Plenty of Palestinian passion but no debate at festival

No debate as pro-Palestine panelists condemn Israel at Adelaide Writers Festival.

Randa Abdel-Fattah, Peter Singer and Mohammed El-Kurd. Picture: Emma Brasier

The panel congratulated itself: critics had not been able to silence the debate! To which any fair-minded person might have said: what debate?

There were three writers of Palestinian background on the “authors take sides” panel at ­Adelaide Writers Festival on Sunday afternoon.

All three condemned Israel.

Words like pogrom, massacre and apartheid were used, and there was nobody to object.

Nobody talked about Israelis being blown up on buses or knifed in the street; nobody talked about suicide bombings that killed thousands of Jews in Israel before the controversial wall went up.

Israel was “the villain”. That was that.

Watching the live-stream of the event, it was impossible not to feel noisy opponents of this panel had a point. This wasn’t a discussion. There was no attempt by anyone to consider the ways in which Israel and Palestine might find a lasting peace.

The three pro-Palestine panellists were Palestinian-­Australian writer Randa Abdel-Fattah; editor of the Palestine Chronicle Ramzy Baroud; and Palestinian poet Mohammed El-Kurd.

Philosopher Peter Singer was also there. He was born into a Jewish family that fled to Melbourne to escape anti-Semitism in Europe. He long ago abandoned Judaism and, disappointingly given his big brain, had nothing to say about the ways in which peace might be achieved: by each side showing a willingness to see the other’s point of view; by giving ground and making compromises.

The chair, Sophie McNeill, didn’t pretend to be impartial. She told the audience the organisation she represents, Human Rights Watch, considered Israel guilty of apartheid.

El-Kurd said he was not concerned about the accuracy of the word apartheid, saying: “You know, me and my friends have these arguments about like, it’s settler colonialism, it’s apartheid, it’s police brutality, it’s ethnic cleansing … I don’t care (what it’s called) as long as there is a conversation happening in which the villain is portrayed clearly.”

Adelaide Writers Festival chair Sophie McNeill and Dr Ramzy Baroud. Picture: Emma Brasier

“The villain” was Israel and for him, and other Palestinians, “there can never be any room or space to even consider any other alternative, but to take sides”.

Abdel-Fattah likewise rejected “both sides’ argument and balance and, and so-called neutrality … all of that is quite frankly bullshit when you are part of the colonised people, part of the people who are suffering, who are living under, you know, brutal military occupation, and I reject all that unequivocally.”

Baroud said there had been too much emphasis on “objectivity in the media … in the real world, there’s no such thing as ­objectivity. There are agendas of powerful people with a lot of money.”

And so it went, before questions were finally taken from audience members, all of whom were in lock-step with the ­speakers.

Obviously, there is nothing controversial about pro-Palestinian speakers being pro-Palestine. What else are they going to be?

But festival artistic director Louise Adler has promised passionate debate about the important issues of our time.

There was no shortage of passion. There was also no debate.