Mick Hartley

Some more commentary on the Birmingham ban on Maccabi fans..

Joe Hackett at The Critic:

It’s hard not to conclude that the real reason for the ban is fear of how people who literally elected a Gaza independent MP might react to the presence of a small group of Israeli football fans, and whether the cops would be able to control that situation.

The local MP covering Villa Park is indeed Ayoub Khan, a Gaza independent who previously served as Lib Dem councillor for Aston, during which time he was offered antisemitism training after social media posts made in the wake of the October 7th attack.

It’s fair to say that Khan is much more interested in Israel than he is in the local football club. Before he launched his campaign to “boycott Maccabi Tel Aviv” in September, he tweeted the word “Villa” precisely once, supporting a jobs fair at Villa Park.

The same goes for his Gaza independent colleague, Iqbal Mohamed, who responded to the decision to ban the Maccabi fans by enthusiastically declaring his interest in the “safety of Aston Villa fans.” Mohamed hadn’t previously demonstrated any interest whatsoever in Villa, which is unsurprising given that he represents an area 80 miles away from Aston, albeit with similar demographics.…

Since my family moved out in 2003, Small Heath and the surrounding area have been in the news for, among other things, terror raids, a local mosque being exposed on Channel 4 for preaching extremism, the Trojan Horse scandal where Islamists sought to impose their religious agenda in schools, Islamist “counter-rioters” slashing a Sky News van’s tyres and attacking a nearby pub last year, and masked men throwing boxes of live mice painted in the colours of the Palestinian flag into a local McDonalds. It should go without saying that none of this is exactly normal for most of the country.

The decision to ban Maccabi fans from Villa Park is the latest in a series of increasingly high-profile events that have shone a light on the problems that have persisted, and grown, in working-class inner city parts of Birmingham, and other towns and cities, for decades. It was easier for the political and media mainstream to ignore when I was growing up there; it’s much less so now.

Elliott Ludwig at the JC:

My little corner of Birmingham has been a hotbed of anti-Israel feeling straight from Oct 7: From the 10-foot Palestinian flag on top of the local café to “takeover day” when the Moseley Village Green was literally turned into a Gazan Village replete with the usual threatening chants and signs to the giant mural of Bibi Netanyahu with inverted scales of justice made to look like Hamas paragliders.

The newest addition, in plain view, just down the street from the only Jewish school between Manchester and London, is a large piece of graffiti that shows a raised bloodied fist, crushing a dove, and bearing the ominous slogan “You can’t separate peace from freedom”, against a backdrop of a Palestinian flag. Of course, I reported this loosely veiled call to violence to the police.

And nothing, of course, was done to remove the graffiti. The police and council appear to be admitting that they’re no longer in charge of the area.

I moved to the UK 12 years ago from North America. My family and I were welcomed into the local community in Birmingham, both Jewish and otherwise, and built a life for ourselves here. We became British citizens. Our kids went to the King David School, which we dubbed “World Peace School” because of the harmonious relations with the high percentage of Muslim students. We became regular attendees at Villa games, cheering them on from the Championship to the Champions League. But Oct 7 has laid bare just how fragile that welcome was. I suspect we are not the only ones looking for the exits.

It seems that Islamists are asserting their control over parts of Birmingham – and currently no one in authority is willing to step up to challenge them.