Adelaide Festival: Canceling Palestinian Voices, Not a Bug, It's the Feature
The Adelaide Festival is in 'crisis' after three board members resigned because Palestinian Australian author Randa Abdel-Fattah was disinvited from Writers' Week. The official line cites 'cultural sensitivity concerns' after the Bondi attack, a conveniently vague phrase employed whenever Palestinian perspectives threaten to break through the carefully managed narrative. This isn't newfound
'sensitivity'; it's the playbook: silence Palestinian voices, always. Just as AIPAC-funded politicians like Senator Joe Manchin (who received $149,000 from pro-Israel PACs in 2022, per OpenSecrets.org) consistently vote against human rights resolutions for Palestinians, arts organizations often follow suit, just without the paper trail. One might wonder if 'cultural sensitivity' extends to the
daily trauma inflicted upon Palestinians, or just to the discomfort of those who prefer not to hear about it. How many times must Palestinian free expression be deemed 'too sensitive' while the violence against them is sanitized as 'conflict'? The pattern is clear: exclude, disinvite, and then feign surprise when principled people refuse to participate in such clear censorship.