Australia

One of Australia's biggest art festivals is facing a backlash and calls for a boycott after its organisers announced that it would cancel the scheduled appearance of a prominent Palestinian-Australian author and scholar, citing concerns about "cultural sensitivity" in the wake of the Bondi Beach attack.

The Adelaide Festival board said in a statement on Thursday that its members “do not wish to proceed” with Dr Randa Abdel-Fattah's appearance, as it “would not be culturally sensitive… so soon after" the attack on a Hanukkah celebration that killed 15 people in December.

In a post on X (formerly Twitter), Abdel-Fattah called the move “a blatant and shameless act of anti-Palestinian racism”, rejecting the association between her and the Bondi massacre.

"The Board’s reasoning suggests that my mere presence is ‘culturally insensitive’; that I, a Palestinian who had nothing to do with the Bondi atrocity, am somehow a trigger for those in mourning and that I should therefore be persona non grata in cultural circles because my very presence as a Palestinian is threatening and ‘unsafe’," she continued in her statement.