Doxxing-share chair Randa Abdel-Fattah ‘should be dumped’ from award judging, says Dave Sharma

Dave Sharma has urged the NSW government to dump an anti-­Israel academic – who helped share the leaked details of 600 doxxed Jewish creatives – as judging chair of a state multicultural award.

Randa Abdel-Fattah is chair of the judging panel of this year’s NSW Premier’s Literary Awards. Picture: Chris Pavlich

Dave Sharma has urged the NSW government to dump an anti-­Israel academic – who helped share the leaked details of 600 doxxed Jewish creatives – as judging chair of a state multicultural award.

Macquarie University researcher Randa Abdel-Fattah is judging panel chair of this year’s Multicultural NSW Award, part of the NSW Premier’s Literary Awards and sponsored by government agency Multicultural NSW.

“Not only must serious doubts exist about the impartiality of Dr Abdel-Fattah as a judge,” Senator Sharma wrote to NSW Premier Chris Minns on March 28, in a letter obtained by The Australian.

“(But) how would she fairly assess the literary merit of a work by a ­Jewish Australian author?”

In February, The Australian revealed how Dr Abdel-Fattah shared a link with her 30,000 Instagram followers to a website hosting the details, names and professions – and in some cases, photographs – of more than 600 Jewish creatives who had their details leaked as part of a doxxing of a WhatsApp group chat.

Senator Dave Sharma. Picture: Jonathan Ng

NSW Premier Chris Minns. Picture: Gaye Gerard

The academic, who is of Palestinian descent, called those who did the doxxing “heroes”, and said Zionists had “no claim or right to cultural safety” and people who supported Israel should be “shamed into discomfort and ­silence”.

“Her presence on the panel entirely undermines, almost to the point of parody, the worthy purposes of Multicultural NSW,” Senator Sharma said, adding that it “cuts entirely across the aim and purpose” of the award to “promote harmony and social cohesion … Her public position is completely at odds with the ­values Multicultural NSW professes to promote.

“Multicultural NSW seeks to promote community harmony and social cohesion … Dr Abdel-Fattah is instead promoting community strife and social division.”

The award carries a $30,000 prize for a book, play, poem, film or screenplay deemed by the judges to have made a “significant contribution to an aspect of ­migration experience or multiculturalism”.

Arts Minister John Graham criticised Dr Abdel-Fattah’s recent comments, calling them ­“appalling” and “at odds” with the government’s efforts to foster ­social cohesion.

“We must prioritise community cohesion,” he said.

“It is an obligation the government takes seriously, including by cracking down on hate speech, anti-Semitism and vilification wherever it finds it.”

Greta Gertler Gold, left, Geoff Sirmai and Talia Emsalem all had details leaked as part of the February 6 doxxing. Picture: John Feder

The Australian understands Dr Abdel-Fattah was appointed in mid-2023, that the panel, which includes two other judges, has completed its work and won’t meet again, and that all judges across the awards are expected to remain impartial.

A spokeswoman for the NSW State Library, which administers the award, said judging panels were reviewed each year and changed regularly, and Dr Abdel-Fattah had served as a judge four times in the past decade.

Executive Council of Australian Jewry co-chief executive Alex Ryvchin questioned continuation of Dr Abdel-Fattah’s appointment: “She was involved in the doxxing of Jewish Australians which led to death threats, harassment and professional exclusion of hundreds of people.”

Dr Abdel-Fattah was contacted for comment.