By: Sidney Bloch

Sidney Bloch — Fri, 24 Feb 2023 11:19:46 +0000

Louise, please concede that you have made an error of judgement. We are all at risk of doing so. Whether you wish to go any further is up to you.
I very much hope you can respond in a conciliatory way. Certainly, digging in your heels will be an unfortunate legacy of your directorship of an esteemed Writers Festival.
In hope.
Sidney
Professor Sidney Bloch
University of Melbourne

By: Liat Kirby

Liat Kirby — Fri, 24 Feb 2023 08:24:07 +0000

Louise Adler should have the grace to climb down from her poor decision-making and stop justifying it under the name of space for freedom and tolerance of different ideas up for debate.
Where is the sense, where are the ethics, involved in ‘discussing’ the Russian genocide of the Ukrainian people? How do you get past that and the fact that Russia invaded the Ukraine a year ago to perpetrate what they have? You don’t. It’s not up for grabs as an idea that can be debated. It’s a gruesome fact of history that is still playing out.

As for Israel and the Jewish people, the two Palestinian writers Louise is so tolerant of, will be of no use in panel discussion here, as all they have are their own hate-filled agendas to proclaim – there will be no listening by them to different views or response to their own. They will create a hate-fest.

This is supposed to be a Writers Festival, Louise. Out with ideology and politics and political correctness as you see it. Literature and books, that’s what it’s about. It doesn’t have the capacity as a forum to provide the kind of elements you are insisting on providing.

Comments on: Indigenous Friends of Israel condemns Adelaide Writers Festival

By: Sidney Bloch

By: Liat Kirby