The message could not be clearer: Israeli football fans are not welcome in Birmingham. I am no lover of football, but that doesn’t stop me feeling outraged and sickened by Maccabi Tel Aviv fans being told not to attend their Europa League game against Aston Villa next month. The seats at Villa Park that had been allocated to the Israeli visitors for the fixture will now remain empty.
In Amsterdam, Maccabi supporters were attacked by anti-Semitic mobs
The appalling decision to tell fans of the Israeli club that they are not permitted to attend the 6 November game – meekly accepted, of course, by West Midlands Police and Villa – comes from Birmingham City Council’s Safety Advisory Group. What an appropriately saggy acronym the letters SAG make.
Police said the move to prohibit travelling supporters was based on current intelligence and previous incidents involving Maccabi fans. A year ago, in Amsterdam, Maccabi supporters were attacked by anti-Semitic mobs after another Europa Cup match against Ajax. Seven people were hospitalised and more than 20 injured after pro-Palestinian crowds ran amok and targeted the visiting Israelis in the Dutch city. The pogrom broke out after chat room messages were exchanged calling for a ‘Jew hunt’.
Fans’ safety is being given as the reason for the decision not to allow Maccabi fans at the Villa game. In the current climate of vicious anti-semitism on Britain’s streets that took the lives of two Jews at a Manchester synagogue only last week, it makes me ashamed of what my country has become.
To their great credit, Keir Starmer and Kemi Badenoch have both condemned the ban in strong terms, but not so the local ‘independent’ MP Ayoub Khan who has backed the decision. The Prime Minister, himself a keen Arsenal fan, wrote on X that it was the wrong decision, and that the Police’s proper job was to protect fans from violence and intimidation, while the Tory leader rightly called the ban ‘a national disgrace’.
But, rather than doing their job and maintaining law and order, our cowardly cops have taken the line of least resistance against such mobs and run up the white flag of surrender a whole month before the event takes place. It’s a disgrace.
We can all see clearly now that, despite the Trump-brokered ceasefire in Gaza, the hate-filled mobs will continue to gather. No Jew can feel free from the fear of violence in Britain today. This isn’t about the Middle East. It is about the oldest hatred in the world. If that doesn’t make the blood run cold, I don’t know what will.
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