Palestinian-Australian author Randa Abdel-Fattah made the remarks in conversation with the former director of the festival Louise Adler at a rebel town hall event in Adelaide on Sunday night.
"The elephant in the room here is the Palestinian is not considered a human being," she told a sold out crowd at Adelaide's Town Hall.
It came nearly two months after the festival's board said it had decided to exclude the author from its 2026 line-up in the interests of "cultural sensitivity" in the wake of the Bondi Terror attack.
The board said in a statement it did not suggest that the writer was in any way connected to the December shootings that killed 15 people at a Jewish holiday event in Sydney's east.
Looking back, Dr Abdel-Fattah said the decision reflected a broader pattern of silencing Palestinian voices and double standards.
"I remember when I went to the statement... I had to first go through an Acknowledgement of Country on the website," Dr Abdel-Fattah said.
"That juxtaposition of performativity and then racism captures every single institution in this white supremacy."
The decision to exclude Dr Abdel-Fattah from the event sparked a boycott by more than 180 speakers, resignations by most board members and, eventually, the cancellation of the event.
It also inspired the resignation as director of Writers' Week by Ms Adler, who said in a statement at the time she could not be "party to silencing writers".
On Sunday, she said Dr Abdel-Fattah's exclusion was "certainly racist" and the result of her being a reminder of the "unbearable truth of the destruction of Gaza".Â
Dr Abdel-Fattah has been criticised by conservative media outlets and prominent Jewish bodies for her comments about Israel, including the suggestion that Zionists had "no claim or right to cultural safety".
Asked to explain that comment on Sunday, she drew a line between Zionists and Jewish people, claiming the former describes a political ideology and therefore does not attract the same rights.
"Jews have the right to cultural safety," she said, adding her initial comment was made in reference to the decision to cancel Palestinian artists from cultural events.
In opening the event, Greens Senator Sarah Hanson-Young took aim at South Australia's premier, who opposed Dr Abdel-Fattah's appearance at the festival.
"I was so upset and so angry and so disappointed with Peter Malinauskas," Ms Hanson-Young said.
"Maybe that makes me a difficult woman too," she said, in reference to Prime Minister Anthony Albanese's recent description of former Australian of the Year Grace Tame.
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