Three months ago, the West Midlands police force decided to exclude fans of the Israeli football club Maccabi Tel Aviv from attending a match against Aston Villa in Birmingham, Britain’s second-largest city. They justified the move on the grounds that a violent element within the club’s support base posed a threat to public safety.
The British political establishment has responded with a protracted frenzy of hysteria and bad faith, culminating in a successful push by the Labour home secretary, Shabana Mahmood, to oust the chief constable of the West Midlands police, Craig Guildford. Mahmood also wants to bring local police forces under Home Office control — a move that will hand Nigel Farage’s hard-right Reform party a vital tool if it manages to form a government in the coming years.
When the controversy first erupted back in October, Jonathan Liew of the Guardian observed that it was “a fascinating case study into the instincts of our political and media class,” betraying their tolerant or downright sympathetic attitude toward the virulent racism expressed by Maccabi Tel Aviv fans. The development of the saga since then has been even more instructive.
First of all, the question of allowing Israeli football fans to attend matches in Britain should never have arisen in the first place. Israel should be subject to a comprehensive sporting boycott, just like South Africa during the apartheid years. The Union of European Football Associations (UEFA), the governing body for European football, immediately banned the Russian national team and all Russian clubs from its competitions after the invasion of Ukraine. The refusal of UEFA and other sporting associations to impose a similar ban on Israel is an ongoing disgrace.
Second, the fans of Maccabi Tel Aviv have a particular track record of racism and violence that they have brought with them all over Europe. The organization Kick It Out Israel found that one-third of all documented incidents of racist…
Auteur: Daniel Finn
