{"id":6353,"date":"2025-10-20T19:34:43","date_gmt":"2025-10-20T17:34:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.jonathan-cook.net\/blog\/?p=6353"},"modified":"2025-10-20T19:34:43","modified_gmt":"2025-10-20T17:34:43","slug":"chants-starmer-police-antisemitic","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.jonathan-cook.net\/blog\/2025-10-20\/chants-starmer-police-antisemitic\/","title":{"rendered":"A tale of two chants: Why Starmer now casts even the British police as antisemitic"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"subtitle subtitle-HEEcLo\" dir=\"auto\"><em><strong><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft size-full wp-image-6354\" src=\"https:\/\/www.jonathan-cook.net\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/230705200432-02-tel-aviv-anti-government-protest-intl-copy.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"520\" height=\"347\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.jonathan-cook.net\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/230705200432-02-tel-aviv-anti-government-protest-intl-copy.jpg 520w, https:\/\/www.jonathan-cook.net\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/230705200432-02-tel-aviv-anti-government-protest-intl-copy-300x200.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 520px) 100vw, 520px\" \/>Starmer wanted punk band Bob Vylan prosecuted for chanting &#8216;Death to the IDF!&#8217; Four months on, he&#8217;s bullying the police to let Israeli football thugs into the UK to chant &#8216;Death to the Arabs!&#8217;<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n<p><strong>June 2025<\/strong>: Keir Starmer\u2019s government urge police to investigate the punk band Bob Vylan for inciting racial hatred and public order offences after chanting \u201cDeath, death to the IDF!\u201d at the Glastonbury music festival.<\/p>\n<p>At that time, the IDF, Israel\u2019s military, is known to be responsible for killing and maiming more than 200,000 Palestinians in Gaza, with many thousands more dead under Gaza\u2019s rubble. The United Nations; every major human rights organisation, including Israeli ones; and the International Association of Genocide Scholars have all agreed that Israel and its military are committing genocide in Gaza.<\/p>\n<p>Lisa Nandy, Britain\u2019s sports and culture secretary, <a href=\"https:\/\/news.sky.com\/story\/criminal-investigation-launched-into-glastonbury-performances-of-kneecap-and-bob-vylan-13389603\" rel=\"\">calls<\/a> the chant against the IDF \u2013 and the BBC\u2019s inadvertent broadcasting of it \u2013 \u201cappalling and unacceptable\u201d. Keir Starmer <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.co.uk\/news\/articles\/c33514nryy1o\" rel=\"\">terms<\/a> the chant \u201cappalling hate speech\u201d. They agree that Bob Vylan and another band, Kneecap, should have never been given \u201ca platform\u201d by either Glastonbury or the BBC. There is widespread agreement in the media and Westminster that the chant is evidence of antisemitism.<\/p>\n<p>The Trump administration, meanwhile, <a href=\"https:\/\/news.sky.com\/story\/very-concerned-ofcom-says-bbc-has-questions-to-answer-after-streaming-anti-idf-chants-at-glastonbury-13390388\" rel=\"\">revokes a visa<\/a> for Bob Vylan to perform in the United States \u2013 a move that the Starmer government does nothing to protest.<\/p>\n<p><strong>October 2025<\/strong>: West Midlands police announce that they are barring Tel Aviv Maccabi fans from attending a match in Birmingham against Aston Villa next month because of fears of violence. Tel Aviv\u2019s supporters are notorious for their racist and violent behaviour, both inside Israel and abroad.<\/p>\n<p>Nearly a year ago, there were ugly riots in Amsterdam\u2019s streets provoked by the Tel Aviv fans \u2013 many of whom have served or are serving in the IDF \u2013 after their team lost against local side Ajax. Inside the stadium and later on the streets, the Tel Aviv fans could be heard chanting \u201dDeath to the Arabs\u201d and \u201cThere are no more schools in Gaza because we killed all the kids!\u201d.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\">\n<p dir=\"ltr\" lang=\"en\">The West buries a genocide \u2013 by making victims of Israel&#8217;s football thugs.<\/p>\n<p>My latest article on why western politicians and the media were so keen to whip up yet another invented antisemitism furore, this time in Amsterdam:<a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/l9BYO4EDEw\">https:\/\/t.co\/l9BYO4EDEw<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u2014 Jonathan Cook (@Jonathan_K_Cook) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/Jonathan_K_Cook\/status\/1856023370581614612?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">November 11, 2024<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p>Despite the Tel Aviv fans instigating the Amsterdam violence, much of it caught on video, Dutch and British politicians and media initially went out of their way to portray the Tel Aviv fans as the victims \u2013 until, confronted with the evidence, that <a href=\"https:\/\/www.middleeasteye.net\/opinion\/west-buries-genocide-making-victims-israel-football-thugs\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">narrative collapsed<\/a>. For example, David Lammy, then Britain\u2019s foreign secretary, lost no time <a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/DavidLammy\/status\/1854930793115607513\" rel=\"\">writing on X<\/a>: \u201cI utterly condemn these abhorrent acts of violence and stand with Israeli and Jewish people across the world.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>It was precisely these \u201cviolent clashes and hate crime offences\u201d in Amsterdam that lead West Midlands police to decide its officers will not be able to safely police the Europa League match in Birmingham, scheduled for November 6. They term it \u201chigh risk\u201d.<\/p>\n<p>But once again, Starmer and his ministers seek to revive the early, confected Amsterdam narrative, this time suggesting that it is the the Tel Aviv football hooligans that are in danger from Aston Villa fans, that any resentment from Aston Villa fans towards Tel Aviv fans is driven solely by antisemitism rather than by the Tel Aviv fans\u2019 long record of genocidal chants and racist violence, and that the police decision to bar the Tel Aviv hooligans is capitulation to \u201cantisemitism\u201d.<\/p>\n<p>Starmer himself wants the police decision overruled. Ed Miliband, his energy secretary, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/football\/2025\/oct\/19\/aston-villa-jews-ed-miliband-maccabi-tel-aviv\" rel=\"\">says<\/a>: \u201cWe cannot have a situation where any area is a no-go area for people of a particular religion or from a particular country.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>But as happened with the official Amsterdam narrative, Starmer\u2019s utterly implausible narrative regarding the Aston Villa game collapses almost immediately. On Sunday, Israeli football authorities are forced to <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/football\/2025\/oct\/19\/tel-aviv-football-derby-between-hapoel-and-maccabi-called-off-after-rioting\" rel=\"\">call off<\/a> a derby between Maccabi and another Tel Aviv team after both sets of fans riot.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Conclusions<\/strong>:<\/p>\n<p>1. British police should not be dealing with the matter of the Aston Villa game. It should never have been thrown into their lap. Tel Aviv Maccabi would not be playing in the UK, or anywhere else in Europe, if Israeli sports team were banned from all international competitions, as they should have been long ago. Russia has been banned. So why are Israel teams still competing? Israel\u2019s genocide in Gaza is far more egregious than anything done by Moscow in Ukraine. The Tel Aviv fans wouldn\u2019t be coming to the UK if their team wasn\u2019t playing.<\/p>\n<p>2. If Starmer and his ministers were so sure that a British punk band needed prosecuting for chanting \u201cDeath to the IDF!\u201d, why are they so keen to overturn a police decision and invite foreign fans to the UK when it is widely understood both that those fans will bring their brand of genocidal rhetoric to British streets (\u201cDeath to the Arabs!\u201d) and that they are certain to intimidate and use violence against Muslim and Arab communities in Birmingham? Why does the Starmer government think it so important to give special privileges to foreigners to platform their racial hatred, while seeking to remove any platform from British citizens, such as Bob Vylan, they accuse of spreading hate.<\/p>\n<p>Remember this too. Bob Vylan used violent rhetoric against a racist and violent foreign army \u2013 a rhetoric neither the band nor its fans were in any kind of position to act on. The IDF is one of the strongest armies in the world; Bob Vylan\u2019s fans pose no threat to it. The chant is better understood as chiefly symbolic: a punkish variation of \u201cDown, down with the IDF!\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The Tel Aviv fans, however, are not just invoking violent, symbolic rhetoric. They are in a position to actually implement that violence in very practical ways \u2013 and not just in one setting, but two.<\/p>\n<p>Some of these fans, either currently serving in the Israeli military or as reserve soldiers, have actually helped destroy almost every school in Gaza, and have been actively butchering Palestinian children \u2013 at least 20,000 children, the number that have been identified so far before the rubble is cleared.<\/p>\n<p>But it goes further. These fans can, in fact, act out their violent chants and impulses in Birmingham by attacking anyone who looks Muslim or Arab. They can carry out their threats on Britain\u2019s streets. It was obviously this assessment that led the West Midlands police to conclude that the fans should not allowed to attend the match. Why would Starmer wish to overturn a decision to avert a real danger of violence from foreign fans directed at British citizens? Why is the supposed right of foreign fans to attend a football match being placed above the safety of the British public? Why are the supposed sensitivities of a group of hooligans more important than good race relations in Britain?<\/p>\n<p>3. Once again, Starmer\u2019s government is misrepresenting events \u2013 in this case, a decision by the police \u2013 as \u201cantisemitic\u201d. In the British political and media establishment\u2019s view, is there anyone left in British society \u2013 apart, that is, from the political and media establishment \u2013 that isn\u2019t \u201cantisemitic\u201d?<\/p>\n<p>The government\u2019s logic on antisemtism is clearly back to front. Violent, racist Israeli football fans do not represent Jews. They don\u2019t even represent all Israelis. Conversely, an aversion to hosting violent, racist football fans is not antisemitism. It is a public order matter. Meanwhile, imagining that violent foreign football fans who chant \u201cDeath to the Arabs!\u201d need protecting because they also happen to be Jewish, as Starmer is doing, is antisemitic and Islamophobic in equal measure.<\/p>\n<p>In fact, it is racism of the ugliest kind \u2013 racism that clothes itself in the guise of anti-racism. By weaponising antisemitism in this utterly cynical way, Starmer discredits the real anti-racists and breathes life into the racist\u2019s claim that Jews have special, alchemical powers that can invert the world, making \u201cup\u201d look like \u201cdown\u201d, \u201cblack\u201d look like \u201cwhite\u201d. It feeds the very worldview that led to pogroms against Jews across much of Europe and culminated in the Holocaust. Starmer knows this.<\/p>\n<p>4. Politicians have long put pressure on football authorities to \u201cstamp out racism\u201d in the game. Yet, here is the Starmer government trying to normalise genocidally racist rhetoric in Britain by inviting it into a Birmingham stadium. If Tel Aviv fans are given a privileged platform to vent their \u201cDeath to the Arabs!\u201d chants in the UK, why not accord the same privilege to racist fans from British clubs?<\/p>\n<p>And if the police are forced to climb down on a decision against Tel Aviv Maccabi, what sort of precedent \u2013 practical and rhetorical, if not immediately legal \u2013 will this set for other violent actors?<\/p>\n<p>5. Starmer is weaponising antisemitism in this way for purely political reasons, entirely unrelated to the safety of British Jews. This is not new from him, nor is he alone. The British establishment has been using \u201cantisemitism\u201d as a tool to wield against every and any threat to its continuing entrenchment of power.<\/p>\n<p>Over the past five years, Starmer has used weaponised antisemitism against his predecessor, Jeremy Corbyn, an exceptionally rare case of a democratic socialist getting within scent of power, to oust him from the Labour party.<\/p>\n<p>Once Corbyn was gone, Starmer used weaponised antisemitism against the left of the party to purge its members \u2013 one of the reasons his party has plumbed new lows in polling.<\/p>\n<p>Starmer has used weaponised antisemitism against student movements that tried to highlight and end their universities\u2019 culpability in financing and arming Israel\u2019s genocide.<\/p>\n<p>Starmer used weaponised antisemitism to outlaw Palestine Action, which targets factories in Britain sending weapons to Israel for use in the Gaza genocide and was piling additional pressure on his government to end arms sales to Israel.<\/p>\n<p>Starmer is using weaponised antisemitism against ordinary, peaceful citizens who have held a placard supporting Palestine Action\u2019s work.<\/p>\n<p>And now, driven into a logical and ethical cul-de-sac through his relentless campaign of mischaracterising anti-racism as antisemitism, Starmer is implicitly accusing the police of antisemitism. Why? Because they are trying to protect British communities from the overspill of genocidal violence issuing from Israel.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Starmer wanted punk band Bob Vylan prosecuted for chanting &#8216;Death to the IDF!&#8217; Four months on, he&#8217;s bullying the police to let Israeli football thugs into the UK to chant &#8216;Death to the Arabs!&#8217;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":6354,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[22,33,7],"class_list":{"0":"post-6353","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-uncategorized","8":"tag-britain","9":"tag-gaza","10":"tag-israel-lobby"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jonathan-cook.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6353","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jonathan-cook.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jonathan-cook.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jonathan-cook.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jonathan-cook.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6353"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.jonathan-cook.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6353\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6355,"href":"https:\/\/www.jonathan-cook.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6353\/revisions\/6355"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jonathan-cook.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6354"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jonathan-cook.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6353"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jonathan-cook.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6353"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jonathan-cook.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6353"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}