Within days of UK Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer attacking his own police force for banning the notorious Israeli Maccabi fans from attending an upcoming Europa League football match against Aston Villa, the Israeli police had to step in to shut down riots at a premier league match between Maccabi and Hapoel Tel Aviv fans.

The game was abandoned before it started. If I were the commissioner of West Midlands Police or the Birmingham community, I would be demanding a public apology for the antisemitic slurs Starmer and others dished out. What is most important, however, is what this dismal event says about the state of the British political class who are putting loyalty to Israel ahead of Britons’ safety and social cohesion.

“This is the wrong decision. We will not tolerate antisemitism on our streets. The role of the police is to ensure all football fans can enjoy the game, without fear of violence or intimidation,” Starmer posted on X. West Midlands Police made the decision to ban Maccabi fans because it rated the chance of violence “high risk after a thorough assessment”.

To understand who Sir Keir is going to extraordinary lengths to support, simply watch this one-minute clip of Maccabi fans in Greece last year. I have reviewed hours of footage of a similar kind; violence and intimidation is what they do, and Sir Keir is ready to unleash them in one of England’s most ethnically diverse communities.

“You’re the whores of Arabs. We will take your girls who love to party. We will rape them.” Maccabi fans chant this throughout Europe.

The Safety Advisory Group, a group of professionals who examine the safety of public events, had written to the club to recommend that no Maccabi fans should be permitted entry. The SAG was chaired by Birmingham City Council’s head of resilience and made up of representatives of the local authority, emergency services and event organisers. In making their decision, the police said: “This decision is based on current intelligence and previous incidents, including violent clashes and hate crime offences that occurred during the 2024 UEFA Europa League match between Ajax and Maccabi Tel-Aviv in Amsterdam.”

The decision by West Midlands Police was taken because Maccabi fans are notoriously violent thugs and provocateurs, not because they come from a racist, fascist society that is committing genocide. Fans are routinely banned for bad behaviour. For example, in the past couple of years, PSV Eindhoven fans were banned from Paris for previous disturbances at RC Lens, Feyenoord fans were banned from Lille due to their violent history across Europe, causing millions of euros damage, Legia Warsaw fans were banned from Villa Park itself in 2023 after attacking police. Not one UK politician complained about any of these bans. Not Starmer. Not Kemi Badenoch. Not Nigel Farage.

In November last year, I did a story BBC goes full Goebbels in support of Israeli soccer hooligans about Maccabi’s rampage through Amsterdam. Taxi-drivers of Middle Eastern origin were beaten, a taxi torched, Amsterdammers were chased through the streets and beaten and Palestinian flags ripped down from private dwellings and burned. Then there were those chants, those utterly despicable, genocidal chants. At the match itself, a minute’s silence for the victims of the Spanish floods was ruined by Maccabi fans boisterously chanting “Why is school out in Gaza? There are no children left there!”

Starmer knows this perfectly well. He and European football officials are totally relaxed about Islamophobic and genocidal chants, but call any resistance to it antisemitism.

Em Hilton, UK director of the Diaspora Alliance, a Jewish-led organisation that works to fight antisemitism and its politicisation by building solidarity with other marginalised communities, told _Al Jazeera_: “To have this turned into a question of antisemitism and whether Jews are welcome in Birmingham is, frankly, outrageous – and an outrageous example of the conflation of antisemitism with a political agenda.”

Paris-based human rights lawyer John Whitbeck made a telling remark: “UEFA’s corrupt and cowardly leadership, which took less than a week to bar Russia from European football competitions after it invaded Ukraine, postponed an already repeatedly postponed vote on barring Israeli teams from European football competitions after the announcement of the ‘Trump peace plan’ and ceasefire, arguing that ‘everything had changed’.” Tell that to the dozens of Palestinians killed in the days following the ceasefire or the thousands in the Israeli gulag.

“Why is school out in Gaza? There are no children left there!” Maccabi fans chant this throughout Europe.

Hind Rajab and Israel’s fascist football culture

A new report by the Hind Rajab Foundation details the way in which Israeli football clubs are cradles for extremist ideology, in some respects not dissimilar to some clubs in places like Serbia and Ukraine. The report cites clubs, including Maccabi, where “ultras” and IDF soldiers gather to glorify genocide and indulge in crimes to hurt or humiliate Muslims.

“IDF will fuck the Arabs!” Maccabi fans chant this throughout Europe.

Sir Keir described himself as “angered” by the ban. He wasn’t angered by news that emerged this week that the Israelis beat a shackled Marwan Barghouti, commonly referred to as the Palestinian Mandela, unconscious. He wasn’t angered at an Israeli tank blowing up a family in Gaza shortly after the ceasefire came into effect. He has shown remarkably little human solidarity for the Palestinians in general and yet he is angered at racist Israeli thugs not being able to parade their ethno-supremacism through the streets of Britain.

Polling shows Britons supports the ban

YouGov UK is a leading British-based online market research and data analytics company. After Sir Keir’s intervention, it polled Britons with the following:

“Fans for Israeli football club Maccabi Tel Aviv have been banned from attending a match against Aston Villa next month, with West Midlands Police classifying the fixture as being at ‘high risk’ of leading to disorder. Do you think this was the right decision or the wrong decision?”

Forty-two percent felt it was the right decision, 28% thought it was the wrong decision and 30% didn’t know. That’s a surprisingly clear outcome, particularly given the full-on propaganda war that the mainstream media and the politicians (Labour, Conservative, Reform) all launched in defence of the Israelis.

The UK PM is acting like an agent provocateur

Now that everyone is aware of the volatile political game Sir Keir and others are willing to play in order to support Israel, what do you think anti-genocide, anti-racist, anti-fascist groups within the West Midlands will do to oppose this invasion should the ban be lifted? What do you think will be the response from Britain’s far-right? Tommy Robinson has already said he is organising his supporters for match day. A political leader who cared for community cohesion would not be lifting the lid on this powder keg.

BDS movement and why banning Israeli teams is essential

But this bit of political football is more important than hooliganism. Israel does indeed need to be shunned, to be turned into a pariah state because of the genocide and to force a course correction upon it. That means blocking them from Eurovision, cutting trade ties, banning them from all sporting and cultural events and shutting down their military-industrial links with all governments.

The heavy lifting for the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement — which proved so successful against the South African apartheid regime — shouldn’t be left to the likes of Palestine Action or the Spanish protesters who recently brought La Vuelta to a magnificent, shambolic close because they wouldn’t tolerate an Israeli team in the great multi-stage cycling tour.

Israel: The new abyss of cruelty.

I’ll give the last word to Francesca Albanese, the UN Special Rapporteur on the Occupied Palestinian Territories who said: “My generation was taught Nazism was the greatest evil; and it was. Today a state starving millions, shooting children for sport, shielded by democracies and dictators alike, is the new abyss of cruelty.”

Red card for Starmer now!

The views expressed in this article may or may not reflect those of Pearls and Irritations.