JAMES M DORSEY —- Nowhere are the lines separating legitimate criticism of Israel and anti-Semitism more blurred than on the pitch.

A series of incidents in the last year highlights the confusion and obfuscation, part the product of an Israeli effort to deliberately conflate criticism with anti-Semitism in a bid to stifle questioning of Israeli policies and part the result of a decades-long information war that pits Israelis and Jews against Palestinians, Arabs and Muslims in which labelling of the other is often ideologically determined.

The labelling includes Israel’s consistent referral to Israeli Palestinians as Arabs rather than Israeli Palestinians in a bid to erase a separate Palestinian identity, and many Palestinians, Arabs, and Muslims using the terms Israeli, Zionist, and Jewish interchangeably rather than acknowledging the differences between the various categories.

Adding to the confusion and obfuscation is the fact that, colloquially, many Palestinians, Arabs, and Muslims often indiscriminately refer to Israelis, Jews, and Zionists as ‘yahud,’ or Jews.

The incidents occurred against the backdrop of mounting public criticism in Europe of Israel’s conduct of the Gaza war and long-standing European efforts to combat racism in stadiums.

They include violence in Amsterdam almost a year ago between Maccabi Tel Aviv fans and anti-Israel protesters, this month’s clashes in Oslo between pro-Palestinian protesters and police during a Norway-Israel World Cup qualifier, and, most recently, the Birmingham municipal and law enforcement’s controversial decision to ban Maccabi Tel Aviv fans from attending next month’s Europa League match against Aston Villa.

Unlike British associations, Norway has campaigned for holding the Israel Football Association’s feet to the fire for violations of world and European bodies FIFA and UEFA’s statutes.

AFC stance

This week, Asian Football Confederation president Salman bin Ebrahim Al Khalifa appeared to support UEFA’s evasion of a vote that would have likely favoured suspension of Israel by pointing to US President Donald Trump’s Gaza ceasefire agreement.

Earlier, Sheikk Salman advocated Israel’s suspension at a FIFA Congress in Bangkok a year ago.

“I wish to once again express our solidarity with the Palestine FA and extend my deepest sympathies to all the victims in Gaza. While we are all relieved by the recent peace announcement in Gaza, I would like to assure the Palestine FA of our full support as they continue to rebuild their football activities, safeguard their players and officials, and keep the spirit of the game alive under these challenging circumstances,” Mr Al-Khalifa said during AFC meetings in Saudi Arabia last week..

Earlier this month, the IFA charged that sportswear giant Reebok had backtracked on a demand that the association remove the company’s sponsorship logo from the Israeli national team’s jerseys and kit.

A coalition of runners on a 10-mile run from Cambridge to Seaport planned this weekend to deliver to Reebok’s Boston headquarters a letter from 367 Palestinian sports clubs and associations demanding that the company cancel its sponsorship.

Reebok denied the Israeli assertion and rejected demands by the Boycott, Diversification and Sanctions movement, saying “We don’t do politics; we do sport.”

AFC context

Asia would have been the precedent for a potential Israeli suspension.

Although geographically part of Asia, Israel competes in Europe because the Asian confederation expelled the Jewish-majority state in 1974 at the behest of Arab and Muslim associations, who refused to play Israel at a time that the Arab and much of the Muslim world refused to acknowledge Israel’s existence.

Meanwhile, the Birmingham ban is proving to be contentious, in part because it follows on the heels of an attack earlier this month on a synagogue in Manchester on Yom Kippur, the highest holiday on the Jewish religious calendar, in which three people were killed.

The Westland Midlands Police said “physical and safety factors” had prompted the Maccabi ban, citing last year’s violence in Amsterdam.

“Let that sink in. They have banned Maccabi Tel Aviv fans from attending their Europa Conference League game against Aston Villa because they cannot keep Jews safe in Birmingham,” charged Aston Villa fan, analyst, and former British army major Andrew Fox, who served in Afghanistan, Bosnia, and Northern Ireland.

Asserting that “what West Midlands Police are really saying is chilling: they cannot protect Jews from a repeat of Amsterdam because mobs now rule our streets,” Fox spun a legitimate point to denounce anti-Israel protesters as mobs while describing racist songs and slogans of Israeli fans with a history of anti-Palestinian and anti-Muslim attitudes as “unpleasant Israeli football chants.”

In doing so, Fox failed to acknowledge that racism straddles both sides of the Israeli-Palestinian divide.

Moreover, like many Palestinians, Arabs and Muslims, Fox deliberately conflated the categories of Jews and Israelis, given that not all Jews are Israelis and not all Israelis are Jews.

There is no doubt that Maccabi Tel Aviv’s Amsterdam detractors expressed vile anti-Semitism. Yet, that is no better or worse than Maccabi Tel Aviv’s chanting, “olé, olé, let the IDF (Israel Defence Forces) win, we will f–k the Arabs, ” asserting that there were “no children” left in Gaza, and shouting anti-Arab slogans in Israeli stadiums.

Israeli fan racism, long a fixture of Israeli football, reflects widespread anti-Palestinian sentiment in Israeli society. A recent Instagram video captured Israeli women chanting, “May your village burn, may your village burn,” as they worked out in a gym.

The genocidal rhetoric is prevalent among Israelis, Palestinians, and their supporters far beyond the borders of Israel and a potential future Palestinian state.

Conspiracy theorist

In Birmingham, Asrar Rashid, a militant Islamic scholar, purveyor of anti-Semitic conspiracy theories and proponent of expelling Israeli Jews from all of historic Palestine or subjecting them to Islamic rule, earlier this month helped shape the charged Aston Villa-Maccabi Tel Aviv World Cup qualifier environment by vowing to show Maccabi fans “no mercy” and “no rahma” or compassion.

By ignoring or downplaying the pervasiveness of racism on both sides of the divide, Fox contributes to the blurring of the lines between criticism of Israel and anti-Semitism by deliberately conflating mounting anti-Israel sentiment in Europe because of Israel’s conduct of the Gaza war with anti-Semitism. He also neglects the reality that Jewish critics are prominent in anti-Israel protests.

Moreover, Fox ignores the fact that the Israel Football Association has maintained a façade of anti-racism to avoid running afoul of UEFA and FIFA, but in effect has long soft-pedalled racism in Israeli stadiums, even though Israeli Palestinian players contribute significantly to Israeli national team and club performance, and Israeli-Palestinian teams compete in Israeli leagues.

There are good reasons to tackle the Israel Football Association for its inclusion in Israeli leagues of clubs from illegal Israeli settlements in occupied Palestinian territory in violation of international law and FIFA statutes and its failure to robustly crack down on racism among Israeli soccer fans.

Yet, that does not relieve British law enforcement of its responsibility to protect the right of Israeli fans to attend a match as long as Israel remains unsanctioned.

“The police can deploy hundreds to protect politicians at party conferences. They can lock down city centres for climate protests, but when it comes to Jewish football fans, they throw up their hands and say: Sorry, too risky,” Mr. Fox argued.

London incident

In the latest example of British law enforcement marshalling its forces, London’s Metropolitan Police was supported by units from across Britain when last month some 100,000 people congregated in the British capital for a far-right anti-immigration march.

“Once you start excluding Jews for their own safety, you are normalising their exclusion. We have seen where that road leads before,” Fox said.

Broadening Fox’s argument to include minorities as such, not just Jews, Ian Murray, a minister at the British Department for Culture, echoed Fox but noted that the Birmingham decision raised a dangerous spectre for all minorities.

The Birmingham ban was “the wrong decision in terms of the message that it sends out for anti-Semitism, but it is also the wrong message to the entire country – that you would be banned from going to public events if you’re of the wrong race, religion or creed,” Mr. Murray said.

Dr. James M. Dorsey is an Adjunct Senior Fellow at Nanyang Technological University’s S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies, and the author of the syndicated column and podcast, The Turbulent World with James M. Dorsey.

##########