When we say that the Guardian is institutionally antisemitic we mean, in part, that they’re willing to defend or publish sympathetic coverage of almost any Palestinian, regardless of their record of Jew hatred and support for terror groups which openly seek Israel’s annihilation.
A perfect example of the Guardian’s refusal to condemn even the most reprehensible behavior of those who share their malign obsession with Israel involves the largely fawning coverage of Randa Abdel-Fattah, a Palestinian-Australian academic who was disinvited from Australia’s Adelaide Writers festival out of sensitivity to the Jewish community in the aftermath of the Bondi Beach massacre.
The entire festival was ultimately cancelled after at least 180 writers withdrew in protest over Abdel-Fattah’s disinvitation. However, earlier today the Adelaide Festival Corporation retracted their initial statement that it would have been “culturally insensitive to allow her to participate”, apologised to Abdel-Fattah “unreservedly”, and invited her to the Adelaide Writers’ Week in 2027.
If you want to know why there was deep concern about Abdel-Fattah’s presence at the festival in the context of the jihadist attack on a Hannukah party which killed 15, it would be nearly impossible to find out by reading the Guardian’s coverage – which has included at least fifteen articles and op-eds on the matter in less than a week. (Here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here , here here here here here here and here.)
For starters, here’s her first Oct. 7th, 2023 X post, while Jewish men, women and children were being butchered, raped and burned alive, suggesting that the perpetrators of these crimes were heroic.
The Guardian didn’t mention this X post in any of the 15 articles we reviewed.
Another early expression of support by Abdel-Fattah for the worst antisemitic massacre since the Holocaust appeared the following day, Oct. 8, 2023, when she changed her Facebook cover to show a hang glider used by terrorists to cross into Israel the day before in order to massacre innocent Jewish men, women and children.
Yet, in 15 pieces published by the Guardian, encompassing nearly 15,000 words, there was only one article which noted Abdel-Fattah’s celebratory Facebook image showing a Hamas pogromist on his way to butcher Jews – and even that mention, in a Jan. 13 article by Caitlin Cassidy, referred to the terrorist as “a Palestinian paratrooper”, while failing to explain the context of the use of such hang gliders on Oct. 7.
Also, on Oct. 8, 2023, Abdel-Fattah said the rhetoric that “Israel has a right to defend itself is based on racism”
On Oct. 13, 2023, on Sky News Australia, she framed Hamas’ actions not as a terrorist atrocity against innocent Jews, but as the inevitable result of Israeli “subjugation”, “oppression”, “colonialism”, “ethnic cleansing”, “settler colonialism”, and said that what occurred on Oct. 7 was Palestinian resistance and a “demand” for “freedom”.
We could find no mention of her legitimising of the Oct. 7 massacre on Sky News Australia in any of the 15 Guardian articles we reviewed.
On January 14, 2024, she published an article on the Palestine Studies’ website denying Israelis were raped on Oct. 7, while describing the evidence published by multiple media outlets at the time as nothing but Israeli propaganda.
We found no mention of her rape-denial in any of the Guardian articles.
On Jan. 23, 2024, in conversation with extremist Mohammed El-Kurd, she described Oct. 7 as “mark[ing] the escape from the hostage situation in Gaza, the breaking free, to express that this was a moment when Palestinians were going to assert their right to self-determination and liberation.”
No mention of her interview with El-Kurd can be found in the Guardian’s coverage.
On March 7, 2024 she said, “If you are a Zionist you have no claim or right to cultural safety. [I]t is my duty . . . to deny you a safe space to espouse your Zionist racist ideology.”
Her comments about denying all Zionists “cultural safety” was mentioned in nine of fifteen Guardian articles.
On Oct. 12, 2024, Abdel-Fattah wrote, for Mondoweiss, “If you ask me about hope, there was a glimmer on October 7. It was palpable, real, and exhilarating.”
Her characterisation of the Oct. 7th massacre as “exhilarating” and representing a “glimmer” of “hope” wasn’t mentioned in the 15 Guardian articles.
On, October 19, 2024, Abdel-Fattah posted a video on X of her explaining that “the goal is decolonization and the end of this murderous Zionist colony”, and that Zionism is a “stain on humanity”.
This wasn’t mentioned by the Guardian.
Also in 2024, in another X post, she wrote “To hell with you all. Every last Zionist. May you never know a second’s peace in your sadistic miserable lives.”
In April 2024, Abdel-Fattah led small children in Sydney to chants of “from the river to the sea, Palestine will be free”, and “Israel is a terrorist state” and “intifada”.
This wasn’t mentioned in any of the Guardian articles.
In December 2024, Abdel-Fattah was under a probe by Macquarie University after she wrote, “may 2025 be the end of Israel.”
This was cited in just one of the fifteen Guardian articles.
On July 28, 2025, on X, she wrote, “Israel is a genocidal settler colonial regime that must be dismantled from the river to the sea.”
This wasn’t mentioned in any of the Guardian articles.
Additionally, on Dec. 15, 2025, a day after the Bondi Beach massacre, she liked this Instagram post by the International Jewish Anti-Zionist Network blaming Zionism – rather than the two ISIS supporters – for the antisemitic murder of 15.
The full text of the post she liked says:
“IJAN continues to be devasted [sic] and enraged by the relentless death that Zionism causes.
Whether at the hands of police, the Israeli military, or an isolated shooter, no one wants to live in a world where children are violently murdered.
We will continue to join with others in creating a world that is a departure from the histories of violence and brutality that Zionism is built upon and advances.
This wasn’t mentioned in any of the Guardian’s articles.
Finally, just yesterday, on Jan. 15, 2026, as reported by Sky News Australia, Abdel-Fattah, who’s been championed at the Guardian as a a free speech martyr, said, on a podcast, the following:
(Zionism) should not be platformed and celebrated in the name of ‘free speech’. It is about as ridiculous as saying that a white supremacist is entitled to take to a stage and defend the right to subjugate black populations, or a misogynist can take to the stage and talk about the inferiority of women.
The desired take-away from the outlet’s coverage of the festival is not the fact that Abdel-Fattah is a moral monster who expressed support for a savage antisemitic massacre by a proscribed terror group, and as someone who tries to exclude diaspora Jews (including those in Australia) from public spaces and make them “afraid”, but as someone who’s the victim of anti-Palestinian racism.
A common theme in the Guardian’s coverage of Abdel-Fattah’s initial disinvitation is that she was being blamed for the Bondi Beach Massacre, despite having had nothing to do with it. However, that’s a strawman, as nobody has accused her of such a thing.
What she has been and continues to be guilty of is framing Israel as some sort of cosmic evil for which Jews, by virtue of their support for the Jewish state’s existence, should be seen as moral accomplices. In other words, Randa Abdel-Fattah is among the disseminators of hate who fuel the global antisemitism that inspired the murder of Jews in southern Israel, Washington, DC, Boulder, Colorado, Manchester and, yes, Bondi Beach.
This is where it could be said that the Guardian’s sympathetic coverage of this Palestinian extremist should shame their journalists and editors. But, as we all know, when it comes to the demonisation of Israel and Jews, the institution has no shame.
See also, Reuters Erases Hateful Statements by Author Randa Abdel-Fattah
