Sir David Bell, the "independent" antisemitism reviewer, was accused of Islamophobia in 2005. A pro-Israel charity has listed him on its council for ten years.

The reality of the man who wrote the government's antisemitism review for schools: Sir David Bell was accused of Islamophobia in 2005, and a pro-Israel charity has listed him on its council for at least ten years.

When the Department for Education appointed him in March, it said: "The reviewer is independent of Government and has no conflict of interest." It mentioned neither.

That matters, because his review decides how schools treat what pupils and teachers say about Israel. Its first recommendation is that every school and college in England should be encouraged to adopt the IHRA definition of antisemitism, and seven of that definition's eleven examples are about the State of Israel. We set out what that means for schools here.

What we found:

• In January 2005, as chief inspector of schools, Bell counted Jewish, Muslim and evangelical Christian schools in a speech, and read out a warning about Muslim schools alone. The chairman of the Association of Muslim Schools called it "a further example of Islamophobia".
• His own senior inspectors said he had presented a personal view of Muslim schools as inspection evidence.
• The Academic Study Group on Israel and the Middle East has listed him on its National Council since at least August 2016. Its home page says "The only issue on which ASG has firm policy is opposition to BDS".
• The charity gives talks on Israel in schools. Its director told the Jewish Chronicle the aim is to reach students "prior to them even getting to university".
• The charity has given grants to Fathom, the journal of the pro-Israel lobby group BICOM.
• The terms of reference declare Bell's job at Sunderland and his seat on the Skills England board. They do not mention the charity.
• During the review Bell was paid £20,000 a year by Skills England, a government agency, in a seat the Department for Education gave him. The terms of reference still called him "independent of Government".
• The department's £1.3m antisemitism training contract had one bidder, and requires all its content to use the IHRA definition "as a foundation". It was signed eight months before Bell was appointed.

What Bell said about Muslim schools in 2005

On 17 January 2005 Bell, then chief inspector of schools at Ofsted, gave a lecture on citizenship to the Hansard Society. He told the audience there were now around 300 independent faith schools, "including over 50 Jewish schools, around 100 Muslim schools and over 100 Evangelical Christian Schools". Then he read out a warning about one of them.

He closed the passage with this:

Jewish and Christian schools appear in the lecture as numbers. Muslim schools are the only ones he warned about, and the warning ends on the coherence of the nation. That week the TES reported him saying that problems existed in evangelical Christian and Jewish schools, but "not to the same extent".

Muslim leaders called it Islamophobia

The same afternoon the Guardian reported: "Ofsted head accused of Islamophobia over attack".

The next day the head of Islamia Girls' High School in Huddersfield told her local paper: "Mr Bell should resign. Before he gives a lecture like that he should understand Islam."

His own inspectors said he had not checked the facts

Eleven days after the lecture, the TES reported that Bell's senior colleagues had attacked him for issuing his warning about Muslim schools "without checking the facts". They said he had presented his personal view that private Muslim schools threatened social cohesion as inspection evidence. The senior Ofsted managers responsible for the areas his speech covered had not been consulted about it.

Ofsted said Schenk's article was his personal opinion and denied that Bell had misrepresented its inspectors.

Its next inspections did not bear Bell out. In May the TES reported that Ofsted had found Islamia Girls' High School, whose head had called for Bell to resign, particularly good at teaching pupils about other religions, British culture and public institutions. By August a TES investigation found that the first nine Islamic private schools inspected in 2005 all met the requirement to promote tolerance and harmony. Ofsted then said Bell's comments had been about Muslim schools that were not yet registered.

Bell picked out Muslim schools in a public lecture as chief inspector. The inspectors who visited those schools said he was speaking for himself.

The charity that lists him on its council

The Academic Study Group on Israel and the Middle East lists "Sir David Bell" on its National Council. In August 2016 it listed him under the University of Reading, where he was vice-chancellor. By May 2020 it had changed his entry to Sunderland University, where he moved in 2018. He was still listed when we checked at 3.54pm on 23 October 2026.

The charity shares a website, foi-asg.org, with the Friends of Israel Educational Foundation. One man runs both: its director, John Levy, who joined the Zionist Federation in 1970, according to his profile on the charity's own site.

The charity tells the Charity Commission that it "offers background briefings on Israel and the Middle East to Schools". The Jewish Chronicle reported on one of Levy's talks, to sixth formers at a Hackney academy, and said he is there to "nudge" opinion.

That is exactly what Bell was asked to judge. His terms of reference told him to examine "The role and influence of campaigning organisations and how their activities impact school and college decision making", and how schools make sure visiting speakers do not promote antisemitism. The man asked to weigh up outside organisations in schools was listed on the council of one whose director gives talks on Israel in schools.

In 2017, while Bell was on its council, the charity gave grants to Fathom, the journal published by BICOM, the Britain Israel Communications and Research Centre. BICOM is a pro-Israel lobby group.

In Fathom in 2021, Levy explained why the charity exists. Its founders were "alarmed by New Left academic hostility in the USA in the late 1970s" and set it up, "Fearful that US militancy would be replicated in the British University sector". Read his article.

What Bell says about it

Owen Jones of Zeteo asked Bell whether his place on the council was a conflict of interest. Bell replied:

Bell says his report was about antisemitism and not Israel. Here is what it says about Israel:

• Its first recommendation is that every school and college should be encouraged to adopt the IHRA definition, seven of whose eleven examples are about Israel.
• It says that a view held by 45% of British adults, that "Israel treats the Palestinians like the Nazis treated the Jews", could be regarded as antisemitic under that definition.
• It lists opposition to visiting speakers who "had links to Israel" among the problems schools face.
• The definition protects criticism of Israel "similar to that levelled against any other country". Where his review answers its critics, it writes "any other democratic country".

His name has been on the charity's council for at least ten years, under two universities. The charity updated it when he changed jobs, and it was still there the day after his answer was published. He does not say he ever asked for it to be taken down.

The government called him free of any conflict of interest, and said nothing about it.

His record on boycotts and IHRA

Bell sat on the board of Universities UK, the vice-chancellors' body, from August 2013 to July 2019, according to Companies House. In June 2015 that board said it was "firmly opposed to any academic boycott of Israeli universities".

The University of Sunderland adopted the IHRA definition in November 2020, with Bell as its vice-chancellor.

What he says now

In the Telegraph this morning, Bell answered the National Education Union's warning that the definition would stifle classroom discussion of Israel and Palestine:

Asked about teachers who wear pro-Palestine badges in class, he said: "[Teachers] just need to dial that back."

His review says a view held by 45% of British adults could be antisemitic, and that political identifiers "do not have a place in our schools". That is the chilling effect the union warned about.

UK Lawyers for Israel, whose website describes its work as "Supporting Israel with legal skills", welcomed the review. It says the review took up "major recommendations it made", among them wider adoption of IHRA and guidance on political symbols, flags and slogans in schools. Its complaint is that the review did not go further on teaching materials, including materials that call Israel's genocide in Gaza a genocide.

Follow the money

Then we followed the money around the review: who advised Bell, who will put his recommendations into practice, and who the government is paying to do it. Every line on this map is a link a public record shows, and each one opens its source.

What the records show:

• Bell was paid by a government agency during the review. The Department for Education made him vice-chair of Skills England, a government agency, in February 2025, on £20,000 a year. He held the seat until 27 August 2026, two months before the review was published. The terms of reference still called him "independent of Government".
• The department's £1.3m antisemitism training contract had one bidder. Palace Yard Events Ltd won £1,327,119 to run scholarships and a learning network for education staff from 2025 to 2028. The tender record says "Number of tenders received: 1". Palace Yard was set up in 2022 by the former Labour MP Natascha Engel, who owns at least 75% of it, and calls itself "a cross-party think tank".
• That contract wrote in IHRA before Bell was appointed. Clause 4.3 of the contract says all "training, resources and scholarship content" must be "balanced and impartial" and use "as a foundation" the IHRA working definition. It was signed on 26 June 2025, eight months before the department appointed Bell. His review then recommended IHRA.
• The advisers are now the implementers. Rabbi David Meyer of Partnerships for Jewish Schools and Mark Rusling of the Antisemitism Policy Trust sat on Bell's reference group. Both now sit on the implementation group that puts his recommendations into practice.
• The trust's former head of research runs the paid training. Palace Yard's antisemitism programme is led by Amy Wagner, formerly head of research at the Antisemitism Policy Trust, who was seconded in 2019 to the government's adviser on antisemitism. The trust itself gets an uncompeted government grant to run that adviser's office: £120,000 in 2024-25.
• Members of the implementation group are paid from the same budget. The Union of Jewish Students, whose vice president for campaigns sits on the group, holds a £998,691 contract to train universities. Its policies include "UJS to advocate for Israel within UK Policy and International Law". Someone Else's Eyes, whose assistant director sits on the group, was awarded £500,000 in July 2026.
• The Jewish Leadership Council paid for lectures on Israel. Its submission closes Bell's foreword. In 2014 and 2015 it gave £56,000 to the Friends of Israel Educational Foundation, the charity run by John Levy, who also runs the group that lists Bell on its council. That charity existed "to advance the education of the public in Britain about the country of Israel", and the 2014 grant was released "to cover the hiring of lecturers in the field".
• Two campaign groups say they got what they asked for. UK Lawyers for Israel says the review adopted "major recommendations it made". The Campaign Against Antisemitism, whose poll gives the review its 45% figure, says "Many of our recommendations have been adopted".

The government told the public this review was independent. Its author was being paid by a government agency, and the department had written IHRA into its training contract eight months before it appointed him. The bodies that advised him are now putting his recommendations into practice, and some of them are paid to do it.

Jewish children are being abused in English schools, and they deserve protection. The government handed that job to a man accused of Islamophobia, whose name a pro-Israel charity has carried for ten years and who was being paid by a government agency, and told the public he was independent with no conflict of interest. His review then told the government to encourage every school to adopt a definition whose examples are mostly about Israel, and the department is already paying for training built on it.

Sources: David Bell, Hansard Society and Ofsted lecture, 17 January 2005. The Guardian, 17 January 2005. Huddersfield Examiner, 18 January 2005. TES, 21 January, 28 January, 27 May and 12 August 2005. Department for Education, terms of reference, March 2026, and the review, CP 1691, 21 October 2026. Academic Study Group, National Council (archived 2016 and 2020), home page, John Levy profile, Charity Commission entry and 2017 accounts. Jewish Chronicle, 28 September 2018. Fathom, July 2021 and about. Owen Jones, Zeteo, 22 October 2026, and on X, 23 October 2026. Companies House, Sir David Robert Bell, appointments. Times Higher Education, 3 June 2015. University of Sunderland, IHRA statement. The Telegraph, 23 October 2026. UK Lawyers for Israel, 22 October 2026. Find a Tender, notice 038538-2025, and the Palace Yard contract. Contracts Finder, Palace Yard, Union of Jewish Students and innovation fund awards. Companies House, Palace Yard Events Ltd. Palace Yard, our team. Department for Education, non-executive appointments, reference group and press release, 21 October 2026. Skills England, 27 August 2026. 360Giving, Antisemitism Policy Trust grant. Union of Jewish Students, Israel engagement. Friends of Israel Educational Foundation, accounts for 2014 and 2015. Campaign Against Antisemitism, 21 October 2026. All times are UK time.