‘Anti-Semitics’ spark Premier’s festival boycott

South Australia Premier Peter Malinauskas says he will personally boycott the Adelaide Festival Writers Week for promoting authors who defended Vladimir Putin and expressed anti-semitic views.

Premier Peter Malinauskas won’t attend the festival due to the promotion of controversial authors.

Premier Peter Malinauskas has condemned Adelaide Festival Writers Week for hosting two authors accused of anti-Semitic hate speech, declaring he will personally boycott next month’s event.

But he has stopped short of using his authority to insist on changes to the taxpayer-subsidised event, saying instead that he wants organisers to reflect on the wisdom of their current program.

The Australian revealed on Thursday that Australia’s Ukrainian and Jewish communities are dismayed at the presence of Palestinian-American writer Susan Abulhawa and Palestinian poet Mohammed El-Kurd at Adelaide Writers Week.

Abulhawa is a fierce critic of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, whom she has described as “a depraved Zionist trying to ignite World War Three”.

She has written several tweets saying the war is Ukraine’s fault for trying to join NATO and has also tweeted declaring “DeNazify Ukraine”, the line also used by Moscow to defend the invasion.

“This man is no hero. He’s mad and far more dangerous than Putin,” Abulhawa wrote of Mr Zelensky on Twitter a month after Russia launched its illegal assaults.

El-Kurd has written scores of tweets that prompted the New York-based Anti-Defamation League and the Executive Council of Australian Jewry to write to Adelaide Festival organisers warning they are giving a platform to “unvarnished anti-Semitism”.

Susan Abulhawa, a Palestinian-American writer, has described the Ukrainian leader as “a depraved Zionist trying to ignite World War Three”.

El-Kurd has described Israel as “demonic”, “sadistic” and a “death cult”, labelled Zionists “barbaric pigs” who eat the organs of Palestinians and “lust” for Palestinian blood, and repeatedly compared Israel to the Nazi regime whose genocide led to the creation of the Jewish state.

He has also likened the treatment of Palestinians to Kristallnacht, the two days of violence in 1938 when the Nazis began rounding up Jewish families and businesses ahead of the Holocaust.

His assessment of Israel is shared by Abulhawa, who has written “It’s possible to be Jewish and a Nazi at the same time” and described Israel as “the only ‘nation’ that systematically kidnaps and tortures children daily”.

Mr Malinauskas on Thursday condemned both authors and questioned why they were speaking in Adelaide. “I complete abhor the comments that have been made … they don’t accord with SA’s value system,” he said. “I’ve got to be frank, I’m surprised they are being facilitated at Adelaide Writers Week. I won’t be going along to hear them speak.

“Writers Week is a good event that does a lot for the state and provokes thought. But there is a distinction between provoking thought and facilitating the spreading of a message that simply does not accord with basic human values. That is worthy of contemplation for Writers Week.”

Palestinian activist and journalist Mohammed el-Kurd has described Israel as “demonic”, “sadistic” and a “death cult”.

Writers Week director Louise Adler said on Wednesday she was sticking by the lineup as planned and reaffirmed that position on Thursday, saying: “I don’t want us to be party to cancel culture.”

Prominent Jewish Australians and key Jewish and Ukrainian groups are urging the Premier to do more. Former federal treasurer Josh Frydenberg said there was a strong argument the language used by the two authors constituted “incitement”.

SA deputy opposition leader John Gardiner said Mr Malinauskas needed to intervene formally and demand changes to the Writers Week program.

While El-Kurd has not commented, Abulhawa tweeted her response on Thursday: “You know you’re headed to a great festival when the director isn’t afraid to stand up to bullies.”