Israeli football club Maccabi Tel Aviv’s decision this week to decline its ticket allocation for a match next month in Birmingham eases pressure on West Midlands Police, which had defied the UK government by supporting a ban on Maccabi fans.
But the problem hasn’t disappeared completely. The match against Birmingham club Aston Villa on November 6th has morphed into yet another front in Britain’s culture wars.
It now seems unlikely that large numbers of Maccabi fans will travel from Tel Aviv. But the fixture may still be a flashpoint for anti-Israel protests and counter-protests by supporters of Israel and of Britain’s Jewish community, as well as by right-wing activists.
Part of the context lies in what happened in the Netherlands last year. Maccabi fans were attacked by local residents in Amsterdam, where the team was playing Dutch club Ajax. At least 68 people were arrested for the attacks, widely criticised as anti-Semitic.
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Footage also showed some groups of Maccabi fans engaging in bigoted anti-Muslim and anti-Palestinian chanting. A handful were filmed ripping down a Palestinian flag from a window in the Dutch city, which has a high Muslim population – around 15 per cent.
This led to claims that some Maccabi fans were “asking for it”. However, there was no evidence the fans filmed engaging in anti-Muslim bigotry were the same ones attacked by way of retribution.
[ Tel Aviv soccer derby between Hapoel and Maccabi called off after riotingOpens in new window ]
A reasonable conclusion is that the fans attacked were targeted simply because they were Israeli, with anger at the war in Gaza the excuse. Some commentators, including pro-Israel supporters, interpreted this to mean that they were targeted simply because they were Jewish. Others saw that as an over-simplification.
Religious and ethnic bigotry aside, it is a fact that football hooligans regularly engage in violent clashes around European fixtures. They don’t always need wars as an excuse.
Fast forward to this month and Birmingham, which has the second-highest Muslim population in Britain as a proportion of population. According to the 2021 census, 29.9 per cent of the midlands city was Muslim, behind Bradford (30.5 per cent). London’s proportion was around 15 per cent.
Anger at Israel over its brutal war in Gaza is at its highest in Britain’s Muslim communities, where sympathies lie squarely with their Palestinian brethren.
The district of Aston (home to Aston Villa), north of Birmingham’s centre, is the most Muslim part of the city, with a majority of Aston’s population followers of Islam, mostly Pakistanis and Bangladeshis.
All of this meant that an Israeli team playing in Aston at this time was always going to cause an issue.
Local Independent MP Ayoub Khan, a Pakistan-born, Britain-raised former Liberal Democrat, ran an online petition calling for the match to be cancelled. Failing that, he wanted it played behind closed doors with no fans, or moved to another country.
His petition cited a “track record of violence by Maccabi fans” in Amsterdam, but did not mention the attacks on them by Dutch local residents. Khan, who quit the Lib Dems after he accused it of muzzling him on Gaza, also cited allegations of genocide against Israel. He said he had a “moral” objection to the game.
Aston Villa was advised last week by a Birmingham Council-linked safety advisory group (SAG) that the match should go ahead with no Maccabi fans. West Midlands Police backed the SAG advice and said its “intelligence” suggested a safety risk.
Cue uproar in the British establishment against the police and SAG. UK prime minister Keir Starmer, said the police and its advisers had made the “wrong decision”. Starmer, whose wife is Jewish, said anti-Semitism would not be tolerated on British streets.
The safety of Jews in Britain is a sensitive topic, especially after the killing of two Jewish men at a Manchester synagogue recently in an anti-Semitic attack by a Muslim man shot dead by counterterror officers. They also mistakenly killed one of the Jewish victims.
Parallel to all of this is the ongoing anger in Britain’s Jewish community at the continuation of large-scale pro-Palestine protests in the UK. They accuse some protesters of anti-Semitism, while organisers say they are merely opposed to Israel. Police facilitate those marches.
Britain’s burgeoning hard right-wing anti-migrant factions who are notoriously hostile to Islam have largely swung in behind the Jewish community, although some in that community reject their support as opportunistic.
Stephen Yaxley-Lennon, the hard-right agitator also known as Tommy Robinson, was in Israel this week, where he was pictured in a Maccabi jersey. He hinted his supporters should protest at the match with Aston Villa. That would be bound to spark a reaction.
Despite pressure from Starmer’s government, West Midlands Police had not yet relented by the time Maccabi Tel Aviv this week said it didn’t want any tickets on safety grounds. Khan claimed victory, even though he had wanted the match cancelled completely.
The absence of Maccabi fans may not stop British pro-Israel supporters from attending in Maccabi colours anyway, while pro-Palestinian protesters will almost certainly be in the area. Wherever they go, hard-right counter-protesters follow, and vice versa.
Whatever happens on the pitch, the event will be a microcosm of some of the divisions plaguing Britain.
[ Starmer calls for Israeli soccer fans to be allowed at Aston Villa matchOpens in new window ]
