How UK antisemitism report could worsen the very problem it warns against
Gary Spedding writes in Middle East Eye on 28 October 2026 :
Last week, Education Secretary Lucy Powell accepted Sir David Bell’s review into antisemitism in British schools and colleges.
While billed as “independent”, this does not appear to be a neutral examination of prejudice against Jewish pupils. Rather, it is a document shaped by what appears to be undeclared ties between UK and Israeli educational and advocacy networks; an undue emphasis on Palestine solidarity as intimidatory and problematic; and a near-exclusive reliance on the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA)’s working definition of antisemitism. The definition’s appended examples disproportionately target and chill speech about Israel.
The review found that almost three in five Jewish students between the ages of 16 and 19 reported that they had experienced or witnessed antisemitism, rising from about one in five overall. This is an alarming statistic.
Yet the study itself notes that the claim rests on a “low sample size of 92 students who identify as Jewish” within a survey of more than 5,000 people. The data simply does not justify the findings.
By treating antisemitism as a form of racism requiring politicised safeguarding and wider adoption of the IHRA definition, the review risks weaponising antisemitism against Palestine solidarity in education. Further, by addressing antisemitism in isolation from broader conversations about racism, and by restricting support for Palestine, Britain risks alienating students and worsening antisemitism in our schools.
Bell’s appointment as an “independent” reviewer sits uneasily with his background. He previously served as permanent secretary at the Department for Education and chief inspector of schools in England.
He is listed as having sat on the National Council of the Academic Study Group on Israel and the Middle East, whose mission is to “initiate or expand active links and research collaboration between academics, specialists and centres-of-excellence in the UK and their counterparts in Israel”. Its director, John Levy, has longstanding ties to the Friends of Israel Educational Foundation and Academic Friends of Israel.
These connections should have prompted the Department for Education to question Bell’s impartiality – yet none of this appears to have been formally declared as a conflict of interest. It is also notable that, in 2005, Bell was accused of Islamophobia while head of Ofsted, after he said that Muslim schools risked undermining social cohesion.