Tim Wilson campaigner complained about child's Palestine-shaped necklace, FOI reveals
Complaints claimed Palestine pendant called for "extermination of Jews" and compared council magazine to Nazi-era propaganda
A senior member of Liberal MP Tim Wilson’s election campaign was among those who complained to a Melbourne council about a teenage girl’s Palestine-shaped pendant necklace.
Deepcut reported in December that Zaina Amro, a 16-year-old high school student who frequently volunteered with Bayside City Council, was scrubbed from the October/November 2025 edition of community magazine Let’s Talk Bayside and the council’s website after complaints about the necklace she wore in the magazine’s photos.
Deepcut has obtained the full text of the complaints through a Freedom of Information request, which characterise the pendant as “symbolic of rabid antisemitism”, “deeply offensive” and “calling for the extermination of Jews”.
One complaint accuses Amro of “wearing a necklace that explicitly denies Israel’s right to exist and promotes a well-established narrative calling for the extermination of all Jews, including members of our community”.
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Another compares Let’s Talk Bayside to Der Stürmer, the Nazi propaganda outlet whose rampant antisemitic agitation played an important role in laying the groundwork for the Holocaust.
“Like [Nazi propagandist Julius] Streicher’s rag, which masqueraded as ‘news’ to peddle lies about Jewish ‘threats,’ Let’s Talk has betrayed its mandate, using ratepayer-funded pages to legitimise symbols that deny Jewish self-determination and echo the blood libels of old,” the complaint states.
“Those who greenlit these images must be held to account, just as Streicher was: with swift removal, public reckoning, and institutional safeguards to purge such poison from our civic discourse.”
In an October statement, Council CEO Matthew Cripps said the “Council unreservedly apologises for the distress” and promised an internal review.
“Council supports social cohesion and inclusivity. In publishing the photographs, there were no intentions of promoting any individual’s personal, business or political interests,” Cripps said at the time.
The full text of the complaints can be accessed below.
Liberal campaigner, right-wing columnist
Minutes from the council’s October 14 meeting list the names of the eight people who “expressed criticism” of the photographs.
One of them, ‘Shane Shmuel’, shares a name with Melbourne-based finance professional Shane Shmuel, a committee member of the far-right Australian Jewish Association and a prominent member of Wilson’s successful campaign to oust independent Zoe Daniel at last year’s federal election.
On his LinkedIn page, Shmuel lists his tenure as honorary treasurer of the Liberal Party’s Goldstein Federal Election Committee and appearances on multiple episodes of The People’s Panel, a Sky News election program.
“I wore my blue and white T-shirt with immense pride,” Shmuel wrote. “It has been a true honour to be part of this incredible journey.”
Shmuel also featured in several of Wilson’s campaign videos posted to Instagram and other platforms, and was among those thanked in Wilson’s first speech upon his return to parliament in July 2025.
Shmuel is also a prolific columnist. His regular Substack articles on “Israel, Zionism, the Holocaust and politics as it relates to Israel” are frequently republished by right-wing outlet Spectator Australia and the Times of Israel‘s third-party blogging platform.
In his columns, Shmuel has claimed that the Palestinian solidarity encampments on Australian university campuses were products of Iranian “propaganda and infiltration in Western societies”, repeated debunked claims about people chanting “gas the Jews” at a pro-Palestine rally in 2023, and defended the far-right March for Australia protests in August — many of which were led by neo-Nazis.
A Twitter/X account named @shaneshmue55429, which frequently posts links to Shmuel’s Spectator Australia author page, Times of Israel blog and personal Substack (referred to by the account as “my Substack”), has made several offensive and Islamophobic comments, including that “people who eat bacon are less likely to blow themselves up” and that Muslims “certainly won’t meet their 72 virgins”.
Following a request for comment, Shmuel blocked this reporter on several social media platforms. A representative of Shmuel’s workplace said Shmuel “does not wish to be contacted to give comment”. Wilson’s office did not respond to questions.
Psychotic, infantile behaviour. But no surprises. Interesting that we had to wait for an FOI to find this out. A gutless bully. Of course he doesn't want to comment.
How disturbing... the deliberate straw-manning of the call to dismantle apartheid as a call to kill anyone, as exhausting as it is, has to be continually called out. Thankfully we have FOI as Pippa said. Wonder how long it'll be until that is a threat to social cohesion too.