Adelaide Festival gives platform for pro-Putin writer

Ukrainian and Jewish leaders have condemned Adelaide Festival Writers Week for promoting authors who have defended Putin.

Author Susan Abulhawa is a staunch critic of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, tweeting he is “mad and far more dangerous than Putin”.

Ukrainian and Jewish leaders have condemned Adelaide Festival Writers Week for giving a platform to an author who has ­defended Vladimir Putin and another who accused Israel of staging its own Nazi “Kristallnacht” against the Palestinian people.

But the festival and its Writers Week director, former Melbourne University Publishing chief executive Louise Adler, are standing by the program on free speech grounds and saying sessions will go ahead as planned.

Next month’s Writers Week features Palestinian-American writer Susan Abulhawa, a fierce critic of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky whom she has described as “a depraved Zionist trying to ignite World War III”.

Abulhawa has written several tweets saying the war is Ukraine’s fault for trying to join NATO, and other tweets simply declaring “DeNazify Ukraine”, a line frequently used by the Kremlin to ­defend its invasion.

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

Another session features Palestinian poet Mohammed El-Kurd who has written scores of tweets which have been denounced by the Anti-Defamation League as anti-Semitic and which have prompted the Executive Council of Australian Jewry to write expressing outrage to Adelaide Festival organisers.

Ms Abulhawa who described Ukrainian President Zelensky as “a depraved Zionist trying to ignite World War III”.

El-Kurd has described Israel as “demonic”, “sadistic” and a “death cult”; accused Zionists of eating the organs of Palestinians and “lusting” for Palestinian blood; and repeatedly compared Israel to the Nazi regime whose genocide led to the creation of the Jewish state.

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”.

The Adelaide Festival is subsidised by South Australian taxpayers and Abulhawa and El-Kurd are being paid an undis­closed sum for their appearances.

Ms Adler, one of Australia’s most successful publishers, who is herself Jewish, has defended the line-up against claims the festival is giving a platform to bigots. “Neither myself nor the Adelaide Festival nor Writers Week have any interest in debate that is bigoted, stereotyping people or inciting violence or hatred,” Ms Adler told The Australian.

“One of my central preoccupations is creating a space for civil discussion and respectful debate. But we hear a lot of talk about ‘safe spaces’ and that’s not what a writers festival should be about. We should encourage a diversity of opinion and create a brave space, a courageous space. It can be passionate debate. Writers are passionate people.”

Ms Adler also drew a distinction between the authors’ tweets and their published works.

“Twitter is more for succinct targeted polemic rather than ­nuanced discussion,” she said.

Her defence has been dismissed by critics and the Writers Week line-up is now attracting international attention, with the New York-based Anti Defamation League writing to organisers this week about the involvement of El Kurd at the event, warning the festival was legitimising someone with a history of “unvarnished and vicious anti-Semitism”.

“His rhetoric goes well beyond criticism of Israeli policies and actions to invoking the anti-Semitic conspiracy of the blood libel, accusing Israelis of eating the organs of Palestinians and having a particularly ‘thirst’ for Palestinian blood,” ADL senior vice-president Martin Rosenberg wrote to Adelaide Festival Corporation chief executive Kath Mainland.

“He regularly equates Israel and Israelis with Nazis. Aside from being inaccurate, this language is extremely offensive, trivialises the Holocaust and plays in to the demonisation of Jews.”

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

South Australia’s Ukrainian community is particularly distressed by the presence of Abulhawa in Adelaide, where several hundred Ukrainian refugees have settled since last March, some of them losing sons since they arrived who were serving back home in the war.

Association of Ukrainians in SA president Frank Fursenko told The Australian that the community had met this week to discuss its concerns around the involvement of Abulhawa and others at Writers Week who were spreading “conspiracies” about the war.

“We are very concerned that they are giving a platform to people who are known apologists for the Russian invasion of Ukraine,” Mr Fursenko said.

“Everything they say dovetails perfectly with Russian propaganda. We will be seeking answers from festival organisers.”

The Ukrainian-born co-chief executive of the Executive Council of Australian Jewry, Alex Ryvchin, said Adelaide Writers Week was “promoting hatred through vilification”.

“This is nothing new to the Jewish community, but why are Ukrainian-Australians and Ukrainian refugees being subjected to speakers who ridicule their country, demonise their people, and spread wild conspiracy theories at a time when Ukrainians are suffering and crying out for help?

“It is ironic that the theme of Writers Week is ‘truth’ and the viewpoints being presented are that Jews are bloodsuckers with no right to a homeland and the heroic people of Ukraine are in fact Nazis. Whose truth is this?”

The festival has been accused of promoting pro-Putin writers.

In her reply to a letter from the Executive Council of Australian Jewry, Ms Mainland said “curatorial freedom is vital to the success of the festival” and referenced Ms Adler’s own family history in defending its provocative line-up.

“Louise Adler, director of Adelaide Writers Week, as the daughter of Holocaust survivors, is intimately aware and very well educated about the Holocaust, and as such is well placed to ­curate such a discussion,” Ms Mainland wrote.