The scandal surrounding the police chief behind the ban on Maccabi football fans is yet another reflection of the misinformation fanning the flames of worldwide antisemitism.

And it cannot be distanced from the horrific genocide being carried out on protestors in Iran.

West Midlands top cop Craig Guildford – who has now retired – shockingly misled the public in barring Tel Aviv fans attending an Aston Villa, Birmingham, match in November by overstating the threat they posed to peace in the city.

A report by Chief Inspector of Constabulary Sir Andy Cooke revealed how evidence was fabricated and exaggerated to justify the ban.

So when even a British government not particularly friendly with Israel declared they had no confidence in the chief under fire, he obviously had to go. And Daily Mail columnist Richard Littlejohn compared the debacle to TV’s time-travelling detective series Life on Mars.

The reason originally given for the action taken was that the presence of the Israelis might have incited hostility towards the region’s large Muslim community.

The farcical scenario comes on the back of regular pro-Palestinian protests through London where the Metropolitan Police have given every impression of adopting a ‘softly, softly’ approach to militant marchers calling for jihad (holy war) and the destruction of the Jewish state, using the slogan ‘From the river to the sea, Palestine shall be free’.

But they rarely get arrested for ‘hate crime’, so readily used against others asking questions about the true nature of these protests.

Yet the slogan itself is a perfect example of truth turned on its head. International treaties of 1920 and 1922 specifically gave this very land – from the Mediterranean to the River Jordan and beyond – to the Jewish people, not the Palestinians. In fact, there were no such people as Palestinians at the time.

Although the territory in general was known as Palestine, Arabs living there did not claim to be Palestinian. And yet Jews living there were sometimes happy to be so designated.

But then, after neighbouring Arab countries suffered a succession of humiliating defeats at the hands of new-born Israel, the PLO (Palestine Liberation Organisation) effectively invented a ‘Palestinian’ people, having decided that if they couldn’t drive out the Jews by military means, they would resort instead to propaganda alongside acts of terrorism. As Josef Goebbels put it in the Nazi era, if you tell a lie often enough, people will believe you. And now a new breed of Nazi lies is being spewed forth on British streets.

Pro-Palestinian demonstrators protest outside the UEFA Europa League match between Maccabi Tel Aviv and Aston Villa at Villa Park Stadium in Birmingham, England, November 6, 2025. Photo by Flash90

Meanwhile reports of 16,000 Iranian protestors shot dead and a third of a million wounded should wake us all up to the reality of the misplaced woke support for the pro-Palestinian cause.

For the fanatical Islamic regime that has turned on its own people are the key sponsors of Palestinian terrorist groups Hamas and Hezbollah, and have been persecuting the Jews for decades, repeatedly swearing to wipe them off the map. And we in Britain have facilitated this same kind of anti-Jew hatred – as practised by the Ayatollahs – on our own streets!

Iranians who have been enslaved by this antisemitic dogma for decades have had enough. They want to be friends with Israel, as they have so often been in the past – especially, some 2,500 years ago, when Persia’s King Cyrus ordered the rebuilding of Jerusalem’s Temple.

The gospel of Jesus Christ is centred upon reconciliation between Jew and Gentile, achieved through the cross where the shed blood of the Jewish Messiah paid the price for the sins of us all.

Yet even amidst their oppression, which has seen much-needed resources diverted to building up the country’s nuclear arsenal, as many as two million Iranians have reportedly decided to follow Jesus. Pray that their light will awaken a new dawn for Middle East peace.

In the case of our police forces, I’m sure it doesn’t help that far too many officers are mixed up with Freemasonry, a secret society with its dirty claws also reaching into sacred areas of the church.

But it’s not all bad news. For two members of the Christian Police Association were featured in an inspiring episode of the BBC Songs of Praise programme focused on individuals impacting their workplaces for Christ.

Dan Sanders-Brown and Susannah Redmayne of the Cambridgeshire Constabulary spoke passionately of the difference their faith makes in their day-to-day work. Dan recounted how he prayed for courage while on a ‘blue light’ run to the scene of a woman on the railway tracks while Susannah echoes the words of the Lord’s prayer, “Deliver us from evil,” as she goes out on patrol.

“My faith has strengthened since becoming a police officer,” said Dan, adding that an attitude of forgiveness is “really important” as people sometimes over-react to their presence.

But the presence of God is what we all need in these uncertain times.

Charles Gardner is author of Israel the Chosen, available from Amazon; Peace in Jerusalem, available from olivepresspublisher.com; To the Jew First, A Nation Reborn, and King of the Jews, all available from Christian Publications International.