Australian-Palestinian author Randa Abdel-Fattah will headline the Sydney Writers Festival, weeks after she was removed from the Adelaide Writers’ Festival amid concerns of her influence in the fallout of the Bondi terror attack.
Abdel-Fattah is set to speak about her new novel, Discipline, at two of the Sydney festival’s events set for May this year.
The writer had been part of the line-up for a separate writers’ event in Adelaide starting Feb. 28, before organisers removed her from the program, saying her appearance would be “culturally insensitive” given her public criticism of the state of Israel and the event taking place just over two months after the Bondi mass shooting, which targeted the Jewish community.
Yet in a statement, Sydney Writers’ Festival CEO Brooke Webb and artistic director Ann Mossop stood by their decision to host Abdel-Fattah.
“A festival like ours, which holds freedom of expression as a core value, is not in the business of cancelling or censoring writers,” they said in a statement provided to AAP.
“A writers’ festival provides a rare and welcome opportunity for readers and writers to come together for nuanced conversations about complex and sometimes difficult topics ... readers can make up their own minds about what they would like to attend.”
Responding to her inclusion in the program, Abdel-Fattah said she would celebrate the wins in “the midst of suffocating repression and racism.”
Abdel-Fattah is a staunch opponent of Israel, and has called for the dismantling of the Jewish state.
She has drawn criticism for social-media posts, including saying Zionists “have no claim or right to cultural safety,” and posting an image of a parachutist in Palestinian colours the day after the Oct. 7 Hamas attacks that claimed 1,200 lives.
Earlier this month, New South Wales Premier Chris Minns questioned Abdel-Fattah’s inclusion at the Newcastle Writers Festival.
“What I’d say about the inclusion of that author is I don’t know why these organisations do it,” he told media earlier in February.
“It’s a real head scratcher for me.
“I think they’re crazy to invite that author when you think about how divisive it is and how difficult it would be for the organisation as a result of the notoriety.”
“Abdel-Fattah glorified the October 7 massacre and has in the past said that Zionists ‘have no claim or right to cultural safety’,” AJA CEO Robert Gregory told The Epoch Times.
But Abdel-Fattah has denied being anti-Semitic.
“Political ideologies cannot use cultural safety as a shield from criticism,” she told ABC radio in January.
“I’m really fed up with the way my words are being deliberately and maliciously and mendaciously mischaracterised to paint me as an anti-Semite when I have never, ever expressed any anti-Semitism.”
After being axed from the Adelaide festival in January, Abdel-Fattah condemned the decision as anti-Palestinian racism and sought legal action.
Several authors withdrew from the festival in protest, before a new festival board was appointed and Abdel-Fattah was invited to appear at next year’s event.
