Once again, cancel culture has devoured one of its own — and this time, I’m not shedding a tear.
The Adelaide Writers’ Festival, long a comfortable home for fashionable left-wing causes and anti-Israel rhetoric, has imploded in spectacular fashion. What began as a belated attempt at moral clarity ended with mass walk-outs, the resignation of its director, and the cancellation of the entire event. It would be hard to script a better example of progressive self-destruction.
The controversy centred on Dr Randa Abdel-Fattah, a long-time anti-Israel activist who had been scheduled as a featured speaker. Following the Bondi massacre — in which 15 Jews were murdered in an Islamist terror attack — festival organisers quietly removed her from the program, citing “cultural sensitivity concerns.”
Those concerns were hardly imaginary.
As HonestReporting documented in a recent presentation, Abdel-Fattah had mocked Israelis fleeing the Nova music festival on October 7 while Hamas terrorists were still rampaging through southern Israel. The following day she made an image of Hamas paraglider terrorists her social-media cover photo. More recently, she was filmed teaching Australian schoolchildren to chant “Israel is a terrorist state” and “From the river to the sea.”
Let’s be clear: that isn’t education. It’s ideological indoctrination and the normalisation of hate.
These were more than sufficient reasons to conclude that she had no place on a public literary platform, particularly only weeks after Australian Jews were massacred on their own soil. Yet the moment she was removed, a predictable backlash erupted.
Other writers rushed to her defence. Zionists were blamed. “Cancel culture” was invoked. The removal of a Hamas apologist was framed as censorship rather than basic moral hygiene. Incredibly, the protesters portrayed her as the victim — not the Jewish community that had just buried its dead.
The protest escalated into a boycott by participating writers. Under mounting political pressure — including from South Australia’s Labor Premier — the festival director folded. The result? A mass walk-out, her resignation, and the cancellation of the entire festival.
And then came the final insult: the organisers rescinded their original statement and announced that Abdel-Fattah would be reinvited for next year’s festival.
You couldn’t make this up.
This was never about “cultural sensitivity.” It was about whether an institution funded by the public should platform someone who openly glorifies terrorists, mocks massacre victims, and teaches children to chant genocidal slogans. The real question is not why she was removed — it’s why the Adelaide Writers’ Festival ever thought she belonged there in the first place.
For years, the festival had no problem hosting anti-Israel speakers. It even “uninvited” a pro-Israel speaker in the past after pressure from activists. So when, for once, it showed the faintest flicker of moral awareness, its own ideological tribe turned on it.
The result is poetic justice.
Either you believe in open dialogue and pluralism — or you don’t. Either all opinions are allowed — or only the approved ones. The Adelaide Writers’ Festival tried to straddle both worlds. In the end, it chose none.
Good riddance.
If this is what passes for “literary culture” in 2026 Australia — censoring one side, platforming terror apologists, and collapsing into hysterics the moment minimal standards are applied — then perhaps the country is better off without it.
I will include the HonestReporting video below this post. It’s worth watching. It documents, in grim detail, how a supposedly enlightened cultural institution managed to disgrace itself in record time.
Sometimes cancel culture doesn’t just cancel speakers.
Sometimes it cancels itself.
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