One of Australia’s biggest cultural festivals has been left in disarray after a decision to disinvite a prominent Australian-Palestinian writer, triggering a massive backlash and mass exodus from fellow authors.

The board of the Adelaide Festival last week said Dr Randa Abdel-Fattah, a vocal critic of Israel, had been removed from its Writers’ Week lineup due to “sensitivities” after the shooting of 15 people – by gunmen allegedly inspired by the Islamic State militant group – at a Jewish festival at Bondi Beach in December.

Though the Adelaide Festival’s board said they “do not suggest in any way” that Abdel-Fattah had “any connection with the tragedy at Bondi”, they made the decision that it would not be “culturally sensitive” to include her “given her past statements”.

She called the decision to exclude her a “blatant and shameless act of anti-Palestinian racism and censorship” and the attempt to link her with the Bondi attack “despicable”.

In the following days, dozens of other writers scheduled to appear withdrew from the festival. By Tuesday the list had jumped to 180, including former New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern, British author Zadie Smith, US-Russian journalist Masha Gessen, beloved Australian writer Helen Garner and British-Australian novelist Kathy Lette. Many publicly criticised the decision as an attack on free speech.

Four members of the eight-member board, including the chair, have now resigned without detailing their reasons. And on Tuesday the director of the Writers’ Week – who had invited Abdel-Fattah – stood down too.

Louise Adler, the Jewish daughter of Holocaust survivors, said “I cannot be party to silencing writers” and that Abdel-Fattah’s exclusion “weakens freedom of speech and is the harbinger of a less free nation.”

“Artists have always been a problem for the state and interest groups but the confrontations have intensified as a consequence of the war on Gaza,” she wrote in the Guardian Australia.

“Writers and writing matters, even when they are presenting ideas that discomfort and challenge us.”

The saga has threatened to spawn legal action and potentially halt the entire festival, which also features music, dance, theatre and other cultural events and is scheduled to begin at the end of February.

Abdel-Fattah, a novelist, lawyer and academic, had been invited to the festival to discuss her latest novel Discipline – which she describes as “a cautionary tale about the cost of silence and cowardice”.

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.

About 1,200 people were killed in the attack. It triggered a massive Israeli military offensive on Gaza, which has killed more than 71,419 people since then, according to the Hamas-run health ministry.

Abdel-Fattah confirmed to Australian broadcaster ABC that she had posted the image, but said she had done so before the true extent of the attacks was known.

“At that point, I had no idea about the death toll, I had no idea about what was happening on the ground… Of course, I do not support the killing of civilians,” she told the ABC.

The academic has been the target of public campaigns before. Opposition politicians and some prominent Jewish Australians called for research funding awarded to Abdel-Fattah to be cancelled in 2024. After a letter from Education Minister Jason Clare, the funding was suspended while Abdel-Fattah was investigated over allegations she had bent the grant’s rules, though she was ultimately cleared last month.

Norman Schueler, of the Jewish Community Council for South Australia, last week said his organisation had sent a letter to the Adelaide Festival board lobbying for Abdel-Fattah’s removal.

“It was a very wise move and it will improve the cohesiveness of the festival by not having her there,” he told the Adelaide Advertiser after her removal. Upon news of the growing walkout, he added: “I think for everyone who has dropped out that it’s rather pathetic because that means they agree with what Dr Fattah is on about… Namely, that Israel should not exist.”

South Australian Premier Peter Malinauskus – whose government is a key backer of the festival – said that he “wholeheartedly” supported Abdel-Fattah’s exclusion and had “absolutely made clear to the board that I did not think it was wise” to invite her.

However, Malinauskus denied having played any role in the board’s decision, telling the ABC on Monday that, though he shared his opinion, he had not threatened to withdraw funding or sack anyone. He also denied that his position was influenced by Jewish lobby groups.

Adler said the board’s decision had been taken “despite my strongest opposition” and added: “In my view, boards composed of individuals with little experience in the arts, and blind to the moral implications of abandoning the principle of freedom of expression, have been unnerved by the pressure exerted by politicians calculating their electoral prospects and relentless, coordinated letter-writing campaigns.”

“The board’s statement cites community cohesion, an oft-referenced anxiety which should be treated with scepticism,” she said. “One doesn’t have to be a student of history to know that art in the service of ‘social cohesion’ is propaganda.”

After her appearance was cancelled, Abdel-Fattah said Australian arts and cultural institutions had displayed “utter contempt and inhumanity towards Palestinians”.

“The only Palestinians they will tolerate are silent and invisible ones.”

It isn’t the first time Abdel-Fattah has been at the centre of the derailment of a writers’ festival.

Two days before it was due to begin in August last year, Bendigo Writers Festival issued a code of conduct requiring speakers to “avoid language or topics that could be considered inflammatory, divisive, or disrespectful”.

A subsequent walkout – led by Abdel-Fattah and others over concerns it could prevent free discussion of the Israel-Gaza war – led to the cancellation of around a third of the programme.

However Abdel-Fattah has been accused of double standards, by sections of the media and Malinauskus, who claim that she had successfully demanded the exclusion of New York Times journalist Thomas Friedman from the Adelaide festival two years ago.

A letter sent by her and nine other academics to the board followed his publication of a column in which he compared players in the Middle East to members of the animal kingdom, including caterpillars, wasps and spiders.

“Call it what you like, after the correspondence from Dr Randa Abdel-Fattah, they removed a pro-Jewish Israeli speaker. Fast forward two years and I think it’s reasonable for the board to apply the same principle,” Malinauskus said.

Abdel-Fattah rejected the allegations of hypocrisy, saying in a statement to the BBC that Friedman’s article had “compared various Arab and Muslim nations and groups to insects and vermin requiring eradication at a time when talk of ‘human animals’ was being used to justify wholesale slaughter in Gaza”.

“In contrast, I was cancelled because my presence and identity as a Palestinian was deemed ‘culturally insensitive’ and linked to the Bondi atrocity,” her statement continued.

She also denied that Friedman had been removed at her behest. In a letter dated February 2024 and quoted by Australian media, the board wrote that cancelling a writer was an “extremely serious request” and that while Friedman had been scheduled to attend he would no longer take part due to “last-minute scheduling issues”.

“If he was in fact quietly cancelled, it only underscores the racism of cancelling me in such a brazen and publicly humiliating manner,” Abdel-Fattah said.

The BBC has contacted Friedman for comment.

Adler says at least 180 writers have now said they will no longer take part in the festival, devastating its programme. Some said that while they did not necessarily agree with Abdel-Fattah, they defended her right to free speech.

Australian journalist Peter Greste, who was jailed in Egypt a decade ago in what human rights groups called a sham case, wrote in an opinion piece for the Guardian Australia that her exclusion meant “we are undermining our capacity to hold those difficult conversations” and “doing the work” of extremists for them.

Kathy Lette in an Instagram post argued that audiences should be trusted to “make up their minds about all speakers – me included. As authoritarianism rears its hideous head around the world, we need to defend these havens of free speech.”

However, former Australian foreign minister Bob Carr, who has strongly criticised Israel’s assault on Gaza, said he supported Abdel-Fattah’s exclusion. He told the Guardian Australia he believed some of her previous statements had been counterproductive to the Palestinian cause and that given the circumstances after the Bondi attack the decision was not unreasonable.

“The Adelaide writers’ festival has supported hearing Palestinian voices, its record on this is unimpeachable,” Carr said.

He was one of the only festival speakers to publicly back the board.

Former Greek finance minister Yanis Varoufakis posted a video on X in which he tore us his “precious” and “coveted” invitation to speak, claiming the festival had been “destroyed” by the “Zionist lobby”.

Award-winning First Nations poet Evelyn Araluen said she was “so disappointed to witness yet another absurd and irrational capitulation to the demands of a genocidal foreign state from the Australian arts sector”.

“Erasing Palestinians from public life in Australia won’t prevent antisemitism,” she added.

ABC journalist and presenter Sarah Ferguson, who had been due to host conversations with Tina Brown and Jacinda Ardern – both now cancelled – said the festival had “created a place where debate flourished… including on our most difficult subjects” and that it “should be defended in our cultural life”.

Abdel-Fattah’s lawyer, Michael Bradley, has sent a letter to the board demanding to know which of her past statements were used to justify last week’s decision.

“The moral indefensibility of the Adelaide Festival board’s actions has been amply evidenced by the reaction it’s provoked. It also trampled on Randa’s human rights, and the board will have to answer for that,” Bradley told the BBC on Monday, adding that Abdel-Fattah had yet to decide whether to take any legal action.

Abdel-Fattah had last week asked for an apology and to be reinstated but on Monday she told the ABC she believed the event had gone “beyond the point of no return”.

Julian Hobbe, the festival’s executive director, said that after the “significant community response” to the board’s decision, it was “navigating a complex and unprecedented moment and will share further updates as soon as we are able”.