The Campaign Against Antisemitism says that the decision to bar Maccabi Tel Aviv fans from Villa Park has “angered the whole country” (Home Office offers extra resources in effort to undo Maccabi Tel Aviv fans ban, 17 October). Well, I am not angered by it, only mildly surprised that just one set of fans has been excluded. What I’m angry about is that the state of Israel, which has committed genocide and a scorched-earth policy in Gaza, and continues to flout international law and civilised norms in the West Bank, is allowed to participate in international competitions at all.

Those who persist in conflating anti-Israeli sentiment and antisemitism seem to me to be making the problem worse. If the interests of the Israeli state and that of all Jews are endlessly characterised as one and the same then, regrettably, Jewish people like the Maccabi fans, who individually may or may not support Benjamin Netanyahu’s actions, end up as targets of the opprobrium, and even hatred, that ought to by rights be directed at the Israeli government.
Isabella Stone
Sheffield

In the 1980s, I was accused of bringing politics into the sport of archery, arguing that it was a moral issue, not a political one. At every annual championship, my county association, Cheshire, ran a postal match with an archery club in Natal, South Africa, selecting the top scorers for the Cheshire team. At the following AGM, I asked for an opt-out so that I and other archers opposed to apartheid could have our names removed. It was rejected. The rules were only changed by my county after we took the issue to the sport’s national AGM.

I will make the same point now. Opposition to Israel can be morally based and not necessarily political (Anger at Maccabi ban shows power of sport and why fans now expect more from its leaders, 17 October).

Meanwhile, isn’t Keir Starmer’s objection to the Maccabi ban somewhat contradictory in light of moves to give police the power to apply tougher restrictions on demonstrations if previous ones have had a “cumulative” impact? It seems that West Midlands police are acting in the spirit of those proposed new rules to prevent a repeat of the violence that broke out in Amsterdam last year between Ajax and Maccabi supporters. It’s not a demonstration they are trying to ban, admittedly, but the possibility of public disorder in Birmingham in another form. You could argue that this is smart policing.
David Edwards Hulme
Stockport, Greater Manchester

Reports that a football match involving Maccabi Tel Aviv in Israel was called off by the police on Sunday strengthen West Midlands police’s argument for banning Maccabi fans because of the risk of hooliganism. This is quite apart from the arguments for boycotts and sanctions against an apartheid state (as defined by Amnesty International) until it fully democratises, as with South Africa a generation ago.
Miland Joshi
Birmingham

Keir Starmer and Ed Miliband have made a category error in opposing the ban on Maccabi Tel Aviv supporters. They are unwelcome not because they are Jews but because some of them have demonstrated that they are violent racists. It is not their safety that is a concern, but that of local residents. Are Israelis to be exempt from the normal rules of civilised behaviour because they are Jewish?
Sue Hawthorne
Haddington, East Lothian

Re Birmingham police’s ban on Maccabi Tel Aviv fans, there is immediately much discussion about whose propensity for violence is the trouble, whether police are reasonable, and so on. It all misses the point.

For context, I recall that many years ago in war-torn Sarajevo I attended the first postwar tie to occur anywhere in the former Yugoslavia between Yugoslav and Bosnian national teams. This was an occasion with the potential for real violence, a highly febrile atmosphere and unpredictability. Yet even greater than all of that was the local police’s determination to ensure a peaceful evening and avoid calamity. With that focus, they succeeded and made the night a symbol of potential for peace and normality. They did not fink out.

Don’t tell me police in a great British metropolis today are up against a greater challenge now than they faced. What is missing here is not resources but surely the requisite determination. Why is that?
Eric Jansson
Oxford