Banning Israeli Soccer Fans to "Ease Tensions"

"Sports entertainment events should be enjoyed by all, regardless of their race, ethnicity and background."

"But there are rare instances where the political dynamics surrounding such spectacles cannot be ignored and where drastic action must be taken to ensure the safety of fans, players, staff and local residents."

"Now is the time to ease tensions, set aside political differences and focus on the football once more."

Birmingham MP Ayoub Khan 

Maccabi Tel Aviv will not accept ticket allocations from Aston Villa since its fans have been blocked from entry to the soccer match. Getty Images

 

Islamists, comfortable in their achieved berths within Western nations, where they quickly absorbed the lessons of democratic-liberal values and skillfully and creatively adapted their own stealth approaches to undermining those very values, learned to softly spout agreement in the Western social contract to demonstrate their upholding of those values, while subtly perverting them to their own cause. 

 

After carefully making certain it would be understood that the values of equality and democracy were his own, Birmingham MP Ayoub Khan turned then to assuring his listeners that his only concerns were the safety and security of all concerned, and with that in mind, it was a necessary requirement to shut out a certain segment of society for the good of all. Cementing his sanctimony with a call for unity, and a cheery end note of enjoying sport events after eliminating distractions.

 

Those distractions just happening to be the presence of Jews. Jews from abroad, moreover, Israelis who planned to leave Israel on a sport-holiday in London to cheer on their team. But just as Jews carrying Israeli flags or wearing yarmulkes or star-of-David necklaces are informed by the Metropolitan Police that their presence is a goad to pro-Palestinian/Pro-Hamas/anti-Israel protesters who can be galvanized into violence at sighting them and they must either voluntarily leave or be 'escorted' away (i.e. arrested), the presence of Israeli fans at a sport event to cheer on their national team represents a social danger.

 

Maccabi Tel Aviv football fans in Amsterdam in November   AFP/Getty Images

 

While antisemitism rages its incoherent hatred against Jews in Britain as a follow-up to the Hamas mass atrocity in southern Israel on October 7, 2023 -- and the Israeli military's incursion into Gaza, to settle with Hamas terrorism -- with never-ending marches, protests and demonstrations against Israel, Jews mounting counter-protests fail to receive the protection that is extended by police to the committed Jew-hating contingent represented by the U.K.'s Muslim population. 

 

West Midlands Police in Birmingham classified a match between Maccabi Tel Aviv and Aston Villa on November 6 as 'high risk'.  Citing safety as the rationale, the decision was made to disallow fans of the Tel Aviv team to the game. The Jewish Leadership Council noted: "It is perverse that away fans should be banned from a football match because West Midlands Police can't guarantee their safety".

 

But the simple fact is that the police face violence when pro-Hamas groups assemble. Those groups feel entitled to march, to pray en masse in public spaces stopping foot and vehicular traffic, that it is their right to chant slogans of killing Jews and sending them back to  Poland and shouting for a 'Final Solution'. They want to 'globalize the Intifada', and see Israel disappear, with 'Palestine' rising 'from the river to the sea'. They know they can smash and pillage in their rage, and there will be few consequences.

 

The classification by police as a danger best avoided, saw the local Birmingham council's Safety Advisory Group informing Aston Villa that no foreign (Israeli) fans would be permitted to attend the sport event. Motivated by the memory and fear of race riots in the district of Handsworth, the very prospect of violence erupting at a nearby sport event motivates West Midlands Police to opt for avoidance irrespective of the cost in a free and democratic society.

 

Although Prime Minister Keir Starmer declared that the banning of Jewish fans was "wrong" and that "we will not tolerate antisemitism on our streets", he and his government have done just that: tolerated antisemitism on the streets of Britain. That toleration has gone a long way to instilling confidence in the Muslim contingent of the U.K., prompting them to generate social instability, threats against British Jews, and the commission of criminal civic acts. 

 

Culture Secretary Lisa Nandy has pledged the government will "find the resources" to allow Maccabi Tel Aviv football fans to attend a match in Birmingham next month. U.K. Parliament