The UK government’s review of antisemitism in schools has come under fire from critics who note that its author has relied on flawed evidence, ideological bias and a controversial definition that conflates antisemitism with criticism of Israel.
The British Education Secretary Lucy Powell has decided to adopt all 27 recommendations contained in Sir David Bell's review of alleged antisemitism in schools that was commissioned by her predecessor Bridget Philipson.
Both Powell and Philipson are members of Labour Friends of Israel.
The contents of Sir David's review are summarized herein:
This month, the government accepted all 27 recommendations of Sir David Bell's review of antisemitism in England's schools and colleges. The Education Secretary Lucy Powell called it a generational moment. But on page 30, the review tells a different story.
Anti-Jewish attitudes, it says, are typically less prevalent and have remained more stable, whereas anti-Israel sentiments are more prevalent and have been increasing. Its main example is a YouGov poll.
In 2025, 45% of British adults agreed that Israel treats the Palestinians like the Nazis treated the Jews.
The review says beliefs like that could be regarded as antisemitic under the IHRA definition, the definition it recommends schools adopt.
The poll's published tables show it was commissioned by the Campaign Against Antisemitism. They put that figure at 33% in August 2024, so it rose 12 points in the year of a war in Gaza.
Answers about Jews themselves barely moved. The review does cite other evidence, including a study that found both kinds of attitudes have grown since 2020. And the chart on the next page is labeled 2025, but credited a report from 2017.
The definition was settled early. In March, the terms of reference said the review would use IHRA (International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance). The call for evidence opened at the end of April.
The headline finding was that almost 3 in 5 young Jewish people had experienced or witnessed antisemitism.
The review warns its survey is not representative; its evidence annex shows 70 Jewish respondents answered the question.
29 said they had experienced it themselves. In the call for evidence, nearly 9 in 10 respondents said they were confident they could tell antisemitism apart from criticism of Israel.
That answer is missing from the review's narrative; 158 responses used a template criticizing the review. It quotes none of them. When it does answer critics, the review misquotes the definition.
The IHRA text protects criticism of Israel similar to that leveled against any other country. The review's version says any other democratic country.
The National Education Union's General Secretary, Daniel Kebede, says IHRA's contested framing risks blurring the line between antisemitism and legitimate criticism of the Israeli government and the genocide in Gaza.
The terms of reference say the reviewer has no conflict of interests; they do not mention that a charity, the Academic Study Group on Israel and the Middle East, lists Sir David on its National Council. Its only firm policy, it says, is opposing BDS, the boycott campaign.
The review has now been accepted in full. In a year, Sir David Bell will assess how well his own recommendations are being implemented.
This article is based on an episode of the Press TV show, Palestine Declassified, hosted by former British Labour MP, Chris Williamson, featuring Broadcast Journalist Basil Valentine; and, Academic David Miller.
Taking into account the summary of Sir David's review, what was written on page 30 suggests he was “speaking with forked tongue”.
According to David Miller “what was on page 30 was the indication that he accepted that there was no increase in antisemitism in the country that it was at a low level, as everyone knows, how low is an open question, and that the only thing which had changed in the past few years was a huge increase in anti-Israel sentiment.”
“So it kind of undermined the whole thrust of his report. His report was set up to endorse a Zionist interpretation of what antisemitism is, to abide by the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance working definition of antisemitism.”
“And then on page 30, he more or less blew the gaff and said, actually, there's nothing to see here. There is no antisemitism. There's no rising antisemitism. There's no indication that it is rising as a result of the genocide in Gaza, because most people understand the difference between hating Jews as Jews and despising the genocide in Gaza.”
“But, of course, that was not the full story. I mean, that's a great gotcha for saying the report is a joke, which, of course, it is, but the other element of it that we have to understand is that because he'd been asked to use the IHRA and because he himself is a Zionist, he had used the evidence of an upsurge in anti-Israel sentiment as evidence of an increase in antisemitism, which kind of contradicted what he said on page 30.”
“ So because the IHRA has one of the examples which may in certain circumstances, depending on the context, be thought to be antisemitic, i.e. the idea of comparing the Zionists with the Nazis, he said that because that's increased because of the genocide, that's an indication of the increase in antisemitism.”
“So the report is, first of all, ideologically loaded, biased from the beginning and, of course, also intellectually shoddy and incoherent.”
“And that's what you get from just reading the report.”
Chris Williamson views this as “the new antisemitism that is beloved of the likes of the Community Security Trust and the rest of the Zionist lobby, who exaggerate the level of antisemitism, of course, the reality is that real antisemitism is all but non-existent.”
David Miller states “I don't believe there is any such thing as antisemitism really anymore. I mean, conceived of as a form of racism, for it to be racism, there has to be some kind of institutional or embedded kind of discrimination against the Jews. It simply doesn't exist.”
“Now, you might have people who say things which would be traditionally regarded as being antisemitic, if they condemn someone for being a Jew, for example, but there's hardly any of that. Almost all of it comes from the far right where it does exist.”
“And, of course, most of the sentiment which is out there is against the genocide so the whole thing is nonsense.”
“Of course, there are organizations like the CST who push this nonsense onto the government, who are themselves funded by the government.”
“But it's been a generation's long process. The Zionists started to use this term back in the 1970s.”
“And the most famous example, of course, at the start of this is Abba Eban, the former foreign minister in 1973, making a speech in the US where he talked about the new antisemitism, where he meant, of course, not traditional far right antisemitism, i.e. actual antisemitism, but a new form of antisemitism which he identified with the new left and, of course, with the Muslims, the Arabs and the Palestinians.”
“So, of course, it's been an attempt that's been a long time in the works and it's now coming to fruition and beginning to reach its apotheosis.”
Chris Williamson contends that in his research, David Miller “identified the fact empirically that the Jewish people are not discriminated against in the UK and in fact, statistically speaking, are actually doing quite well.”
“And as far as the bigotry … is concerned, it tends to be on the far right. And yet we saw, didn't we, how the likes of Luciana Berger joined the heights of the antisemitism scam in the Labour Party, where she claimed that she'd been subjected to antisemitic abuse and implied that it was from Labour Party members. But it turns out it was from far right individuals didn’t it?”
David Miller affirms that “that's what they want to do. They want to suggest that there's a real problem and that all the state's resources should go to it.”
“So, of course, more state resources go to a non-existent problem of racism against the Jews and hardly any resources, by comparison, go to the actual main problem of racism in the country, which is against Muslims. And that's just the way in which these things operate.”
“That is an indication of the penetration and infiltration of Jewish supremacist ideas into government, not just amongst Zionists and those people who are Gentile Zionists who side up to the cause, but amongst the kind of the ruling assumptions of how policy is made such that it's very, very difficult in any public institution to stand out against that.”
Chris Williamson assesses that “this is yet another example of that, but, the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance working definition of antisemitism has been largely discredited, yet it's still being pushed by politicians like Lucy Powell.”
“Some critics have said her adoption of the Bell Review is about brainwashing youngsters to whitewash Israel's crimes against humanity.”
Basil Valentine is adamant that “after three years of genocide, the IHRA definition is completely discredited.”
“And most importantly, schools should be teaching about what's happening in the real world and not avoiding challenging subjects because of a biased definition.”
“ Schools should be looking objectively, for example, at the UN Commission, which just on Monday of this week issued a report stating that the Israeli authorities are still committing genocidal acts with the intent to destroy, in whole or in part, the Palestinians in Gaza, and that the situation had also continued to deteriorate in the West Bank, where, of course, this week we've seen British lawmakers refused entry by the occupation authorities because they don't want our MPs to see the ethnic cleansing that's going on in the West Bank.”
“One of the so-called examples of antisemitism in the IHRA definition is singling out Israel for criticism. But if, as the UN says it is, Israel is committing genocidal acts, then of course it has to be singled out.”
“And that means dumping this definition, which is really just an obstacle to a mature understanding of the situation.”
Chris Williamson points out that Basil Valentine “mentioned MPs and trying to shield them from the reality, but they must be aware of the reality, though, surely, who couldn't be aware of the reality of the Zionist atrocities being perpetrated against the Palestinians, certainly over last three years or so? But of course, this goes back nearly 80 years, maybe even longer than that, actually.”
Basil Valentine clarifies that “whether it's massacring journalists en masse in Gaza or refusing entry to elected officials to the West Bank, Israel likes to carry out its crimes in the dark.”
“ It doesn't want, never has wanted, people to know the details of what's going on because any normal human being visiting the West Bank, let alone Gaza, where, of course, no international journalists are still allowed in after three years of genocide, any fair minded individual is absolutely aghast.”
“And that should translate into much, much stronger sanctions against Israel for what's happening, but because people don't see it, it stays buried in the national consciousness, unfortunately.”
Why does it matters who commissioned the YouGov poll that was cited in the in the Bell Review?
David Miller expounds that “when you start to pick this report apart, you find that there are all sorts of undeclared biases in there, undeclared conflicts of interest.”
“And one of those, of course, is the fact that you can't quote results from an opinion poll carried out by the Campaign Against Anti-Semitism as if they are simply social scientific opinion polling data. They are, of course, highly ideological.”
“And, you know, the reason that the CAA (Campaign Against Anti-Semitism) produces such reports is to make sure that Jewish supremacist ideas are not challenged anywhere, and anyone who is critical of Jewish supremacism is disciplined or marginalized or stopped from standing for election or taken away from their jobs, etc. So this is part of the process of looking beneath this report.”
“And when you look at the use of data like the CAA and many other examples in the report, you see that this report is very, very intellectually shoddy, despite it being written by someone who is a very, very senior academic; he is the head of Sunderland University, he used to be the head of Ofsted.”
“He used to be the permanent secretary of the Department for Education, a very, very senior set of jobs he's had. And yet he seems not to be able to knit together more than two paragraphs without committing errors.”
The way in which people get cancelled even referring to Jewish supremacism, including people on the left who ought to know better, is rather striking.
“That's right. I mean, it still retains something of a sort of a “scare feeling” about it. And when you start to talk about Jewish supremacy and Jewish supremacism as an ideology, people say, well, you've got to remember, you've got to separate Jewish ideas and religion from the Zionist movement.”
“Of course, the Zionist movement and Jewish supremacy are not the same thing, but the Zionist movement is a Jewish supremacist movement.”
“Of course, there are other forms of Jewish supremacy, as I've been regularly saying, including, of course, anti-Zionist Jewish supremacism associated with those theological anti-Zionists who don't believe that humans should have the role of creating the state of Israel because only God can create the state of Israel.”
“Both of them believe the Jews have a special right to the land of Eretz Israel, the land of Israel, and are both Jewish supremacists.”
“And that's why I think it's important that we are precise in our terminology and clear that there is more going on here than just the question of Zionism. And indeed, that there's more going on here because, of course, some of Zionism's themes pool markedly and are erected upon Jewish religious ideas.”
Chris Williamson: “And even the so-called two-state solution, beloved of many of the liberal left, if I can put it like that, is accepting, isn't it, the continuation of a Jewish supremacist state, albeit, you know, maybe somewhat smaller than the current state of affairs. But, I mean, that surely should be unconscionable, shouldn't it?”
David Miller is of the opinion that “we're moving, aren't we? Two years ago, saying Jewish supremacism was really very rare. Three or four years ago, the idea of the one state was quite controversial. It's much less controversial now.”
“There are still some who cling on to it, of course.”
“What we've seen is a number of moments of clarity over the last three years or so, where it's been discovered by many of us, including me, that people who we thought were pro-Palestine, in inverted commas, actually ended up being liberal Zionists and believing in the right of a Jewish state to exist, even in the context of a two-state solution, which, of course, would be a Jewish supremacist state.”
“There's no room for a Jewish supremacist state. It's anathema to all human rights legislation and, indeed, to where the world is at present.”
“So it's time that we dispense with all that and forget talking about a two-state solution.”
“One, the Zionists would never let it happen; and two, it would remain, it would leave in place a Jewish supremacist state in the Levant, which must not be the case. It must be dismantled and destroyed.”
Lucy Powell seems determined to constrain teachers' ability to talk about Gaza with their pupils; will she succeed?
Basil Valentine says he sincerely hopes not “because the Gaza Holocaust is, of course, far and away the most grotesque crime against humanity of our time. “
“Corporate media has and indeed continues to downplay coverage of the Holocaust.”
“For example, there's been scant coverage in the media over the last couple of weeks of the starvation policy, which has led to increased famine in Gaza. People (are) starving there right now, but you wouldn't know it if you watched legacy media.”
“Schools should be places where that silence is broken and pupils are properly informed about what's going on in the world, not places where existing propaganda norms are reinforced.”
Sir David Bell's review misquotes the IHRA definition, which states that the criticism of Israel, similar to that leveled against any other country, can't be regarded as anti-Semitic.
But Bell's review refers to any other democratic country. Is the insertion of the word democratic significant?
David Miller is certain that “it’s obviously a mistake. They've mistakenly done it. The word has been transferred from another part of the examples of the working definition.”
“But it's an indication, one, of the shoddiness, the intellectual shoddiness of this report, and two, of the ideological loading of this report, because what that word does is it hardens the example.”
“So it's not just that you can't compare Zionists to any other state, you can't compare it to any other democratic state. If you don't compare it to any other democratic state, you're committing some kind of anti-Semitic crime.”
“And that actually hardens, and it's actually worse than the Zionists who penned the definition in the first place, and the working examples that go along with it, which, of course, were Zionists who were working closely, as we all now know, with the Mossad back in the 80s and 90s, as this process got off to a start.”
It’s a misnomer to call Israel a democracy
David Miller: “Well, of course, it's not a democracy, and it's plainly ridiculous to call it a democracy. But nevertheless, they continue to do that. They refer to the occupation forces as the most moral army.”
“They refer to the nonsense about the beheaded babies and the rapes and the Hamas massacres and all this nonsense, which everybody knows, who pays any attention, is willing to pay any attention to the facts, is complete rubbish.”
“It was made up by the Zionists themselves, but they won't resile from that.”
“I think that's very interesting, really, to see that, because I saw a clip with Moshe Feiglin, one of the furthest right of the Zionist politicians, who was asked about such questions. And he said something quite revealing, which explains why it is that they keep saying the lies. He said, well, you know, this is our land and you should be apologizing to us for your disgraceful criticisms of the legitimate rights.”
“And that's how they see it; they are above us, they are superior to non-Jews, to Gentiles, to the goy, as they call them, and we have no right to question them. And indeed, if we question them too much, then we will be damaged and subverted and possibly killed.”
“That's actually their view.”
Chris Williamson: “That encapsulates really, you know, why Zionism has to be dismantled and why the Zionist entity has to be replaced with a unitary state.”
“As was highlighted in our report, in the review's call for evidence, nearly nine in 10 respondents said they were confident that they could tell the difference between anti-Semitism and criticism of Israel. Does that match your experience, Basil?”
Basil Valentine: “Well, yes, any rational person should be able to tell the difference between anti-Semitism and criticism of Israel.”
“But the report itself works from, according to the IHRA definition, which it's so fond of, the fundamentally anti-Semitic position that all Jewish people in Israel support the state of Israel and its atrocities, which, of course, they don't. I mean, throughout, criticism of Israel is sort of substituted for anti-Semitism willy-nilly.”
“But in reality, just this week, for example, the Greens for Palestine held a joint Jewish-Palestinian press conference where the former IOF soldier turned anti-Zionist Jewish activist, Haim Bresheeth-Žabner, was absolutely coruscating in his critique of Israel and Zionism.”
“But the growing number of anti-Zionist Jewish people are simply disregarded, ignored completely. They don't exist as far as the media, government and things like this report are concerned, which is, if you like, an instance of anti-Semitism.”
“That's the irony.”
Chris Williamson: “David, would you say the conclusion of the review was settled before the evidence even came in, that they knew what the conclusion was beforehand and then looked for evidence to try and buttress what they were saying?”
David Miller: “Well, yes, in several senses. So, first of all, of course, as we said, the reviewer was required to work within the confines of the IHRA, which is a Zionist definition, and that, of course, skewed the findings.”
“But the reviewer, of course, himself, as has been shown by many people, and of course, as we know, has been for a long time, over 10 years and still remains part of this organization called the Academic Study Group, which is an anti-BDS Zionist academic body dedicated to making sure that people don't tell the truth about Palestine.”
“So he comes to it with a resume which would give anyone who was serious about conflict of interests pause for thought. And of course, he puts a statement in there saying there are no conflicts of interest.”
“That's what we call in sociology, using the technical term, a lie. It's a lie that there are no conflicts of interest. And so, of course, that's how it works.”
So it's intellectually shoddy, it's ideologically loaded, and when you pick it apart, it just falls between your fingers. The words cease to mean much.”
“And it's an indication, really, of how ideologically and practically bankrupt the government and its advisors are, that they can't even come up with a report which makes a reasonable case for the kinds of arguments they want to make.”
Chris Williamson: “Earlier this year, the government updated its guidance in what's called the Magenta Book, which stipulated that evaluation of government policies should be carried out by independent panels. But Sir David Bell's recommendations aren't going to be subjected to any independent scrutiny at all.”
“And a year from now, he's going to be evaluating his own recommendations, which is like marking his own homework. I mean, to me that looks like procedural impropriety.”
Basil Valentine: “Well, we shouldn't be surprised about this kind of impropriety, given the government's track record. I mean, the whole report might as well have been authored in Tel Aviv. It's a classic case of rush to judgment and policy thereafter introduced on the back of particularly flimsy data.”
“David referenced Sir David Bell's Zionist associations, including a pro-Israel charity, which listed him on its board for 10 years. And back in January 2005, when he was chief inspector of schools, he did an evaluation of Jewish, Muslim and evangelical Christian schools, and in a speech read out a warning only about Muslim schools undermining the coherence of our society.”
“Meanwhile, Bridget Philipson, who originally commissioned the report, she, of course, has been heavily funded by Stuart Roden, a lobbyist with links to Israeli intelligence who's had regular private meetings with the former Israeli ambassador, Tzipi Hotovely. So bearing all that in mind, it isn't surprising that Bell will be marking his own homework.”
The procedure is completely irregular, to say the least, and indeed potentially judicially reviewable, but obviously, time will tell on that point.
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