Professional services company PwC Australia has followed the cowardice of MinterEllison and cut its association with the Adelaide Festival because of its support of two Palestinian authors whose tweets have drawn controversy and led to wrong-headed accusations of antisemitism.

The firm removed its logo from the Adelaide Festival website on the weekend and issued an all-staff memo on Tuesday explaining its actions.

“PwC Australia is the auditor of the Adelaide Festival Foundation, which provides financial support to the Adelaide Festival and Adelaide Writers’ Week. We conduct this audit on a pro bono basis as an acknowledgment of the contribution the Adelaide Festival Foundation makes to the South Australian economy and arts sector,” the memo said.

“We condemn in the strongest terms any antisemitic comments and any suggestion of support for Russia’s war against Ukraine. We stand with the Jewish and Ukrainian communities who have been understandably hurt by this issue. In this respect we have asked the chair of the Adelaide Foundation that any association of PwC with this aspect of the festival be removed.”

PwC has made no protest against the forced removal of Palestinian families from Gaza nor has it condemned serious systemic corruption in the Ukraine.

Abulhawa, who is an author and executive director of the Palestine Writers Literature Festival, has responded to the criticism on Twitter, saying: “The people working overtime to silence me and Mohammed are afraid of our words and our pens, because they do not have a convincing argument against an indigenous struggle for liberation from colonisers.”

PWC had plans to open a new onshore delivery centre in Adelaide which would have created 300 new jobs within 18 months. Not a job has been created.

The Big Four accounting firms including PwC, accounted for almost 70 per cent or $7.8 billion of that revenue, thanks to the rivers of cash rolling in from their professional service divisions.

The Zionist Federation of Australia welcomed PwC’s disassociation from the Adelaide Festival.