El-Kurd, currently the Palestine correspondent for The Nation and author of RIFQA, his debut collection of poetry, is due to be live-streamed from New York for two sessions this Sunday and next Tuesday. Alongside his twin sister Muna, he was named as one of the 100 most influential people in the world by Time Magazine in 2021.

Peter Wertheim, the CEO of the Executive Council of Australian Jewry said the expression of solidarity by PwC with the Jewish and Ukrainian communities in Australia was heartening, as was its decision to remove PwC’s logo from the Festival website.

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“Australians rightly place a high value on the right to free speech, and have long recognised that the proper limits of that right are exceeded when it is exploited to disseminate racism and hate propaganda, whether emanating from the far right or the far left. Neither is acceptable.

“Adelaide Writers Week cannot be a forum for dialogue and debate when only one side of the argument about Israel is allowed to be presented by multiple speakers, with not a speaker with a contrary view being given a platform. Nor can the discussion be meaningful, still less respectful, when two of the speakers have a long record of making derogatory generalisations about entire national or ethnic groups,” he said.

The Zionist Federation of Australia also welcomed PwC’s disassociation from the Adelaide Festival.

Director of Adelaide Writers’ Week Louise Adler was unavailable for comment. This masthead has also sought comment from Abulhawa and El-Kurd.

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