Ex-board member accuses Louise Adler of hypocrisy over NYT writer

A former Adelaide Festival board member has accused outgoing Adelaide Writers’ Week director Louise Adler of threatening to resign from her role in 2024 unless the board cancelled an invitation to a Jewish New York Times journalist.

Tony Berg, who resigned from the Adelaide Festival board last year and has been critical of Adler, says she is guilty of hypocrisy as she “stridently opposed free speech” when she threatened to quit unless writer Thomas Friedman’s invitation to the festival was rescinded.

Berg’s comments in a statement to this masthead on Wednesday come after days of turmoil in South Australia, with the cancellation on Tuesday of Adelaide Writers’ Week, and the resignation of Adler after 180 authors quit the line-up, following the Adelaide Festival board’s decision to remove Palestinian-Australian writer Dr Randa Abdel-Fattah from the literary festival’s program.

Last Thursday, the festival board announced that while it was not suggesting “in any way” that Abdel-Fattah or her writing had any connection with the Bondi attack, given her past statements, “it would not be culturally sensitive to continue to program her at this unprecedented time so soon after Bondi”. Adelaide Festival chair Tracey Whiting resigned on Sunday.

Conservative Jewish groups previously criticised the Palestinian writer for social media posts critical of Israel.

“In 2024, Louise Adler led a demand to the board to retract an invitation to Tom Friedman to participate in the 2024 Adelaide Writers Week,” Berg said in a statement to this masthead on Wednesday. “In the face of that threat, the board felt it had no alternative but to ... withdraw the invitation to Friedman.

“I understand why a number of authors have turned down invitations to come to AWW 2026 on freedom of speech grounds. But they should understand that the people, with whom they are standing, in fact, have actively undermined freedom of speech in the past.”

Berg, a director of advisory group Gresham and a governor on the Australia-Israel Chamber of Commerce, resigned from the Adelaide Festival board last October, saying he couldn’t sit on a board that employed a director of Writers’ Week who continued to deal with the board “inappropriately” and “who programs writers who have a vendetta against Israel and Zionism”.

Asked about Berg’s allegations, Adler told this masthead: “I consider discussions at the board table to be confidential and I’m rather surprised that a former CEO of Macquarie Bank has breached those confidences,” she said. “It’s indicative of the way the former board operated – a rich case study for future management students.”

Abdel-Fattah was one of 10 people who had written to the board asking it to rescind the invite to Friedman after his controversial comments about the Middle East, including comparing the conflict to the animal kingdom, which drew widespread condemnation.

However, in a response seen by this masthead, dated February 9, 2024, the festival board rejected this petition. Signed by the (now former) chair of the board, Tracey Whiting, it reads: “Asking the Adelaide Festival and Adelaide Writers’ Week to cancel an artist or writer is an extremely serious request. We have an international reputation for supporting artistic freedom of expression.”

Whether the festival rescinded the invite or whether Friedman was unable to appear due to a scheduling clash is contested. On Wednesday, Berg criticised both Abdel-Fattah and Adler.

“I am now utterly astonished at Louise Adler’s statement in her resignation letter in support of free speech. I am likewise surprised by Randa Abdel-Fattah’s invocation of free speech and her outrage at being ‘cancelled’,” he said.

“I regard it to be utterly hypocritical of Randa Abdel-Fattah and Louise Adler to now accuse the board of repressing freedom of speech when they have both actively sought to deny it to Tom Friedman.”

Speaking to the Guardian on Sunday, Abdel-Fattah rejected any allegation of hypocrisy.

“We were concerned about the impact of Friedman’s views on socially and historically marginalised people who have been dehumanised and discriminated against...,” she said.

“In contrast, I was cancelled because my presence and identity as a Palestinian was deemed ‘culturally insensitive’ and linked to the Bondi atrocity.”

On Wednesday, Abdel-Fattah said she was taking legal action against the South Australian Premier Peter Malinauskas, accusing him of defaming her in comments he made at a news conference on Tuesday.

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