlessness accorded to the lives of Palestinians,” she said.<\/p>\n

“The silencing of Dr Randa Abdel-Fattah and other Palestinians is the precondition for the perpetuation of their collective dehumanisation.”<\/p>\n

Alternative event prompted by ‘unusual circumstances’<\/p>\n

Greens Senator Sarah Hanson-Young, who hosted Sunday’s event, said the conversation between Abdel-Fattah and Ms Adler took place under “unusual circumstances”.<\/p>\n

\"Greens<\/p>\n

Sarah Hanson-Young spoke at the event. (ABC News)<\/p>\n

“The cancellation of this year’s [Adelaide Writers’ Week] festival was not an administrative or logistical decision \u2014 it was political,” she said.<\/p>\n

“It was an act that revealed fear \u2014 fear of dissent, fear of complexity, fear of those who dare to write what they see.<\/p>\n

“A fear of feeling challenged by the voices of those less understood and often silenced.”<\/p>\n

On Friday, Mr Malinauskas said he believed he had made the “right” decision when urging the former festival board to uninvite Abdel-Fattah from Writers’ Week.<\/p>\n

\"Peter<\/p>\n

Peter Malinauskas says he had thought carefully about his stance and believes it to be the right one. (ABC News: Carl Saville)<\/p>\n

“I’ve offered my views about this. I’ve been very candid about it and \u2026 as I’ve said time and time again, I’ve thought through really carefully about the position that I took and I believe it to be the right one,” he said.<\/p>\n

“But others will form their own opinions as many people have on this issue, and that’s a good thing.”<\/p>\n

Abdel-Fattah will also feature at Sydney Writers’ Week in May<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Palestinian Australian author Randa Abdel-Fattah has appeared at an alternative Adelaide Writers’ Week event, telling a sold-out crowd…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":513012,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[214368,64,63,240743,6898,217141,44,131188,6900,215226],"class_list":{"0":"post-513011","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-australia","8":"tag-adelaide-writers-week","9":"tag-au","10":"tag-australia","11":"tag-constellations","12":"tag-gaza","13":"tag-louise-adler","14":"tag-news","15":"tag-randa-abdel-fattah","16":"tag-war","17":"tag-writers-week"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/513011","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=513011"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/513011\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/513012"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=513011"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=513011"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=513011"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}