Jewish Council condemns Nike for dropping Grace Tame
Nike’s decision to end its deal with Grace Tame is “incredibly bad for democracy”, says Jewish Council of Australia
The Jewish Council of Australia has sharply criticised Nike Australia's decision to terminate its brand ambassadorship with Grace Tame over social media posts relating to Israel and Gaza.
"It's incredibly bad for democracy and incredibly bad for people who want to stand up for human rights," Sarah Schwartz, the executive officer of the Jewish Council of Australia (JCA), told Deepcut.
Nike ended its partnership with Grace Tame, the 2021 Australian of the Year and prominent advocate for survivors of sexual assault, last Friday. The decision followed reports in the rightwing outlet The Australian, which criticised Tame's social media posts supporting Palestinian human rights.
On May 30, The Australian took aim at two posts Tame shared to her Instagram Story. One, posted on May 23 by Palestinian poet Mohammed el-Kurd, criticised media framing of the Israeli embassy attack in Washington, DC, last month as "a random antisemitic attack" rather than "a response to the ongoing Israeli assault on Gaza". A second post on May 29 by renowned Lebanese-Australian scholar and racism expert, Ghassan Hage, critiqued Zionism as having "instilled in Israeli Jews and their supporters around the world a legitimisation of Jewish supremacist ethnonationalism".
The Australian described the posts as "attacks on Jews" and in a follow-up article on June 2, claimed Tame was amplifying "anti-Semitic claptrap".
Nike responded in the June 2 report, telling The Australian they were reviewing their partnership with Tame, adding that "Nike does not stand for any form of discrimination, including antisemitism". Four days later, Nike terminated the partnership valued at $100,000 and originally due to expire in December this year.
'In no way antisemitic'
The JCA disputed the charge that the posts Tame shared were antisemitic.
"Grace Tame has been advocating for Palestinian human rights and has been critical of Israel. And I think her posts show criticism of Israel and the political ideology of Zionism. And those sorts of criticisms are in no way antisemitic," Schwartz said. "In fact, they're really legitimate, particularly in this moment when so many Palestinians are being killed by Israel and as a result of the political ideology of Zionism."
The JCA have in the past warned against conflating criticism of the state of Israel and Zionism with antisemitism. Schwartz maintained that criticism in regards to Nike's actions.
"When Nike says that it condemns antisemitism in relation to Grace Tame's posts, it's basically saying or suggesting that Jewish people will be offended by her criticisms of Israel and Zionism and therefore suggesting that we all support Israel and Zionism, which we don't. And I think that it's quite dangerous for Jewish people to be portrayed in that light as being this sort of monolithic group," Schwartz said.
Nike is among several organisations that have ended relationships with public figures following their comments on Gaza — moves that some critics describe as silencing dissent.
The JCA warned that Nike's decision "sends a message to everyone else that if you speak out in support of Palestinians, if you question the information that Israel and its lobby are putting out, then you will be cancelled and silenced".
It also risks, Schwartz added, shutting down spaces for Jews to question their relationship to Israel.
"In this moment, we are seeing a huge shift in Jewish people's opinions and relationship to the state of Israel and Zionism because of the genocide that is occurring," Schwartz said.
"Many Jewish people are also seeing the same images of children dying, of parents carrying their children in their arms and they're having to rethink their relationship to the state of Israel and to Zionism."
Nike’s recent franchise shift to Israeli ownership
In February 2024, Retailors Ltd, an Israeli company and subsidiary of Fox Group, acquired the Retail Prodigy Group — an Australian company and retail franchise partner for Nike.
The acquisition saw the Israeli company take over 40 Nike stores in Australia and New Zealand. The purchase was facilitated in part by local law firm Arnold Bloch Leibler — the same firm that has also represented the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra in its legal dispute with pianist Jayson Gillham. The pianist’s performance was controversially cancelled last August due to a dedication he gave on stage to slain Palestinian journalists.
There is no evidence to suggest that either the Fox Group or Arnold Bloch Leibler played any role in Nike’s decision regarding Tame, and Deepcut does not make or imply any such allegation.
Numerous detailed questions were put to Nike Australia regarding the reasons for ending its partnership with Tame. In response, a spokesperson said: “Grace and Nike have mutually agreed to part ways. We wish Grace the best as she continues her running journey.”
Things that caught my eye globally:
America's drift into authoritarianism took a giant leap when Donald Trump deployed the National Guard against protesters in Los Angeles last weekend. It was a crisis that Trump manufactured. In a statement issued Saturday, June 7, the Los Angeles Police Department described protests in the city as "peaceful", saying it appreciated "the cooperation of organizers, participants, and community partners who helped ensure public safety throughout the day". That didn't stop Trump from calling the protesters "insurrectionists", while the White House press secretary referred to them as "violent mobs".
Trump has previously expressed a willingness to deploy state violence against protesters. In June 2020, at the height of the Black Lives Matter protests, Trump allegedly said — according to his then-Secretary of Defence Mark Esper’s memoir — "can't you just shoot them? Just shoot them in the legs or something".
Deploying the National Guard — and 700 marines — against protesters is the latest in a string of moves that suggest Trump is accelerating a shift towards authoritarianism. Since coming into office in January, the Trump administration has revoked visas of students who participated in pro-Palestine protests; threatened to pull funding for colleges and universities that allow protests; defunded national broadcasters NPR and PBS; limited access of Associated Press journalists; and has even targeted medical journals over "political bias".
Anti-ICE protests have since spread, with thousands marching in cities across the US amid Palestinian and Mexican flags interspersed with the Stars and Stripes.
“He’s screwed on Russia. He’s screwed on Iran. He’s screwed on Gaza. He has no solution to these problems.” That was the assessment of Trump’s foreign policy by esteemed international relations scholar and realist thinker, John Mearsheimer. The Trump administration said they would end the Ukraine war in 100 days of taking office — it hasn’t happened. Negotiations with Iran appear to have stalled, and the only recourse Trump has proposed is to bomb Iran. And Trump has failed to rein in Netanyahu and end the Gaza war. In fact, the Trump administration appears increasingly isolated in its unwavering support of the apartheid state, with Secretary of State Marco Rubio condemning America’s closest allies — the UK, Australia, Canada and New Zealand — for sanctioning Israel’s two far-right ministers, Itamar Ben-Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich.
Iran says it has obtained sensitive Israeli documents in a major espionage effort. "Talking of thousands of documents would be an understatement," the Iranian intelligence minister, Esmail Khatib, said on Sunday. A pro-Iranian Telegram account claims the information includes "locations and data on [Israel's] nuclear, military and industrial facilities", "information about 6 million Israeli Facebook, Instagram, Telegram and Twitter users", "personal information on Netanyahu and his wife, including medical documents, testimonies of judges, and bribery cases" and "thousands of high-res copies of aerial images of all Israeli cities and infrastructure". None of this can be confirmed and Iran has yet to disclose evidence of the intel operation, only sharing that it will unveil the "treasure trove" soon.
Massacres are continuing as starving Palestinians attempt to desperately access the crumbs of aid on offer. Israel killed at least 36 people on Tuesday, according to the Palestinian health ministry. The Associated Press reports at least 163 people have been killed and 1,495 wounded near aid sites run by the Israeli-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation.
Violent clashes reportedly broke out this week between Hamas and an ISIS-affiliated militia in Gaza that has previously been accused of looting and, as Netanyahu admits, is receiving help from Israel.
My take: An old tactic that Israel deploys — divide and conquer, arm competing groups to sow chaos. It was the intent behind its support of Hamas, to bolster it as a counterweight to Fatah and the PLO. Israel achieved its desired result: the division of the Palestinians between Hamas and Fatah. Why not try it again, this time fracturing Hamas's hold on Gaza?
Mohammed Kanaan, right, and his son Wael, left, were killed on Tuesday while reportedly herding sheep An Israeli airstrike in south Lebanon on Tuesday killed a Lebanese shepherd, Mohammad Kanaan, and his son and army soldier, Wael. Independent outlet Megaphone reports that Israel has been targeting shepherds along the border in recent days. On Saturday, an Israeli drone strike in the town of Houla injured one man and destroyed his tractor.
My take: Israel wants to make the border area uninhabitable. It explains why it detonated several ancient villages last year, and why it continues to target those who are attempting to return to their lands and lives — in this case, farmers.
In the UK, police are trialling new Israeli armoured vehicles tested in Gaza since October 2023.
