Cambridge festival removes event with writer who supported 7 October attack

Cambridge Literary Festival has removed a webpage advertising an event with a writer who expressed support for the 7 October Hamas terror attack.

Australian-Palestinian author Randa Abdel-Fattah had been due to discuss her new novel, Discipline, at Newnham College on 8 October – one day after the third anniversary of the Hamas-led massacre in Israel.

The festival had promoted the hour-long event as “powerful and unmissable”, but the page advertising it no longer exists on its website.

It is not yet clear whether the event itself has been cancelled.

Abdel-Fattah, 47, has faced controversy over a series of comments about Israel and the 7 October attacks, in which around 1,200 people were killed and 251 taken hostage.

Writing for US publication Mondoweiss in October 2024, she described a “glimmer” of hope on 7 October that was “palpable, real, and exhilarating”.

“If you ask me about confusion, fear and expectations, they were there in the early hours and days (…) If you ask me about freedom, justice and peace, it could have been achieved,” she wrote.

In an interview with Sky News Australia days after the attack, Abdel-Fattah said she did not regard Hamas “as terrorists” and argued that 7 October was inevitable after “every avenue of peaceful resistance” had failed.

She has also previously written on social media: “To hell with you all. Every last Zionist. May you never know a second’s peace in your sadistic miserable lives,” according to Australia’s Daily Telegraph.

The day after the massacre, Abdel-Fattah changed her Facebook profile picture to an image of a paraglider in the colours of the Palestinian flag.

Hamas terrorists used motorised paragliders during the 7 October assault, including in the area of the Nova music festival, where hundreds of people were murdered.

Abdel-Fattah has said she did not know about their use in the attack when she selected the image, which she said represented “freedom and escape from imprisonment”. She denied that it glorified violence against civilians.

Defending the image in January this year, she wrote: “An image that represented a moment of freedom is not something I will apologise for. I will not have my humanity interrogated by people who have no humanity.”

In the same Mondoweiss article, however, she said Hamas’s actions against Israeli civilians should be investigated.

“The violations of international law Hamas committed against Israeli civilians on 7 October should be properly investigated, and any punishment or sanction must fall on the perpetrators alone,” she wrote.

Abdel-Fattah was at the centre of a major literary festival row in Australia earlier this year after her scheduled appearance at Adelaide Writers’ Week was cancelled amid controversy over her previous comments.

More than 180 participants subsequently withdrew from the festival in solidarity with her and the entire event was eventually cancelled.

Her Cambridge appearance was set to focus on Discipline, her debut adult novel, which the festival had described as exploring “censorship, complicity, courage and resilience” against the backdrop of the Gaza war.

Jewish News has contacted Cambridge Literary Festival and Abdel-Fattah’s representatives for comment.