It’s telling to compare the fracas generated last year by Sydney Festival’s inclusion of a dance performance created by an Israeli and sponsored by the embassy of Israel with the scenario playing out at this year’s Adelaide Writers’ Week. The catalyst for confected outrage and intimidation of artists in Sydney was this: an utterly non-political performance that made no reference to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict – rather, a celebration of the works of an internationally esteemed choreographer, who happens to have an Israeli passport.
On that basis alone, a handful of artists pulled out of the festival, describing it as “a culturally unsafe space for Palestinians, artists, organisations (and) Arabic-speaking communities”. Boycott organisers then turned attention to performers who remained on the program, unleashing a social media campaign of hatred and intimidation. More performers pulled out, not out of solidarity with the Palestinians but, as one explained, because they were copping “online harassment, bullying, smear campaigns, ridiculous accusations, misrepresentations and abuse from total strangers who have no idea what’s actually going on behind the scenes, what any artist’s position is or even what they’re talking about”.
In comparing the scenario that played out in Sydney with the one about to play out in Adelaide, it’s worth emphasising the former wasn’t triggered by a program that gave voice to a Zionist narrative. But the latter will feature a procession of fanciful, one-eyed representations of Israel as uniquely evil and Palestinians as its irreproachable victims.
Read the opinion piece from Jeremy Leibler in The Australian.