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SYDNEY — A leading Australian arts festival cancelled its annual writers' event Tuesday after sparking uproar by disinviting a Palestinian-Australian author while citing sensitivities over the Bondi Beach mass shooting.
Scores of participants, including former New Zealand Prime Minister JacindaArdern, boycotted the annual Adelaide Festival's writers' week over the board's decision to exclude author and academic Randa Abdel-Fattah.
"Many authors have since announced they will no longer appear at Adelaide Writers' Week 2026 and it is the Adelaide Festival's position that the event can no longer go ahead as scheduled for this year," it said in a statement.
"This is a deeply regrettable outcome."
Writers' Week director Louise Adler joined the exodus Tuesday, blaming the "extreme and repressive efforts of pro-Israel lobbyists", and saying the board's decision was taken despite her opposition.
"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'.
"In this instance, it appears to apply only to a Palestinian invitee."
- 'Culturally sensitive' -
Australia's premier annual cultural event, which lures artists from around the world, unleashed the storm last week when it told Abdel-Fattah it did not "wish to proceed" with her appearance.
Board members had decided it would not be "culturally sensitive" to include Abdel-Fattah so soon after the December 14 mass shooting at a Jewish festival on Bondi Beach, which killed 15 people, it said.
Abdel-Fattah has faced criticism over some past statements including a post on X in October 2024 saying: "The goal is decolonisation and the end of this murderous Zionist colony."
The festival said Tuesday it regretted the distress its decision had caused to the audience, artists, writers, corporate partners, the government and its own staff.
"We also apologise to DrRanda 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," it said.
Abdel-Fattah has described the festival decision as a "blatant and shameless act of anti-Palestinian racism".
