(Corrects Tuesday story and an earlier version of it to add context about decision to disinvite Abdel-Fattah in paragraphs 4-5, her previous statements about Israel in paragraphs 7-8)
By Kirsty Needham
SYDNEY, Jan 13 (Reuters) - One of Australia's top writers' festivals was cancelled on Tuesday, after 180 authors boycotted the event and its director resigned, saying she could not be party to silencing a Palestinian author and warned moves to ban protests and slogans after the Bondi Beach mass shooting threatened free speech.
Louise Adler, the Jewish daughter of Holocaust survivors, said on Tuesday she was quitting her role at the Adelaide Writers' Week in February, following a decision by the festival's board to disinvite a Palestinian-Australian author.
The novelist and academic Randa Abdel-Fattah said the move to bar her was "a blatant and shameless act of anti-Palestinian racism and censorship".
The Adelaide Festival Board said on Tuesday it had disinvited Abdel-Fattah, because "given her past statements" it would not be culturally sensitive to include her in the event "so soon after Bondi", a reference to last month's shooting rampage on a Jewish event that killed 15.
The board did not cite any specific statement made by Abdel-Fattah that led to the decision.
Disinviting Abdel-Fattah was done "out of respect for a community experiencing the pain from a devastating event", the board said in a statement. "Instead, this decision has created more division and for that we express our sincere apologies."
Abdel-Fattah's past comments about Israel have been criticised by some Jewish and pro-Israel groups, and the Jewish Community Council of South Australia had lobbied against her participation at the Adelaide festival.
In March 2024 she wrote on social media platform X: "Armed struggle is a moral and legal right of the colonised and brutalised... Western governments which use the blood of Palestinians as the ink to write international law have zero authority to define genocide, terrorist, self-defence, resistance, proportionality."
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese on Tuesday announced a national day of mourning would be held on January 22 to remember the 15 people killed in last month's shooting at a Hanukkah celebration on Bondi Beach.
Police say the alleged gunmen were inspired by the Islamic State militant group, and the incident sparked nationwide calls to tackle antisemitism, and prompted state and federal government moves to tighten hate speech laws.
The event would not go ahead and remaining board members will step down, it added.
Former New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern, British author Zadie Smith, Australian author Kathy Lette, Pulitzer Prize-winning American Percival Everett and former Greek finance minister Yanis Varoufakis are among the authors who said they would no longer appear at the festival in South Australia state, Australian media reported.
The festival board on Tuesday apologised to Abdel-Fattah for "how the decision was represented".
"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 added.
Abdel-Fattah wrote on social media that she did not accept the apology, saying she had nothing to do with the Bondi attack, "nor did any Palestinian".
Adler earlier wrote in The Guardian that the board's decision to disinvite Abdel-Fattah "weakens freedom of speech and is the harbinger of a less free nation, where lobbying and political pressure determine who gets to speak and who doesn't".
The South Australian state government has appointed a new festival board, saying this was to "safeguard the festival for the future", after the previous board resigned.
(Reporting by Kirsty Needham in Sydney; Editing by Stephen Coates, Michael Perry and William Mallard)
