Arsenal Employee Sacked After Criticising Israel Calls for Review of His Case

A former kit manager for Arsenal who was fired after publishing social media posts criticising Israel has called for an independent review of his treatment.

Mark Bonnick, 62, who worked at the club for 22 years before his sacking on Christmas Eve 2024, is suing the club for unfair dismissal and discrimination.

Arsenal suspended Bonnick, then dismissed him, in December 2024 following media coverage of exchanges he had with pro-Israel X users, one of whom accused him of being a “neo-Nazi antisemite”.

“I get a phone call from the operations manager telling me I’m suspended, and I’m sure he says I’m suspended for antisemitism,” Bonnick told the leftwing media outlet Raw Politik. 

Arsenal has denied that it suspended Bonnick for antisemitism, instead claiming it was because he brought the club “into disrepute”. 

Bonnick maintains that the club discriminated against him due to his anti-Zionist beliefs. “Israel is an apartheid state,” he told Novara Media last year. “I was sacked not for misconduct, but for expressing grief and outrage over genocide.” 

In the recent interview with Raw Politik, Bonnick said Arsenal’s leadership should “revisit the case” and “ask for an independent review”.

Among the posts Bonnick published ahead of his dismissal was one that said: “Hamas offered to release all hostages in October. Zionist Israel refused. Persecution complex.”

Another said: “It is all about Jewish supremacy & not wanting to share the land Ethnic cleansing.”

Another read: “Why should they be protected anymore than any other community? Some see this as the problem Jewish communities thinking they should be put before others.”

Israel has killed, at a conservative estimate, 72,000 people in Gaza since October 2023, including almost 600 since a so-called ceasefire began in October last year.

The European Legal Support Centre, which assists people being targeted over their support for Palestine, is helping Bonner with his case, which is expected to go to mediation in June.

“As Palestinian athletes are killed and stadiums destroyed, Arsenal punishes staff for opposing apartheid. You can’t claim neutrality while silencing dissent,” Tasnima Uddin, an advocacy officer for the centre, told Novara Media last year.