Gerard Henderson is totally correct (“One-sided literary fest offers no real contest of ideas”, 25-26/2). Adelaide Writers’ Week provides no genuine debate or presentation of countering Israeli viewpoints. Who will challenge the blatantly anti-Semitic views of poet Mohammed el-Kurd, writer Susan Abulhawa and author Ramzy Baroud?
Where is the balance in the program? Adelaide Writers’ Week director Louise Adler states she has a policy of no tolerance for racism, and that criticising Israel is not the same as anti-Semitism or racism. So how does her so-called zero tolerance of hatred equate with speakers who make false Israeli Nazi analogies? One can disagree with Israeli policy, but saying Israel is perpetrating a “second Holocaust” against the Palestinians is not only factually incorrect, it trivialises the Holocaust and encourages the demonisation of Jews. This is hardly what Adler describes as “respectful debate, or the sharing of valuable ideas that may be upsetting”.
El-Kurd has alleged that Jewish Israelis and Zionists eat the organs of Palestinians, or have an inherent bloodthirstiness. Abulhawa has described Israel as the only nation that systematically kidnaps and tortures children daily. Baroud has accused Israelis of deliberately trying to infect Palestinians with Covid-19.
Annette Gladwin, Bentleigh, Vic
How kind of Louise Adler to set up a safe space for people who aren’t up to having their opinions, attitudes, values and more challenged. The anti-Semites need not consider their prejudices or, as Sartre put it, the aspects of their personalities that are unconscious and unacceptable. What are they projecting on to Jews and Israel? Some personal hang-ups that find expression in anti-Semitism?
Elizabeth Moser, Highton, Vic
Read these letters in The Australian.