American writer says he was uninvited from Adelaide Festival over ‘timing’

1 month ago 17

Washington: The American writer at the centre of claims of hypocrisy involving the Adelaide Festival says he did not withdraw from the 2024 event of his own volition but was uninvited by organisers, who told him “the timing” would not work.

Thomas Friedman’s account lends weight to claims by former festival board member Tony Berg, who said then Adelaide Writers’ Week director Louise Adler pressured the board into removing Friedman from the program over a column he wrote about the Middle East.

Thomas Friedman, the three-time Pulitzer-winning columnist for The New York Times, said he did not withdraw from the writers’ festival.

Friedman, a three-time Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist for The New York Times, said he was invited to appear at the literary festival two years ago via Zoom from his home in Washington.

“I agreed. A few days later, I was told by email that the timing would not work out. I said, no problem. End of story. That is all I know,” Friedman, who is Jewish, told this masthead.

He subsequently confirmed he did not elect to withdraw from the event, and that festival organisers did not mention his writing on the Middle East when they told him the timing was unworkable. Friedman would not supply this masthead with a copy of the correspondence to which he referred.

But his account stands in contrast with a 2024 letter from the Adelaide Festival board that rejected a petition to cancel Friedman over his writing and claimed he was not appearing due to scheduling issues.

The board’s response to the petition, dated February 9, 2024, and signed by then chair Tracey Whiting, read: “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.

“However, I have been advised that due to last-minute scheduling issues, [Friedman] is no longer participating in this year’s program.”

That phrasing implied Friedman might have withdrawn from the festival amid the worldwide controversy over a column he had authored days earlier, on February 3, 2024, in which he used the animal kingdom as a metaphor to discuss the geopolitics of the Middle East.

Friedman’s account – that he was effectively uninvited, with “timing” the stated reason – lends weight to recent comments by Berg, who told this masthead that Adler pressured the board to cancel Friedman’s appearance, and threatened to resign if it did not agree.

“In the face of that threat, the board felt it had no alternative but to withdraw the invitation to Friedman,” Berg said on Tuesday, accusing Adler and Palestinian writer Randa Abdel-Fattah of extreme hypocrisy.

Former Adelaide Writers Week director Louise Adler, who resigned saying she could not tolerate silencing writers.

At the time, pro-Palestine activists, including Abdel-Fattah, were petitioning the festival to remove Friedman from the program over his animal kingdom column.

Adler did not deny Berg’s allegations in comments to this masthead yesterday.

“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.”

Adler resigned as director of Adelaide Writers’ Week amid the saga over Abdel-Fattah being uninvited from this year’s program by the board, saying that she “cannot be party to silencing writers”. Adler did not return calls on Thursday morning.

The festival has imploded after 180 writers decided to boycott the event. Most of the board resigned – including chair Tracey Whiting – and Writers’ Week was then cancelled by the festival.

Abdel-Fattah on Sunday, in an interview with Guardian Australia, rejected allegations of hypocrisy, saying she and the petition writers were concerned about the impact of Friedman’s writing on socially and historically marginalised people.

Meanwhile, Abdel-Fattah has sent a legal concerns notice to South Australian Premier Peter Malinauskas over comments he has made about her.

Malinauskas has said through a spokesman that the Adelaide Festival board removed Friedman in 2024 and that he, as premier, supported the cancellation of both Friedman and Abdel-Fattah.

Berg quit the board in October last year, before the Bondi Beach terrorist attack and the current scandal around Abdel-Fattah, citing Adler’s “vendetta against Israel and Zionism”.

In his resignation letter at the time, seen by this masthead, Berg referred to the Friedman incident – though not by name. He claimed Adler had cancelled a writer “on the grounds of alleged inappropriate description of Middle East countries and organisations, even when many of the pro-Palestinian writers she has programmed have said and posted much worse things about Israel and Zionists”.