Unpacking the Dark Arts of McCarthyism: Hysteria and Accusations

It might seem a far cry from Australia’s Adelaide Festival in the summer of 2026 and a West Virginian ladies club in the winter of 1950, but they both carry the taint of hysterical and unsubstantiated public accusations that ended in tales of woe. In his speech at a Republican ladies’ club in 1950, US Senator Joseph McCarthy laid claim to an assertion that would set the wheels in motion for a witch-hunt across the USA that occupied many millions in wasted government resources and ignited the unevidenced persecution and silencing of anyone deemed “un-American”. Feel free to transpose the word antisemitic here whenever you see the term un-American; it will make it more obvious to you, more quickly. A rampant, violent alcoholic, McCarthy claimed that day: “The State Department is infested with communists. I have here in my hand a list of 205 … a list of names that were made known to the Secretary of State as being members of the Communist Party and who nevertheless are still working and shaping policy in the State Department.” McCarthy and his adherents were obsessed with delusional ideas of left-wing subversives, especially artists, writers, journalists, university professionals and teachers (do we see a theme here?), lurking across the nation looking to infect the populace with antisemitic, sorry un-American, ideas. In the McCarthyite’s world, no nuance or discussion was allowed. Regardless of any rational defence or lack of evidence, if the Israel lobby, sorry McCarthyites, deemed something to be un-American, it was immediately branded without question. In short it was a concerted effort by a tiny group of unelected people and politicians, afflicted with a collective, logic-free paranoia, rained down upon the people of Australia – sorry, the United States – to stamp out critical thought. The South Australian premier, Peter Malinauskas, would do well to read up on McCarthyism’s appalling moment in history because he and his whispering cadre of Israel lobbyists have become Australia’s new destructive, unapologetic McCarthyites. After the Adelaide Festival debacle of the past two weeks, Malinauskas stands as a man who lost his sense of procedural fairness and decency, leaping to conclusions and bullying those less powerful than himself based on nothing more than whispers in his ear and selective hysteria. Malinauskas likes to boast of himself as a man of high moral values – except when he’s shaking the hands of the funders of Saudi bone-saw murderers for a golf competition. He is “guided by compassion” he claims, and yet when his so-called widely spruiked compassion mattered most, he chose to side with the faceless, wealthy, powerful antagonists of the Israel lobby and join with them in kicking down on a young Palestinian woman who was offered no opportunity of defence, nor right of reply. And when sooling the Murdoch media on to this lone Palestinian woman wasn’t enough, Malinauskas then doubled down, publicly comparing Dr Randa Abdel-Fattah to a jihadist gunning down 15 people. So high was he on his own supply of self-congratulatory high moral values, that even when given the opportunity to publicly apologise to Dr Abdel-Fattah for his potentially defamatory remarks, his fatuity and inability to think independently kept him locked inside his McCarthyite bubble. Gripped by the nihilistic mindset of the Israel-lobby, no explanations or extenuating circumstances were allowed to permeate. His mind was closed. Dr Abdel-Fattah was guilty of BPIP, Being Palestinian In Public. Yes, hunt the un-Americans out and burn the witches to the ground. Encouraged by the puppeteers all politicians dance to within the Murdoch media, and the faceless exterminators within the Israel lobby who have assiduously groomed him, Malinauskas drove both Dr Abdel-Fattah’s and Louise Adler’s reputations into the dirt and in the process, ruined a world renowned writers’ festival – all on the say so of a miniscule group of incessant, paranoid white men intent on stamping out any voices other than those that deify Israel. Peter Malinauskas now holds the dubious position in Australian history as the man who attempted to uphold social cohesion and his own moral reputation while simultaneously destroying both. Of course, the thoughtless destruction of the Adelaide Festival was about much more than Dr Abdel-Fattah. It was also about ridding the Adelaide Festival of an intelligent, outspoken woman, Louise Adler, who could not be tainted with the lobby’s tired and mangey, antisemitism brush, largely because Ms Adler is Jewish herself and has the gall to refuse to accept that Israel has the right to annihilate a population. In early 2023, barely into her first year as the writers’ week director, Louise Adler was already being hounded by the Israel lobby. Palestinian writers had been invited to the festival by Ms Adler, two of whom were immediately deemed undesirable by the House Of Un-American Activities, sorry the Israel lobby. Subsequent controversy and media hysteria over the writers accused of BPIP, included law firm Minter Ellison withdrawing their festival sponsorship and the usual coordinated, behind-the-scenes letter writing the Israel lobby likes to continually claim they do not indulge in. Interestingly, the 2024 Adelaide Writers’ Week hosted two outspoken critics of Israel in the form of Greek Australian, Yanis Varoufakis, and Israeli historian, lan Pappé. Yet the Israel lobby and their conjoined twin, the Murdoch media, remained strangely silent over these dissenters. Similarly in 2025, Louise Adler invited the author of the The World After Gaza, Pankaj Mishra, another outspoken Israeli critic. The difference? None of the above were Palestinian, none were guilty of BPIP. Their un-Palestinian presence was allowed to slide, unremarked by the Israel lobby, a proven festering group of racists if ever there was one. Even after the entire Adelaide Festival board resigned and for the first time in its history, Adelaide Writers Week was cancelled, the Israel lobby kept up their uncompromising destruction. A prominent South Australian supporter of Israel claimed that that South Australians shouldn’t be “wasting their money on the festival anymore”, and the Murdochracy even dragged out Alexander Downer’s wife, who in a moment of Florence Foster Jenkins self-delusion, labelled herself as a prominent arts identity and claimed the mass writer’s walk out was a good thing because it would “fix the festival”. The ideology of the Israel lobby in Australia is this – burn it to the ground rather than ever allow an opposing voice. Whether it be the legal bills for the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra in persecuting Jayson Gillham, or the destruction of the integrity of the Creative Australia board by disinviting and reinviting Lebanese Australian artist Khaled Sabsabi, the schtick is so outrageously familiar, you have to wonder what collective amnesia beset the board of the Adelaide Festival to once more follow the predictable, hackneyed script of the eternally organised and eternally whining, Israel lobby. By now, the lobby’s actions clearly speak for themselves. They care not for Australia’s arts, they care not for Australia’s cultural festivals or Australia’s halls of learning, our libraries or our theatres, or even our international reputation. Their primary concern, like the McCarthyites they model themselves on, is to stamp out dissenting voices. Israel is the planted and protected security guard of the middle-east, funded and supported by the western world to maintain order in the region. Like an overweight, spoiled child, the Israel lobby in Australia know they are untouchable, protected by the compromised hands of corporate media and the unspoken acquiescence of whichever elected government we have of the day. Like a rampaging child, they are now tantrumming across the Australian landscape, hijacking everything in their path with unparalleled protection. All of this organised witch-hunting is part of Israel’s plan, not just in Australia, but the world. Go after anything the Israel lobby deems is un-American, sorry antisemitic. Censor them all. Hunt them to the ground. It’s the same Israeli mindset that has destroyed Gaza and almost destroyed an entire people. Kill. Destroy. Bomb Palestine to the ground. Burn it all. It’s the same attitude they apply to the Australian cultural landscape. Whatever it takes, as long as they win. What the Israel lobby fail to realise is that whatever sympathy Australians had for people of the Jewish faith is being eroded by the Israel lobby every time they bang their drum; and bang their drum they do. No quarter, no sympathy by the Premier or the Israel lobby was shown for Dr Abdel-Fattah, just as no sympathy is ever shown for Palestine. Palestinian children are burnt alive in their tents, and still the Israel lobby bang the drum for Israel. The entire city of Gaza is burned to the ground, civilians murdered in their hospital beds, families flee in terror, innocent animals slaughtered, and still they bang the drum for Israel. The Israel lobby have to bang and bang as loud as they can so their minds are so occupied they drown out the screams of the innocents that must echo in their souls. The Adelaide Festival is not the problem, it is a symptom of a wider, Australia wide epidemic. If Australia follows this McCarthyite practice of the dark arts to its inevitable end, soon we will have no arts, no opera, no culture, no theatre, no debates, no new ideas, no universities – as places of free thinking. No place will be free of censorship. The Israel lobby will screech that pointing out that Israel has undue influence and power within Australian culture and politics is “antisemitic”, and they will screech this as they exert their disproportionately undue influence and power on Australian culture and politics. One day we will teach this insane, McCarthyite moment in Australia’s history in our schools and universities. One day we will be forced to explain this to our children and grandchildren, that a select group of organised paranoids from Canberra and the inner suburbs of Sydney and Melbourne acting on behalf of a foreign government, were able to dictate policy over Australian’s way of life – all across the nation. One day we will discuss the madness that is the lawless Israel lobby, a type of free-range, antisemitism hunting police-force bullying our politicians, corporate boards and arts councils that are seemingly made up of descendants of the McCarthy era and middle-managers dumber than 10 metres of dirt road. One day we will deride a state Premier and an arts board who cast Arabic or Muslim people as the problem and allowed the savour-like Israel lobby, their halos firmly intact, to swoop in and save us all from the evil words of Palestinian women like Dr Abdel-Fattah. Yes, one day we will all have been against this. Until then, we can only wait and watch as Israel’s propaganda shields disintegrate. Until then we can only hope that the masks being to slip. We can only hope that after years of watching this obvious manipulation, Australians begin to wake up. But until that day comes Australia, good night – and good luck. ***