ABC: Adelaide Festival apologises to Randa Abdel-Fattah
The ABC reports that the Adelaide Festival Corporation has issued an apology to Randa Abdel-Fattah and invited her to speak in 2027 after the cancellation of Writers’ Week. The piece frames the apology as a reset for the arts community, but it still avoids the core issue: why Jewish safety and concerns about antisemitic rhetoric were treated as an inconvenience.
The story is rich on institutional feelings and thin on community impact. It tells us who is offended, not who was endangered.
See: the original article
Sins
Apology Without Acknowledgment
The ABC reports the apology, but it doesn’t press on what is missing.
an “unreserved apology”
To whom, and for what? There is no honest reckoning with why so many Jews raised concerns about Abdel-Fattah’s public record. Saying sorry without naming antisemitism is not accountability, it is optics.
Hurt Feelings Trump Community Safety
The article foregrounds the damage to the festival but not the damage to Jewish trust.
“not a quick fix”
It is not a quick fix because the problem was never just a scheduling issue. It was a signal that Jewish concerns can be brushed aside in the name of cultural politics. The ABC should say that plainly.
Freedom as a Blanket
The board’s values are reported without interrogating the double standard.
“intellectual and artistic freedom”
Freedom of expression does not require platforms for antisemitism. The ABC could have examined why the festival’s free-speech posture seems to apply selectively when Jewish communities raise concerns.
Overall Review
This is a story about institutions trying to repair their reputations, told as if it were a neutral arts update. For Australian Jews, it is about whether our concerns are taken seriously in the cultural mainstream.
The ABC reports the apology but not the accountability. It should have.
Overall rating: 4/10 (a glossy bagel with a bitter aftertaste).