No respectful debate
A small number of Jewish protesters distributed information leaflets about Israel.
AS Adelaide Writers’ Week (AWW) concluded, Jewish leaders slammed the refusal of organisers to exclude virulent anti-Israel commentators from speaking at the event.
Susan Abulhawa, a Palestinian-American commentator, has described Israel as “a racist, colonial military outpost that calls itself a state”.
She offensively described American-Israeli Elan Ganeles, killed by a Palestinian gunman in the Jordan Valley, as “human garbage”.
Abulhawa also described Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky as a “Nazi-promoting Zionist” and accused him of triggering global conflict through the Ukraine war.
Mohammed El-Kurd, another AWW speaker, has characterised Israel as a “terrorist, genocidal nation” and Israelis as “conscienceless pigs”, accusing Israel of ethnically cleansing itself of Palestinians.
El-Kurd has been quoted admitting that on the use of “apartheid” to describe Israel, he is not extremely concerned about “the accuracy of the word”.
During a AWW session featuring Abulhawa and Palestinian activist Samah Sabawi, a heckler, believed to be from the Ukrainian community, was jeered by audience members before he was escorted from the auditorium by security personnel.
A small number of Jewish protesters distributed information leaflets about Israel.
AWW sponsors PwC Australia, CapGemini and law firm MinterEllison pulled out of the event in protest against the speaker line-up.
High-profile Australian media publisher Morry Schwartz called on AWW director Louise Adler to resign, but Adler, who is Jewish and the daughter of Holocaust survivors, responded to media, “I’m not running a political festival here, I’m running a literary festival.”
Executive Council of Australian Jewry co-CEO Alex Ryvchin this week stated, “To no one’s surprise, the festival carried a single, unchallenged narrative that Israel, Zionism and the Australian Jewish community are uniquely evil, sinister and underhanded. This message was delivered even in sessions that had nothing to do Israel.
“The festival broke its assurances that there would be respectful debate. They succeeded in amplifying the most extreme, eliminationist and often plain racist voices both domestic and international and made Jewish participants feel isolated and harassed.”
Zionist Federation of Australia president Jeremy Leibler said AWW “sadly met our expectations”.
“Hate speech was normalised. Israel was cast as uniquely evil. Those who support Israel’s existence as morally beyond the pale. Common ground was not only not sought but rejected.”
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