Melbourne Writers Festival has not mentioned the Israel-Palestine conflict anywhere in its 2025 program released on Thursday, after disagreement on the war tore apart its board and executive last year.

In contrast to the Sydney Writers Festival program unveiled last week, where a “poetry slam” headlined by two anti-Israel activists concerned at least one donor, and is believed to have contributed to long-time chair Kathy Shand’s resignation, the Melbourne event appears to have invited few writers with well-known outspoken views on the Middle East.