The ADC has called on the Melbourne Food and Wine Festival to ensure that a session with Palestinian chef Laila El-Hadad, who is a vocal supporter of the BDS, and who has written that Israel’s treatment of the Palestinians in Gaza is a more sinister genocide than the Holocaust, does not turn into a politicised hate-fest.
Dr Dvir Abramovich, Chairman of the ADC, issued the following statement:
“It is deeply troubling that a tax-funded festival that celebrates cultural diversity, openness, dialogue and the global village of food, is hosting a speaker that promotes a discriminatory and anti-peace campaign that wants Israelis as well as Israeli institutions and companies— including Israeli made food products— boycotted, clearly violating the fundamental values of inclusivity and respect that this gathering is renowned for. It’s ironic that Laila el-Hadad is enjoying the right of participation that she wants to deny Israelis. Worse, Laila el-Hadad’s reprehensible claim that Israel’s treatment of the Palestinians is a more insidious and sinister genocide than the Holocaust not only paints the Jewish state as the new Nazi Germany, but is a grave insult to the memory of the victims and to survivors living in Australia, some of whom may be visiting the festival. This poisonous, divisive and ugly rhetoric of exclusion and demonization has no place in multicultural, multi-ethnic Victoria, especially in an event that prides itself on being free of prejudice and on bringing people together regardless of their origin or faith. We call on the MFWF to assure its partners that it does not endorse the boycott of Israel, and will take steps to ensure that the session presented by Laila el-hadad does not turn into a politicized hate-fest, and is not hijacked in order to pillory and delegitimize Israel. I wonder whether the festival sponsors and tax payers are aware that the funds they are furnishing are being used to provide a platform for a speaker who has accused Israel of committing war crimes and of being an apartheid regime?”
The B’nai B’rith Anti-Defamation Commission, founded in 1979, is Australia’s leading organization fighting racism through educational programs that combat bigotry, prejudice and all forms of hatred.
For further information please contact Dr Dvir Abramovich on 9272 5677.