Shoalhaven City Council in New South Wales (NSW), Australia, has refused to host an exhibition commemorating Palestinian children murdered in Gaza by Israel. But a NSW church bypassed its nonsense.
Wall of tears
The “Wall of Tears” exhibition was created by US artist Phil Buehler. It bears the names of over 18,000 Gaza children slaughtered by the Israeli occupation from October 2023 to July 2025.
The council claimed that the exhibition poses an “unacceptable risk to safety” and that it would have to provide armed guards, shorten the exhibition’s duration and restrict who could view the exhibit, as a pretext for its refusal. It then ignored complaints from hundreds of local residents against the decision.
Israel lobby epicentre
NSW has been at the forefront of Australian Israel lobby attacks on anti-genocide protest and on the exposure of Israel’s crimes in Palestine. NSW police launched violent attacks on peaceful protesters demonstrating against a visit by Israeli war criminal Isaac Herzog and attacked Muslims peacefully performing their sunset prayers, then lied about their actions, yet the NSW state authorities are trying to withhold evidence in the trials of those it is persecuting.
But a local church was having none of Shoalhaven council’s nonsense. The Berry Uniting Church made its hall available for the exhibition, allowing around 300 people at a time to view it. The church’s minister Rev John Brentall said he had been “very disappointed” by the council’s censorship, adding that:
The overwhelming feeling seems to be that people are grateful that we’ve opened up our hall for it.
Unlike so-called ‘Christian Nationalists’ in the US, many Christians despise Zionism as the racist ideology that it is and are determined to oppose Israel’s genocide. Including Rev Brentall and his congregation, clearly. Solidarity.
Brilliant, because an exhibition of embroidery of names of the Gaza slaughtered in the Genocide became the centre of Israeli propaganda here denying us locals a chance to mourn and remember. How Christian is that? Bishop was mad to have conceded.. This was on the grounds that unproven six names among thousands were allegedly Hamas. So what? It was untrue anyway as they lie all the time the Israelis including lying to themselves about what they , Netanyahu and the IDF have done. They are not humane or right The IDF forces and those politicians and Mossad and the CIA and the Cheif Rabbi act in purely evil ways. Many many Jews in Hastings oppose Israel and are called as an abusively ‘ self-hating Jews.’ As if. They are the most loving of Jews & the only righteous among Jews and make up the Jewish Bloc of Palestine Action . The local Church St John’s in St Leonards on Sea was prevented by Israelis from hosting a memoral exhibition for the slaughtered by CAA shills and Board of Deputy complaints to the local Cof E Bishop in Sussex. Certainly put me off going back to the Church where my late husband’s memorial was held last year (2025). I really despise Israel because of what they have done and shall never forgive them and shall always remember the Palestinian dead. Israel has fe friendds left and is a Pariah state.