2 min read
The dreadful scenes witnessed in Amsterdam a year ago when Maccabi Tel Aviv fans were systematically hunted down and assaulted evoked chilling memories of the pogroms.
It was a sickening travesty that the attacks were used as a reason to stop the Israeli club’s followers attending the match against Aston Villa earlier this month.
That obscene inversion of victim and aggressor by MPs and police warrants a full, independent investigation.
Remember what happened in Holland. The assailants had carefully planned the pursuit of the visiting fans.
Any doubt as to their motivation was laid to rest by the private messages revealed in the later trial.
The hundreds of members of a dedicated WhatsApp group knew exactly what they were about in their night’s work.
They called it a “Jew hunt”.
True to their word, they sought out and attacked dozens of fans of the Israeli club on the streets of Amsterdam.
At least five were hurt so badly they had to be treated in hospital. Dozens more were injured.
All, we have learned, simply because they were Jewish, according to their assailants’ own choice of phrase.
This year, as the fixture at Villa Park in Birmingham approached, the local MP, Ayoub Khan, twisted the facts from Amsterdam to demand that the Israeli fans should be banned as “hooligans”, based on the behaviour of a small minority of Maccabi’s following, unexceptional compared to that of many other visiting teams.
Yet it was no surprise, given Khan’s platform as one of the ‘Gaza MPs’, that he should exploit the fixture as an opportunity for emotive rhetoric appealing to the anti-Israel prejudices of his followers.
Far worse, though, was the response of the local force, West Midlands Police (WMP), acting in tandem with the opaque guidance of the area’s Safety Guidance Group, its membership and deliberations kept a mystery from the outside world.
A senior officer said the decision to ban Maccabi fans was based “exclusively” on their behaviour, while what he called “an incident in Amsterdam” – an extraordinary euphemism for the pogrom last November – also “informed some of our decision-making”.
Such claims were at the very least a deeply misleading account of what transpired in Amsterdam.
Now, after the JC has seen the official Dutch report, we learn that the findings of the police there seemingly contradict the statements of their counterparts in Birmingham, and call into question the reasoning behind the decision to ban the fans from Israel.
There can be little doubt of what is the new reality: in the second city of the United Kingdom, it is extremists who are effectively making public order decisions.
We have seen the results. When a JC reporter visited Villa Park on the night that Maccabi Tel Aviv played without their fans to cheer them on, he was confronted outside the stadium by a hooded gang, one of whose members exclaimed: “F**k Israel. F**k every Jew.”
Is it any wonder such racist thugs should see fit to spout their bigotry shamelessly when the authorities surrender so abjectly to hate?
The lack of transparency from WMP will only add to public concern over the unprecedented and scandalous decision to ban Israeli fans.
The call for an independent investigation into the force must be heeded, if faith in the force is to be restored.
Remember: Villa Park is due to be a venue for the 2028 European Championships, in which Israel will take part if they qualify.
What will happen then, if the blue and whites are drawn to play in the Midlands?
It is unthinkable that a situation should be allowed to stand in which extremists determine whether or not international fixtures take place.
The people of Birmingham and Israel deserve better than this.
This Kafkaesque chicanery that so misrepresented the events in Amsterdam cannot be allowed to rest.
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