On 6 November, supporters of Fight Racism! Fight Imperialism! attended a protest outside a football match between Aston Villa FC and Israeli football club Maccabi Tel Aviv at Villa Park in Birmingham. Protesters gathered on the basis that the Maccabi team are cultural representatives of the genocidal Zionist state and that to host them would contribute to the perceived legitimisation of the Zionist state in Britain. There have been calls to kick out Israeli teams from FIFA elsewhere in the world, including Spain and Turkey. The demonstration was called by several local groups.
Following riotous attacks from Maccabi fans when they played Amsterdam last year, Maccabi fans had been barred well in advance of the matchday. This was quickly criticised by the Labour government, who aimed to paint this as a capitulation to anti-Semitism, as though the people of Birmingham weren’t demonstrating in opposition to the genocidal Zionist state but Jewish footballers in the abstract. Of course, this rhetoric, headed by Kier Starmer, was an attempt to cover for Labour’s Zionist ally in the Middle East and the support for British imperialism that it brings. Amusingly, Starmer’s speech was followed by riots by Maccabi fans in Tel Aviv in the lead up to a game against another Israeli team. In the end Israeli police cancelled the match, making the Labour government’s position even more absurd than it already was.
The Birmingham protest began at 6pm, two hours before kick-off. From the start there was a large police presence surrounding the protest. West-midlands Police had mustered some 700 officers from across the midlands – including mounted officers and dog handlers.
Section 60 of the Public Order Act was in place which allows police to conduct stop and search without suspicion. Section 60 also entitles police to demand that individuals remove face coverings; some protesters were refused entry for not complying, with one man being arrested.
Police attempted to cordon the protest when Villa fans refused to enter the ground in order to confront the pro-Palestine activists. Dogs were brought in to try to disperse fans and protestors from one another. Undeterred, protestors continued to call for the isolation and sanctioning of the Zionist state in addition to chanting ‘death, death to the IDF’. Eventually fans yielded to Police and proceeded to enter the stadium.
A counter-protest emerged at approximately 7:30. These were separate to the disgruntled Villa fans and were active Zionists. However, the 60 or so counter protestors were dwarfed by more than one thousand pro-Palestinian attendees.
Police made ten arrests at the ground, including two men arrested for ‘racially aggravated public order offences’ against pro-Israeli counter-protesters, and another arrest for someone failing to comply with Section 60 by not removing their face covering.
Aston Villa’s decision to host Maccabi FC illustrates why it is necessary to call for Britain’s cultural ties to the Zionist state to be cut, in addition to isolating it militarily and economically. We cannot allow the Zionist state to seek legitimacy on the world stage by exporting its genocidal culture which is precisely what Aston Villa FC have enabled it to do.
