The peak body representing Jewish women in Australia has demanded high-profile feminists standing in solidarity with Randa Abdel-Fattah after she was banned from Adelaide Writers Week to “explain themselves”.
The National Council Of Jewish Women Australia says it is shocked that the discussion of Abdel-Fattah‘s de-platforming has not focused on her “outrageous statements denying and manipulating the mass sexual violence directed against Israeli women on October 7”.
Former New Zealand prime minister Jacinda Ardern has joined a growing list of international writers and commentators who have decided to boycott the event in protest over the Adelaide festival board’s decision to rescind its invitation to Palestinian-Australian academic — Abdel-Fattah. “It is beyond belief that supposed feminists like Helen Garner, Jane Caro, Kathy Lette, Jacinda Ardern and others are standing in solidarity with a woman who said “this isn’t a #MeToo or Believe Women moment,” even in the face of Hamas’ own evidence and a UN report that it was,” said president Council Lynda Ben-Menashe.
“Have these women never read Abdel-Fattah’s despicable public statements in mainstream and social media, including that ‘Zionists continue to peddle their rape atrocity propaganda’ , and ‘It was always about using the mass rape claims to whip up genocide fervour’ or ‘Nobody wishes the mass rape claims were true more than Zionists’.
