Revealed: British police barred Israelis from soccer match to protect them from locals

UK lawmakers say documents show that police lied when saying they feared Israeli fan violence.

By Batya Jerenberg, World Israel News

British police were caught in another lie over the reasons for banning Israeli fans from a November soccer match, according to testimony given Tuesday at a meeting of the UK Home Affairs Select Committee.

Assistant Chief Constable Mike O’Hara told the MPs: “There was a lot of intelligence that people would actively seek out Maccabi Tel Aviv fans and seek violence towards them.”

In September, two months before the Birmingham game, police received intelligence about “elements of the community in the West Midlands wanting to ‘arm’ themselves” against the Israelis who would come to support Maccabi Tel Aviv in its match against Aston Villa.

Minutes from a planning meeting later that month also showed police saying: “It is clear that there is a growing suggestion of local hostility toward the visitors based on their nationality.”

The West Midlands Police did not publicize any of this when justifying the unprecedented ban, telling the public it was justified based on claims that Israeli fans would instigate violence.

They said their decision was based on reports from Dutch authorities alleging that Maccabi Tel Aviv fans had been violent during and after a match against Ajax in the Netherlands the previous November.

Dutch police categorically denied this and pointed to several factual errors made by their British counterparts, who had claimed they were relying on those reports.

British police claimed, for example, that Israelis had thrown “innocent members of the public” into a river.

In fact, an Israeli was thrown into the river by local Muslim attackers and forced to chant “Free Palestine” before being allowed to leave the cold water.

He was one of dozens of Israelis who were chased, beaten and terrorized by mobs of young men after the game, as video footage of the scenes clearly shows, and as the Dutch authorities acknowledged.

The West Midlands police also claimed to have consulted the local Jewish community in advance of the decision — “which they had not,” according to the Board of Deputies, the umbrella group representing Jewish organizations in Great Britain.

O’Hara attempted to walk back his bombshell, saying, “There was a range of options available. The challenge, particularly, was that the Maccabi fans would target the community. This was all forming part of the heat of the situation.”

Conservative MP Nick Timothy rejected that explanation, accusing senior police officers of repeatedly “lying” to justify their decision and choosing “appeasement” of “extreme elements” over carrying out their duties.

The Select Committee was presented with minutes from safety advisory group meetings showing police downgraded the risk to Israeli fans from “high” to “medium” while raising the risk to local residents to “high.”

Opposition leader Kemi Badenoch and the Board of Deputies have called for West Midlands police Chief Constable Craig Guildford to resign, accusing him of deciding on the fan ban first and only afterward “search[ing] for evidence to justify it” — a claim Guildford denied during the meeting.