What began as a powerful anti-Palestinian campaign by a few Zionist organisations and individuals turned into a victory for Adelaide Writers' Week (AWW) and the Palestinian writers who attended.
The sessions featuring the Palestinians, particularly those held in conjunction with Australian First Nations writers, were phenomenally popular; hundreds of people attended these sessions.
As Louise Adler said, “People are free to deeply object. They don’t have to come. Or come, and you don’t need to agree with what people think. But people listened. These steadfast Adelaide audiences came out in their thousands and listened with courtesy and respect for the conversation. It should be something that lifts the spirits of all of us.”
“The definition proposed for adoption by the South Australian parliament is one devised by the International Holocaust Remembrance Association (or IHRA). It is a flawed definition because it singles out one group of people for special treatment. This motion is specific to Israel and to Israel only. The motion moved by One Nation’s Sarah Game gives Israel a ‘get out of jail free’ card.
The motion itself determines the ways in which we might be allowed to criticise Israel without finding ourselves labelled as antisemitic.”
"So it’s time to fantasize, to dream about a general election, but a different kind, a dream about democracy. It won’t happen soon, but one day it will. Israel will have to become a democracy because it doesn’t have the right to exist otherwise. Without real elections, it’s not a democracy. What it imagines as democratic is an electoral trick. A fundamental rule in democracies is the universal right to vote. One person, one vote."
"The U.S. blueprint to end the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians, still in draft form after almost two years, is seen by Palestinians, and by some Arab officials and politicians, as a plan to finish off the Palestinian cause. The initiative, driven by Jared Kushner, Donald Trump’s son-in-law and White House adviser, was billed by the U.S. president as the “deal of the century”."
"This was due in no small part to an almost perpetually stalled Middle East Peace Process, and concerted efforts by Israeli governments to undermine the prospects of Palestinian statehood, even as they consolidated Israel’s hold over East Jerusalem and the West Bank. The inability of the European Union to match its fervently held two-state policy with consequential action is, of course, another significant factor."
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