On the field, last night’s losers were Maccabi Tel Aviv, beaten 2-0 by Aston Villa in their Europa League match.

Off the field, however, the story was rather different. For one thing, the Maccabi Tel Aviv team arrived in and departed from Birmingham with their heads held high. Despite the attempts of hate campaigners to render the match unplayable – the initial focus was on barring the Maccabi supporters, but swiftly moved to attempting to bar the team and then to making it impossible for the match to go ahead – the Jewish, Christian and Muslim players of Maccabi Tel Aviv braved the hate, did their job as footballers, and left unscathed.

It appears that West Midlands police are unfit to take decisions surrounding the safety of Jews and the policing of local hate protests

Despite that, i

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