A former Hezbollah fighter is behind a report that campaigners claim ‘laid the groundwork’ for the police to ban Israeli fans from attending a football match in Birmingham, The Mail on Sunday can reveal.
The Hind Rajab Foundation, chaired by Dyab Abou Jahjah, helped the ‘Game Over Israel‘ campaign compile an anti-Israel dossier which was handed to West Midlands Police ahead of a Europa League match at Villa Park next month.
According to the GOI campaign group, the document was integral to the police’s highly controversial decision to stop Maccabi Tel Aviv fans from going to the match.
The document commented on the so-called ‘systematic instrumentalisation of football culture in genocide’ as well as illustrating ‘why Israel’s place in global sport is indefensible’, according to its authors.
It also highlighted the Amsterdam riots when Maccabi played Ajax in the Europa League last year, and said: ‘[The Maccabi fans’] arrival in Aston – a diverse and predominantly Muslim community – poses a real risk of tensions within the community and disorder.’
Lebanon-born Abou Jahjah was previously part of Islamist militant group Hezbollah, which has long been embroiled in violent conflict with Israel.
Abou Jahjah has said that he was ‘very proud’ of his military training.
It comes as West Midlands Police caused outrage last week after it asked Israeli fans to stay away from the Aston Villa fixture, citing public safety concerns.
Dyab Abou Jahjah, pictured brandishing a Kalashnikov machine gun, helped compile a dossier which has seen Maccabi Tel Aviv fans banned from a Europa League match against Aston Villa
Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer and Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood have both called for the decision to be reversed.
Fresh talks are expected to take place this week.
Now this newspaper can reveal that a dossier which may have influenced the police’s decision was co-authored by Abou Jahjah’s Hind Rajab Foundation.
A probe by the MoS has uncovered Abou Jahjah posing shirtless and brandishing a Kalashnikov machine gun. In July, he was all too happy to share the image with his online supporters, telling them that ‘being called a terrorist’ is a ‘badge of honour’.
It comes as after the barbaric October 7 Hamas attack, he took to social media to praise the massacre and argued it is not anti-Semitic to say ‘effing Jews’.
He has also compared Jewish people to Nazis.
In Belgium, where he lives and where the Hind Rajab Foundation is based, he has held mock funerals for killed Hamas leaders, saying one ‘showed the way’, according to our research. He has also repeatedly venerated Hezbollah leaders online.
Abou Jahjah also founded the now-dissolved Arab European League, which he said aimed to empower Muslim immigrants.
The organisation was fined in Belgium in 2010 for posting Holocaust-denial content on its website.
In a 2003 interview, he said: ‘We want to polarise people, to sharpen the discussion, to unmask the myth that the system is democratic for us.’
Abou Jahjah was banned from the UK in 2009 over his views on the Middle East.
Six years later, Jeremy Corbyn was forced to admit he had met Abou Jahjah but said he had no recollection of it, having met ‘thousands of people over the years’.
The Israeli fans, pictured last November in Amsterdam, have been asked by West Midlands Police to stay away from the fixture at Villa Park in Birmingham
Last night Shadow Home Secretary Chris Philp raised serious concerns West Midlands Police may have taken advice from a ‘terrorist sympathiser’.
He said: ‘This man looks to me to be dangerous.
‘It is a disgrace that this terrorist supporter has played a critical role in banning football supporters.
‘It is bad enough the West Midlands Police, with the Home Secretary’s knowledge, capitulated to the threat of anti-Semitic mob violence.
‘Now we learn they were acting on the advice of a terrorist sympathiser. This is sick.’
Several Left-wing pro-Gaza MPs, including Mr Corbyn, have supported the police’s decision.
Independent Dewsbury MP Iqbal Hussain Mohamed said the ban had put Aston Villa fans above ‘Zionist and political pressure to let Israeli hooligans and terrorists run riot’ – a comment described as ‘racist’ by critics.