We are challenging the ban on Maccabi Tel Aviv Football Club

We have notified Birmingham City Council and West Midlands Police of our intention to bring a judicial review of the decision to ban away fans from attending the match between Aston Villa and Maccabi Tel Aviv next month.

Aston Villa’s Europa League match against Maccabi Tel Aviv is due to take place without Israeli fans in attendance—banned from Villa Park on “safety” grounds—as a result of the decision.

Our lawyers have written to the Council and Police in accordance with the pre-action protocol for judicial review.

Police forces and local councils must do whatever it takes to ensure that Britain is safe for everyone. The decision has rightly been condemned by the Government and opposition parties. We understand that the decision was not made by Aston Villa.

We will do whatever it takes to overturn this pernicious ban which has humiliated and angered the whole country.

Britain is increasingly waking up to the extremism in our midst but now we must all fight the instinctive appeasement within the authorities and our law enforcement.

Is it a crime to wear a Star of David?

It has been revealed that a Jewish man was arrested in late August after wearing a Star of David pendant, which police alleged had “antagonised” anti-Israel demonstrators.

The man, who is a lawyer, said that he was at the protest as an independent legal observer. He accused the Metropolitan Police of trying to “criminalise the wearing of a Star of David”.

The context does not matter. There can be no context ever that justifies calling a Magen David provocative.

Our authorities are paralysed by appeasement and two successive Governments have failed to muster the courage and policy to act.

The recipe is simple: End the appeasement. Enforce the law. The only missing ingredient is resolve.

But this has not been the only policing controversy that has come to light in relation to the protests.

Mark Birbeck and others from Our Fight UK were recently arrested after displaying signs reading: “We stand with Britain’s Jews.” The arrests came after they were pushed and abused by hate marchers.

Campaign Against Antisemitism provided solicitors to represent Mark and others who were arrested. We are proud to have the back of those who stand up for us.

There is a ceasefire now, but these marches were never really about a ceasefire. The marchers say that they are ‘anti-Zionist’, but this was never really about ‘Zionists’.

After Jews were murdered at a synagogue in Manchester on Yom Kippur, those brave and decent people daring to stand with us face abuse and arrest on the streets of London, because the ‘Free Palestine’ mobs cannot stand the sight of them.

These are hate marches, pure and simple. This cannot go on. We need action now.

These protests have taken over our streets for more than two years. Money well spent? Or should it go elsewhere?

Elie asked people how much they think the Palestine marches cost police forces. Hear what they have to say here.

The Prime Minister is starting to understand, but will he now act?

Last week, the Prime Minister affirmed what we and the Jewish community have been saying for two years but which the police, regulators and universities have hesitated or refused to acknowledge: calls to “Globalise the Intifada” represent a call to attack Jewish communities around the world.

He also told the JC that he believes the phrase “From the River to the Sea, Palestine will be free” is antisemitic, and disagrees with the Mayor of London, who recently said that it depends on the context.

Our polling has shown that 95% of British Jews consider the chant “From the River to the Sea, Palestine will be free” to be an antisemitic call to destroy the Jewish state. Only 2% do not.

We are grateful to the Prime Minister for affirming what the Jewish community has long known. But what is he going to do about it?

It is now up to the criminal justice system and regulatory bodies to catch up and take action when people use this racist language. Based on the experience of the past two years, they will not act unless made to.

Ofcom finds BBC committed “serious breach” of broadcasting rules

Ofcom has ruled that the BBC committed a “serious breach” of broadcasting rules after it failed to disclose that the narrator of its Gaza documentary was the son of a Hamas official.

The regulator found that the programme, which was broadcast earlier this year, was “materially misleading” and that this failure “had the potential to erode the significantly high levels of trust that audiences would have placed in a BBC factual programme about the Israel-Gaza war.”

The BBC will be required to broadcast a statement about Ofcom’s finding in a prime-time slot.

This was not a minor oversight — it was a grave lapse in editorial standards from our national broadcaster, just one of repeated antisemitism scandals that have recently engulfed the BBC, from paying licence fee funds to the family of a Hamas official to having to part ways with Gary Lineker after he posted an antisemitic meme and from refusing to call Hamas terrorists to broadcasting incendiary rhetoric about ‘Zionists’ and calls for death and destruction at Glastonbury.

We are long past talk of merely restoring trust.

The BBC needs fundamental reform. That must begin with an independent investigation into its coverage of Israel and matters of Jewish interest, and pending the outcome of that investigation the licence fee must be suspended.

Change cannot come soon enough to British medicine

The Government has announced that it is taking urgent action to tackle antisemitism and other forms of racism in the NHS.

We have been calling out severe regulatory failures in the NHS for two years now.

It is tragic, not to mention aggravating, that it has taken two dead Jews murdered in a terrorist attack for the authorities to begin to wake up to what our country has become.

Jewish staff and patients in NHS institutions are feeling intimidated at places that are supposed to be equally welcoming and inclusive to everyone. Regulators have been asleep at the wheel, where they haven’t made the problem even worse, while doctors’ unions have utterly failed their Jewish members. There has been nobody to turn to, which is why people have to turn to us.

Any steps by the Government, however belated, that force regulators to do their jobs quickly and efficiently will be welcome, as are rules that prohibit political accessories, which obviously have no place in our hospitals.

Our private prosecution against David Miller

At a hearing on Friday at Westminster Magistrates’ Court in the private prosecution against Dr David Miller brought by Campaign Against Antisemitism, a fourth charge was added to the existing three.

All four charges allege the sending of menacing communications on X by the Defendant contrary to section 127 of the Communications Act 2003.

The charges relate to the following posts:

• A post on 8th November 2024 relating to violence in Amsterdam after a football match involving an Israeli team, calling for “material deZionisation on the streets” and the expunging of “Zionist terrorist entryists” from European institutions.
• A post on 20th March 2025 stating that “every Zionist Jew must be held accountable and de-Zionised,” while stating that anti-Zionist Jews would be kept safe.
• A post on 24th March 2025 calling for “the entire Zionist movement globally” to “live in fear of accountability until it is dismantled and its ideology eradicated,” and urging readers to “find out where” Zionists are.
• A post on 4th May 2025 calling for a person in Manchester to be located and “held accountable,” stating that “what has been done has a price… that price is justice”. This is the post which was the subject of Friday’s additional charge.

Last week’s hearing mainly related to a detailed list of requests for disclosure made by the defendant. The judge ordered certain limited further disclosure, noting: “I am keeping it narrowly to that area; anything more would be a fishing expedition.”

Campaign Against Antisemitism exists to ensure that those who unlawfully harass, intimidate, or threaten members of the Jewish community online or offline face justice through the proper legal channels.

Workshopping hatred

Samuel Williams, a University of Oxford student, has reportedly been arrested on suspicion of inciting racial hatred after being filmed at a pro-Palestinian march leading a chant to “put the Zios in the ground”.

Footage appeared to show Mr Williams saying, “I don’t want to yap for too long, but a chant that we’ve been workshopping in Oxford that maybe you guys want to join in,” before leading the chant.

Oxford University has confirmed that a student has been suspended following the arrest and reiterated that there is “no place for hatred, antisemitism or discrimination” on campus.

We are monitoring the situation closely and will continue to press for robust action against those who spread or incite antisemitic violence, whether in the streets or at our universities.

Nazi-inspired extremists jailed

Three Nazi-inspired extremists have been jailed for up to eleven years for plotting terrorist attacks on synagogues and mosques.

Christopher Ringrose, Marco Pitzettu and Brogan Stewart – who had never met in person – amassed over 200 weapons, 3D-printed firearm components, and formed an online group called Einsatz 14 to “go to war” against minority communities.

Court documents revealed a dossier of their online activity glorifying Hitler, antisemitism, and mass killers, and filled with violent white supremacist ideology. Mr Stewart, the self-styled “Führer” of the group, recruited others with vetting forms asking who they hated most.

One message from Mr Stewart warned about then Prime Minister Rishi Sunak: “For Britain to have a p*** and Zionist in charge of the country is absolutely outrageous.”

Ms Justice Cutts noted that Mr Stewart had discussed torturing a Muslim leader. She warned that the extremists remain dangerous, handing down extended sentences and licence periods, noting that an attack “was likely in the not too distant future” but was thankfully thwarted by counterterrorism police.

A fourth man, Claudiu Cristea, was also jailed for possessing terrorist-related documents.

The case serves as a reminder of the danger still posed by neo-Nazi thugs so many decades since the defeat of Nazi Germany. We are grateful for the critical work of specialist police in thwarting these dangerous terrorists.

We are hiring!

Do you want to use your communications skills to raise awareness of antisemitism?

If so, this is the job for you.

Apply now at antisemitism.org/communications-and-research-officer/.

By omissions and commissions, police forces across Britain are making this country a place where people cannot be Jewish in public.

Want to walk on the street? Don’t be openly Jewish.

Want to go to a football match? Sorry, not as a Jew.

Want to go to synagogue? You take your life in your hands.

The antisemitism of the mob is no longer only the fault of the perpetrators but also increasingly of law enforcement officials who are enabling and indeed encouraging and rewarding it.

Two years of the worst antisemitism in living memory, antisemitic hate crimes on unprecedented levels, no end in sight, and not a single police chief has been held accountable by two successive governments for this monumental failure to keep one of Britain’s oldest minorities safe.

There is some hope, however. At last, the British public is awakening to this and they are furious. They want action too, and they want it now.

Image credit: Google