Pro-Israel extremists are once again seeking to have Palestinian-Australian author Randa Abdel-Fattah removed from Adelaide Writers’ Week, after a similar lobbying campaign led to the collapse of this year’s festival.
A WhatsApp group has circulated an AI-generated email campaign urging supporters to lobby South Australian politicians and arts officials in a bid to exclude Abdel-Fattah from the festival in 2027.
Messages shared in the Pen Power Australia WhatsApp group, seen by Deepcut, urged members to click on an “Activist Mailer” link to generate a complaint opposing Abdel-Fattah’s invitation to the literary festival.
The automatically-generated email is addressed to Adelaide Writers’ Week director Rosemary Milsom, executive director Julian Hobbs, artistic director Matthew Lutton and Macquarie University vice-chancellor Bruce Dowton. It also copies South Australia’s premier, Peter Malinauskas, as well as state ministers, the opposition leader and shadow ministers.
The email calls on the festival to withdraw its invitation to Abdel-Fattah – a strident critic of Israel’s genocide in Gaza – accusing her of “antisemitic conduct”.
In comments to Deepcut, Abdel-Fattah condemned the lobbying effort and called on “every institution they target to stand firm against such malicious campaigns”.
“Despite the collapse of Adelaide Writers’ Week and Bendigo Writers Festival, these genocide cheerleaders continue their targeted racist campaigns, buoyed on by a political environment that has acquiesced to the pro-Israel lobby and punished the pro-Palestine movement,” she told Deepcut.
Murdoch media follows Abdel-Fattah’s UK book events
The Pen Power Australia email comes in tandem with a Murdoch media campaign that targeted Abdel-Fattah’s UK tour promoting her book, Discipline.
The email labelled Abdel-Fattah’s remarks in the UK “particularly disturbing”, claiming she “described Australians as ‘nut cases’ and Australian institutions as ‘white supremacist’”.
This appears based on a Daily Telegraph article referencing the remarks.
Murdoch outlets in Australia, which have staunchly supported Israel as it slaughters civilians en masse and causes devastation throughout West Asia, ran repeated headlines attacking Abdel-Fattah while on tour. Another article in Adelaide Now sought to provoke controversy around the author’s UK book tour, and tie it to Abdel-Fattah’s upcoming appearance at Adelaide Writers’ Week.
Abdel-Fattah called the Murdoch media campaign a “shameless obsession”.
“To hunt me down at every public event in the UK and maliciously cherry pick my lines to feed into a media and lobby machine that will do anything to try to silence me only goes to show how desperate these barrel-scraping reporters and pro-Israel lobbyists are,” she said.
The Murdoch media blitz comes two months after incessant media attacks led to the death of British scholar Jason Arday. Murdoch’s UK outlets were found to have published the most articles attacking Arday, in what was roundly condemned as a bullying campaign that uniquely targeted the academic due to his African heritage.
Louise Adler condemns campaign
The new Pen Power Australia campaign follows the festival’s dramatic collapse earlier this year, with Adelaide Festival apologising to Abdel-Fattah in January and acknowledging that its decision to exclude her from the 2026 program had been a mistake. Organisers then invited her to participate in the 2027 event.
Louise Adler, director of the 2026 Adelaide Writers’ Week, resigned after the Adelaide Festival Board decided to cancel Abdel-Fattah’s appearance despite her strong opposition.
“I’m not surprised that the Israel lobby is once again agitating for Dr Abdel-Fattah to be disinvited from Adelaide Writers’ Week in 2027,” she told Deepcut.
“I would, however, be very surprised if the new board of Adelaide Festival capitulated. It would cause irreparable reputational damage to Australia’s premier literary festival with a heritage of over 60 years.”
The decision to remove Abdel-Fattah from the 2026 event followed a letter from South Australian Premier Peter Malinauskas to the festival’s chair, in which he stated he was “deeply concerned” that the organisers were not prepared to remove her. Deepcut later revealed Pen Power Australia’s lobbying role to have Abdel-Fattah excluded from the 2026 lineup.
Her cancellation prompted a mass boycott by writers and artists, with more than 180 writers withdrawing from the festival. The controversy also resulted in the resignation and replacement of the festival’s board.
Emails obtained under freedom of information by ABC News revealed that the festival’s executive director had warned that as many as 80 to 90 writers could withdraw if Abdel-Fattah were disinvited.
Pen Power Australia has previously coordinated campaigns targeting public figures and institutions that have openly criticised Israel for its genocide in Gaza. The pro-Israel group has also coordinated mass complaint campaigns to the ABC regarding their coverage of the Gaza genocide.
Israeli is not a religion.
Jewish is not a nationality.
Anti-Zionism is not anti-semitism.
And most importantly, all people with an ounce of morality despise the genocidal state of Israel.
“NAZIs made me afraid to be a Jew. Zionists made me ashamed to be a Jew.” Dr. Shahak, Holocaust survivor
IRONY: When Zionists who survived a genocide use it as an excuse to commit genocide.
Also: these Zionist terrorists are setting up the Jews to be hated by the whole world for another 2000 years! (Historically they were initially hated as Christians said the Jews killed Jesus).
Outrageous!