Melbourne council scrubs teenage volunteer from website over Palestine necklace
Child left in tears as APAN slams anti-Palestinian racism
A pro-Israel local council in Victoria removed a 16-year-old volunteer from its website and community magazine after receiving complaints about the child’s Palestine-flag necklace.
Zaina Amro, 16, is a student who volunteers with Bayside City Council in Melbourne’s inner southeast. Zaina’s extensive volunteer work as a council youth ambassador has included organising and facilitating a cooking class for school holiday programs, running activities for children at a local public housing estate and volunteering at council arts events and music festivals.
In September, Zaina was interviewed and photographed for an article about local libraries in Let’s Talk Bayside, the council’s bimonthly magazine. Zaina says that, during the photoshoot, council staff complimented her necklace – a pendant in the shape of historic Palestine and the colours of the Palestinian flag.
The magazine, which included photos of Zaina on the front cover and alongside the article, was printed and distributed to Bayside residents in October. However, digital copies of the edition featuring Zaina on the cover have been removed from the council’s website and replaced with a new version from which she has been scrubbed.
A media release from May announcing Zaina as the winner of a Bayside youth participation award has also been taken down, although photos of the ceremony are still live on a council social media page.
Zaina says she was unaware she had been erased from Let’s Talk Bayside and the council’s webpages until an acquaintance phoned her mother. It wasn’t until Zaina met with council staff that she was given an explanation.
“They said it was because my necklace was ‘political’ and that they couldn’t promote anyone’s political agenda,” Zaina says.
That meeting left her in tears.
After weeks of back and forth, Zaina and her mother then met with Council CEO Matthew Cripps – who, Zaina says, refused her request for an apology.
“He was very dismissive,” Zaina claims. “They’ve disregarded all the hard work and time I’ve given to this council and this community. They didn’t acknowledge what they’d done or the impact this has had on me.”
The effect on Zaina and her mother has been severe. She is now afraid to take local public transport, and suffered a panic attack while volunteering at a subsequent Council event.
Despite this, she decided to speak publicly to hold the Council “accountable”.
“They should have the common sense and decency to understand the impact this would have on a young person and how it put me in harm’s way,” she says. “How would they feel if it happened to their child?”
The council has seemingly prioritised pro-Israel concerns despite the Jewish community accounting for 3% of Bayside’s population, and not all Victorian Jews sharing pro-Israel views.
In September, the council unanimously approved a motion to adopt the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) working definition of antisemitism – a controversial definition that lists criticism of Israel and Zionism as examples of antisemitism and which has been disavowed by its lead author as an instrument of “suppressing political speech” in universities, governments and public discourse.
Protesters opposed to Bayside adopting the IHRA definition claim they were abused outside council chambers. One Jewish protester told Green Left Weekly that supporters of the motion “hissed that we are ‘the worst type of Jews’, that we ‘hate Jews’, that we ‘are not Jewish’, that we ‘are inbred vermin’ and that we ‘are kapos’”.
Councillor Robert Irlicht, who moved the motion, was one of more than 250 local government representatives who attended September’s Australian Mayors Summit Against Antisemitism, a conference criticised as “a pro-Israel political junket” by the Jewish Council of Australia.
In a September letter to the Combat Antisemitism Movement – the US-based Zionist group that staged the Summit – Irlicht wrote that “the knowledge and connections” he gained at the Summit “were pivotal to our success in Bayside”.
“I look forward to further involvement with the Combat Antisemitism Movement as we continue this critical work together,” Irlicht wrote.
Irlicht did not respond to questions.
For Zaina, the fact that her necklace has caused such a stir is “really weird and concerning”.
“These are full-grown adults, and I’m a teenage girl,” she says. “If you explained this situation to any normal, sane person, they would tell you this is crazy.”
Zaina intends to file a report with the Anti-Palestinian Racism Register, a resource launched by the Australia Palestine Advocacy Network (APAN) last week to provide a “safe and secure space for individuals across Australia to report any form of anti-Palestinian abuse and discrimination”.
APAN president Nasser Mashni said Zaina’s case “is exactly why an anti-Palestinian racism register is needed”.
“When a 16-year-old Palestinian girl has her image erased by a council simply for wearing a Palestinian pendant, it shows just how deep anti-Palestinian racism runs in this country,” Mashni said.
Zaina has also received support from independent Senator for Victoria Lidia Thorpe, in whose office she recently completed work experience.
“Public institutions have a duty to protect young people and uphold diversity. In this case, the council failed,” Thorpe said.
“I want to make sure Zaina’s experience is seen and taken seriously, and to send a message that erasing Palestinian identity is racism, and it’s unacceptable anywhere, including in our local councils.”
In a speech to parliament last Thursday, delivered on her behalf by Thorpe, Zaina vowed she “will always stay true to myself and my core beliefs”.
“I will not tolerate cheap words with no action from cowards in power who are complicit in a genocide.”
Bayside City Council did not respond to questions.
This is yet another example of erasure of a child’s ancestry.
You could say it was money well spent by the US based zionist group as Councillor Robert Irlicht took up the line and run with it in Bayside.
“They said it was because my necklace was ‘political’ and that they couldn’t promote anyone’s political agenda,” Zaina says.
But if Zaina is correct Councillor Robert Irlicht is promoting a zionist political agenda.