Nova Peris quits republican movement over Gaza split with co-chair Craig Foster

Olympic champion and former Labor senator Nova Peris has resigned as co-chair of the Australian Republican Movement in response to what she described as an “inaccurate and divisive” public intervention made by her fellow leader, Craig Foster.

Peris said her position with the ARM, a cause she has been prominently involved with since the lead-up to the failed 1999 referendum, was untenable following Foster’s publication of an open letter to FIFA and Football Australia calling for Australia to support Israel’s suspension from international football.

Nova Peris near her Darwin home on Tuesday.Credit: Helen Orr

She said Foster’s emotive letter posted to his nearly 30,000 Instagram followers, which included a “flat-out wrong” statement about what the International Court of Justice had found about Israel’s conduct of the war in Gaza, risked sowing further social divisions.

“I don’t believe that inaccurate and divisive public statements like the one made to FIFA are appropriate,” Peris said in a statement to this masthead.

“Given our different styles of leadership and our different visions on how to promote dialogue, reconciliation and social cohesion, it is untenable for me to continue alongside Craig as co-chair of the ARM and I’ll be stepping down.”

Peris informed the Australian Republican Movement of her decision on Tuesday.

Craig Foster and Peris were appointed co-chairs of the Australian Republic Movement in March 2023.Credit: Rhett Wyman

Responding on social media to Peris’ resignation, Foster wished his former co-chair well and thanked her for an “incredible contribution” to the republican movement. “There can, however, be no silence when a duty to protect other humans exists for us all,” he added.

The ARM is the latest progressive organisation in Australia split by the effects of the war and humanitarian crisis in Gaza.

The October 7 attack on Israel by Hamas and Israel’s ongoing military response, which Gazan authorities say has killed 35,000 Palestinians, has created deep ructions within the Labor Party, arts organisations, universities and media companies and triggered mass demonstrations, boycotts and doxxing campaigns.

Foster is a former Socceroo captain turned human rights activist.Credit: Alex Ellinghausen

Peris is a staunch supporter of Israel and has publicly disavowed attempts by pro-Palestinian activists to co-opt the Aboriginal rights movement and frame Israel as the colonial oppressor of indigenous Palestinians, an approach critics say ignores the ancient, continuous connection Jews have to the same land.

Foster, a former Socceroos captain and a human rights activist, argues that Israel, through its “mass slaughter of innocent Palestinians” is in breach of international law. In his letter urging Football Australia to suspend Israel’s involvement in the world game, Foster said the International Court of Justice had deemed “plausible genocide” in Gaza.

Peris, in her statement, pointed out the court had made no such finding. The then court president who made the ruling, Joan Donoghue, has publicly clarified that the court found that Palestinians have a “plausible right” to be protected from genocide.

The case against Israel, brought by South Africa, has not been tried. The court refused a request by South Africa to order a ceasefire in Gaza.

Peris also took issue with Foster’s characterisation of Israel as an apartheid regime, and said she observed during her recent trip to Israel that Arab Israelis enjoyed the full benefits of citizenship and political participation.

These rights do not extend to Palestinians living in the occupied territories, human rights groups have found.

More broadly, Peris argues it is not in Australia’s interest to import overseas conflicts and amplify them, particularly at a time when the polarisation of politics and the rise in hate speech are destabilising our liberal democracy and radicalising some young people.

“Criticism of Israel’s government or the conduct of the war is entirely legitimate,” she said. “Millions of Israelis do this every day. However, labelling anyone who believes Israel has a simple right to exist a ‘genocide supporter’ or calling for the destruction of the world’s only Jewish state ... is hate speech.

“We live far from many of the world’s conflicts. We could bring constructive thought leadership. Sadly, we are doing the opposite. The trend is to import foreign conflict into Australia and amplify it. Everything becomes binary. There is only right or wrong, oppressor or oppressed. Everyone has to ‘pick a side’.

Peris says dialogue rather than exclusion is the best way to pursue reconciliation.Credit: Helen Orr

“It should concern all Australians that some people are suddenly siding with a barbaric terrorist organisation and denying that Jews are indigenous to Israel, while hypocritically occupying stolen Aboriginal land.”

She argues that sport, like politics, is a powerful motivating force, and that dialogue rather than exclusion was the best way to promote reconciliation.

FIFA, the world governing body for football, was due to vote last Friday on the Palestinian Football Association motion to suspend Israel. Instead, FIFA president Gianni Infantino deferred the vote pending further legal advice.

Foster, in a letter to this masthead sent last week and before FIFA’s scheduled vote, said global sport has a duty to prevent “the gravest crimes against humanity”.

“Social cohesion is based on equality of treatment, of voice, of dignity for all communities, and a failure to speak the truth when any injustice occurs, no matter how difficult, leaves communities feeling abandoned, isolated and excluded,” he wrote.

“Sport must stand for all people, everywhere, and the only way to do that is to ensure that all states found to be in danger of committing genocide or guilty of apartheid have their membership withdrawn.”

Australia’s peak Jewish community representative organisation, the Executive Council of Australian Jewry, wrote to Football Australia chairman Anter Isaac ahead of the scheduled FIFA vote urging him not to support the motion.

Two sources from Football Australia, speaking confidentially to discuss internal matters, confirmed that had the vote taken place, FA would have abstained. This is consistent with FA’s long-held position of remaining neutral in the Israel-Palestine conflict. The Socceroos are scheduled to play a World Cup qualifier against Palestine in Perth on June 11.

In a fresh development this week, a prosecutor from the International Criminal Court, a judicial body separate to the International Court of Justice, requested arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Israeli Defence Minister Yoav Gallant and three Hamas leaders for alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity.

The request will be decided by a panel of magistrates.

Peris and Foster were appointed co-chairs of the Australian Republican Movement in March last year following the resignation of long-serving chair Peter FitzSimons, a prominent journalist, author and former Australian rugby player. The dual appointment required a change to the ARM’s constitution.

The resignation of Peris – an Olympic gold medallist with the women’s hockey team and also an Olympic sprinter, who later served as a Labor senator from 2013 to 2016 – comes as political support for a republic has stalled following last year’s failed referendum to establish an Aboriginal Voice to parliament.

Although Prime Minister Anthony Albanese is an avowed republican who has promised to put the question to another referendum, the Assistant Minister Responsible for a Republic, Matthew Thistlethwaite, this year described it as “not a priority” for the federal government.

The ARM normally holds its annual general meeting in October but is considering bringing forward this year’s meeting, which includes national committee elections, to August to avoid a potential clash with King Charles’ planned visit to Australia.

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