Prime Minister Keir Starmer has criticised the decision by local authorities and police to keep Maccabi Tel Aviv supporters out of the stadium due to security fears , linking the decision with anti-semitism.

Birmingham

Authorities in Birmingham have decided to ban supporters of Israeli football club Maccabi Tel Aviv from attending their upcoming match against Aston Villa, citing security risks. The move follows incidents at a previous Maccabi match in Amsterdam, where violence and vandalism occurred, prompting local officials to act to prevent similar events.

The ban has drawn criticism from UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer and other political leaders, who argue that it sends the wrong message and conflates security concerns with anti-Semitism. Some members of the Jewish community have also voiced discomfort with the political framing of the issue, emphasizing that such decisions are typically made by police and football authorities based on safety. Political pressure may yet influence whether the ban is upheld.

Maccabi Tel Aviv fans banned from UK match

When Aston Villa host Maccabi Tel Aviv in Birmingham next month, no fans of the Israeli team will be there. That's how things stand for now, at least, after a decision by police and the City Council to ban Maccabi supporters, saying the fixture posed too much of a risk. That's a bad call, according to the Prime Minister. Keir Starmer has decried anti-Semitism on Britain's streets and the government is giving every possible indication that it wants the decision overturned. The government doesn't get involved in the operational decisions of any police force or any policing decisions, but it's important for us to have a view on this because it is so important, and to say that it's the wrong decision is quite right. We have confidence, of course, in the West Midlands Safety Advisory Group and the Deputy Chief Constable, but it's really important to say when we think they've got it wrong. The decision was influenced by what happened in Amsterdam last year. When Maccabi Tel Aviv played Ajax, the Israeli side's fans tore down a Palestinian flag, shouted racist chants and vandalised a taxi. They were then attacked in what Dutch police called hit-and-run assaults. Birmingham Council and police clearly want no repeat of that. But Britain's politicians are hypersensitive to anything that smacks of anti-Semitism at the moment. It's just a couple of weeks since two Jews were killed during an attack on a Manchester synagogue. But it's not just Keir Starmer that's piled in. The leaders of the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats have criticised the Maccabi ban too. We cannot be a country where we tell Jewish people that they can't come to watch football because their security is not going to be looked after. What I want to see is the police finding ways to make sure they can be secure and sending the message to the Islamists and those who are pushing anti-Jewish hatred that this does not happen in the UK. Yet not all Jewish people in the UK appreciate being spoken for like this. It's definitely a decision that needs to be taken as to whether football matches make the broader community safer or less safe when they happen. And this is something that football bodies and the police often make decisions about. So to have this turned into a question of anti-Semitism and whether Jews are welcome in Birmingham is frankly outrageous and an outrageous example of the conflation of anti-Semitism with a political agenda. The political pressure may tell and in some form or other, Maccabi fans could well be at Villa Park on November 6th. If so, Birmingham, a city that's 30% Muslim, will likely be on edge. Rory Challans, Al Jazeera, London.

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