Reuters Erases Hateful Statements by Author Randa Abdel-Fattah (Updated)

Weeks after the Bondi Beach massacre in which 15 were murdered at a Jewish holiday festival, a Jan. 13 Reuters article promotes a false narrative which vilifies the Australian Jewish community ("Top Australian writers' festival cancelled after Palestinian author banned").

The Reuters story about the cancellation of the Adelaide Writers' Week in Australia inexplicably, inexcusably and completely erases Randa Abdel-Fattah's hateful statements that prompted the festival organizers to disinvite the author. By completely omitting any mention of these statements (much less actually quoting them to enable readers to judge for themselves the justice of the cancellation), Reuters' selective reporting falsely depicts the festival's move as a case of anti-Palestinian discrimination.

The piece wastes no time spinning the disinvitation as a response to Abdel-Fattah's identity rather than her pro-terror extremism. The first paragraph cites the literary festival director "saying she could not be party to silencing a Palestinian author and warned moves to ban protests and slogans after the Bondi Beach mass shooting threatened free speech."

The third paragraph reports the charge that the disinvitation was an act of silencing an author for no other reason than professing Palestinian views:

 The novelist and academic Randa Abdel-Fattah said the move to bar her was "a blatant and shameless act of anti-Palestinian racism and censorship".

And a few paragraphs later, Reuters' Kirsty Needham provides this highly truncated explanation from the literary festival:

The Adelaide Festival board said on Tuesday its decision last week to disinvite Abdel-Fattah, on the grounds it would not be culturally sensitive for her to appear at the literary event "so soon after Bondi", was made "out of respect for a community experiencing the pain from a devastating event".

In fact, here's what the Adelaide Festival wrote last week about its decision to disinvite Abdel-Fattah. Their stated reason, concealed by Reuters, is highlighted in bold:

Whilst we do not suggest in any way that Dr Randa Abdel-Fattah’s or her writings have any connection with the tragedy at Bondi, given her past statements we have formed the view that it would not be culturally sensitive to continue to program her at this unprecedented time so soon after Bondi. [Emphasis added.]

Times of Israel has detailed Abdel-Fattah's problematic past statements whose existence Reuters ignored:

She has advocated for making spaces “culturally unsafe” for Zionists and appeared to laud Hamas terrorists who infiltrated Israel on October 7, 2023. In interviews, she has refused to acknowledge the murder of Israelis, and one day after the devastating attack, she changed her Facebook profile picture to a Hamas terrorist in a hang-glider, depicting one of the methods the terror group used to infiltrate Israel.

She also wrote a post on X in October 2024 saying: “The goal is decolonisation and the end of this murderous Zionist colony.”

According to the Australian Daily Telegraph, Abdel-Fattah once wrote: “To hell with you all. Every last Zionist. May you never know a second’s peace in your sadistic miserable lives.”

In an interview on Sky News Australia just days after the October 7 massacre, Abdel-Fattah said that she “does not see Hamas as a terrorist organization,” and that the attack on southern Israel was inevitable after “every avenue of peaceful resistance” had been shut down.

And in February 2024, Abdel-Fattah signed on to a letter calling for the cancellation of an appearance at the same festival by New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman, accusing him of “hate speech” and “racism.” Friedman ultimately backed out of his appearance at the event.

It’s ironic that Reuters twists a story about the disinvitation of an author given her extremist statements legitimizing terror into a false narrative about racist muzzling of free speech when Abdel-Fattah herself has called for the boycott of another writer whose views she opposes.

I now learn that on 7 October itself Randa Abdel Fattah gleefully mocked young Israelis trying to escape the Nova Festival massacre. The woman is a monster. Shame on her vile, stupid or hapless supporters.https://t.co/Yn10e1iDZG

— Fania Oz-Salzberger 🇮🇱🕊️🟣 פניה עוז-זלצברגר (@faniaoz) January 13, 2026

The BBC, notorious for its coverage skewed against Israel, nevertheless provided readers with some of Abdel-Fattah's past statements, allowing news consumers to judge for themselves whether the disinvitation constituted anti-Palestinian discrimination as critics claim and Reuters suggested:

She has previously been criticised for statements arguing that Zionists had "no claim or right to cultural safety" and a 2024 post on X in which she said "the goal is decolonisation and the end of this murderous Zionist colony", a reference to Israel.

Controversies around her also include an image posted to her social media in the hours after the 7 October 2023 attack by Hamas on Israel, depicting a person parachuting with a Palestinian flag. Hamas fighters used paragliders to cross the high-tech security fence into Israel at the start of the attack, landing in civilian areas where many residents died.

By ignoring these statements, which were the reason for Abdel-Fattah’s disinvitation, Reuters positions the victimized Australian Jewish organizations opposed to her appearance into perpetrators, persecuting an innocent writer for no other reason than being Palestinian. In doing so, Reuters fuels hatred against the Australian Jewish community, helping to lay the groundwork for the next attack.

As of this writing, Reuters has not responded to CAMERA’s urging to amend the article to acknowledge that the Adelaide Festival disinvitation explicitly cited Abdel-Fattah’s "past statements."

See also "The Guardian Defends A Moral Monster"