It was “shocking,” said government leaders throughout the western world. On Nov. 6 and 7 there was a “modern day pogrom” in the Netherlands, according to the Anti-Defamation League. “Jews on the streets of Amsterdam were hunted, chased, attacked and forced to hide from an antisemitic mob whose goal was to harm as many Jews as possible,” said the group.
At issue were attacks on Israeli fans of the Maccabi Tel Aviv soccer team, who had come from Israel to the Netherlands to watch their team play against the Dutch team Ajaz.
The reality is that the assaulters were the Israelis, and the victims were the residents of Amsterdam. For 36 hours visiting Maccabi Tel Aviv fans went on a violent and racist rampage in that city, insulting and assaulting Dutch people wearing kufiyahs or people they thought were Arab, breaking windows and trying to break into apartments, tearing down Palestinian flags displayed on private homes and threatening to come back and kill the people who lived there, and chanting “Death to Arabs!” and “Why is school out in Gaza? There are no children left there!”
Those being called “antisemitic” are the Amsterdammers who took it on themselves to stop the racist riot and defend their communities after the police made no attempt to rein in the Maccabi marauders. Some 600 Amsterdam cops rushed around trying to protect the Maccabi thugs and arresting Dutch people who were protesting the Maccabi Tel Aviv fan riot, or defending their community and themselves from them.
Dutch and major Western politicians lie, lie, lie
In a giant act of gaslighting, Dutch Prime Minister Dick Schoof called the self-defense put up by Amsterdam residents “terrible” and “horrific” antisemitic attacks, as did the Mayor of Amsterdam and the king of the Netherlands. Schoof heads the Netherlands government in coalition with the far right Islamophobic and anti-immigrant PVV Party, whose leader has called for a ban on Islamic schools, Qurans and mosques.
EU commissioner Ursula Von Der Leyen was equally outraged, reminding all that “antisemitism has absolutely no place in Europe.” Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau found it “horrifying.”
Not to be outdone Joe Biden condemned acts he claimed were “despicable and echo dark moments in history when Jews were persecuted.” U.S. Congressmembers including New York Senator Chuck Schumer, denounced a “pogram.”
The situation was so dangerous, we were told, that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had to send planes to pick up the soccer fans and bring them back to Israel where they would be safe.
Media ignores ‘Death to Arabs’ chants
The western establishment media ignored the chants of genocidal intent aimed at Amsterdam residents by the rioting Israeli fans that were captured on scores of videos, and instead delivered the politicians’ line word-for-word to millions of people.
ABC news said “antisemitic attacks” were “fueled by social media calls to attacks Jews.” The New York Times proclaimed: “Antisemitic Attacks Prompt Emergency Flights for Israeli Soccer Fans.” The Wall Street Journal exclaimed: “Israeli Soccer Fans Attacked by Mob,” and Fox News claimed: “Jews ambushed amid modern-day “pogrom.”
The truth was that “The [Dutch] protest has nothing to do with antisemitism, Amsterdam resident Alexander Van Stokkum said. It was against Israeli hooligans destroying the city.
Amsterdam center of support for Palestine
Some 750,000 people live in Amsterdam. About 1 % are Jewish, and 13-15% Muslim, mostly first and second generation immigrants from North Africa and the Middle East.
Strong support for Palestinian self-determination and against Israel’s genocide exists in Amsterdam communities. For example, the city administration said it authorized 2,500 pro-Palestine protests this year
Dutch pro-Palestinian groups tried to get the soccer match cancelled because Israel was committing genocide in Gaza. Additionally, it was likely that many of the Maccabi Tel Aviv fans were former or even current Israeli soldiers perpetrating the genocide. But the city administration refused to cancel the game. Activists then planned a protest outside the stadium in support of Palestine and against the presence of the Israeli soccer team, but Amsterdam mayor Femke Halsema stopped it, prohibiting all pro-Palestinian actions near the stadium.
By Nov. 6 as many as 3,000 Maccabi Tel Aviv soccer fans had arrived in Amsterdam from Israel for the Nov. 7 Europa League soccer match. They were to be accompanied by Mossad, the Israeli intelligence agency, according to the Jerusalem Post. They proceeded to rampage through the city for two days.
Video footage posted on social media shows them tearing down Palestinian flags displayed on private homes and shouting “F__k you Palestine.” Other chants that Amsterdam residents heard from the Macabi fans included “Let the IDF win and f__k the Arabs!”, “Why is school out in Gaza? There are no children left there!” and “Death to Arabs!”
They threatened passerbys wearing kufiyahs, or bearing other symbols of support for Palestine, with jeers, giving them the middle finger, spitting at them, and throwing beer at them. They physically attacked people they thought were Arab and spat at women in hijab. They vandalized a taxi and assault its driver.
In one such incident on Nov. 6. dozens of these thugs gathered in front of Villa Mokum, a squatter building where several Palestinian flags were displayed. Videos showed them throwing stones at the windows, climbing the building and ripping the flags off.
“They kicked our doors and tried to enter our house,” a resident told the Amsterdam newspaper Het Parool. “They raised their middle finger and made decapitation gestures, saying [in English], ‘We’re going to kill you and we will come back.'” Video footage showed a police car passing, not stopping.
Amsterdam resident Mo Kotesh told Al Jazeera that locals tried to counter the violence started against them and their properties by the Israeli fans. The police tried to stop this response by Amsterdammers, and ordered people wearing pro-Palestinian symbols or chanting slogans like “Free Palestine!” to leave areas where the thugs assembled.
The Maccabi Tel Aviv fans rioted all the next day and night. During the soccer game on the evening of Nov. 7, they even interrupted with whistles a minute of silence for Valencia flood victims, as Spain’s Prime Minister has urged countries to stop arming Israel.
The Dutch news site Bender published video of a large group of Maccabi supporters arming themselves with sticks, pipes and rocks after the game (which their team lost 5-0), heading towards the city center clearly looking for trouble.
The people act after the police did not
Amsterdam residents grew understandably angry at these racist marauders celebrating genocide and accosting Dutch people in their hometown.
After one of their own was beaten and his cab vandalized, and after the police did nothing, a group of angry Amsterdam cab drivers, who are mostly from the immigrant community, organized a confrontation Wednesday night to let the marauders know they couldn’t do that again. Their online call for taxi drivers to go where the Israeli racists were gathering and threatening people was labeled a “call for a Jew hunt” by mainstream politicians and media.
When facing opposition, many of the Israeli racists ran away. A Maccabi Tel Aviv supporter was chased into the canal and forced to yell “Free Palestine.” Many hid in a casino. Police say they intervened in the streets several times to protect the Maccabi fans and escorted those hiding in the casino back to the safety of their hotel.
‘Police protected the Maccabi hooligans’
After two days of racist riots, it not surprising that Amsterdammers came out to confront the Maccabi Tel Aviv fans the night of Nov. 7. Many were youth of Moroccan descent. Those who confronted the thugs when the police wouldn’t have been labeled “anti-Semitic hit squads.” Once again, the police intervened to escort the racists to safety of their hotel, arresting anti-racists. Footage of Israeli fans being escorted to the metro by police after the match showed them singing anti-Arab songs.
Police said they arrested 62 people and five were taken to the hospital with light injuries and quickly released, showing there were no serious injuries.
Amsterdam City Council member Jazie Veldhuyzen offered a further clarification of police behavior to Al Jazeera. The police, he said, “acted only to protect the Maccabi hooligans when Amsterdammers stood up to defend their own people and defend their own houses. And this is when the police showed up to protect the Maccabi fans when they ran away after attacking people.”
Not anti-Jewish, but against ‘hooligans destroying our city’
As for the charge of indiscriminate attacks on Jewish people, even the Dutch police admit that those confronting the Maccabi Tel Aviv racists made a distinction between Jewish residents of Amsterdam and visiting fans, and that there were no attacks on Jewish residents of the city, and no sign of attacks on Jewish synagogues. This was backed up by the Jewish Daily Forward, a Zionist paper, which noted that the violence targeted only the Israeli fans.
Erev Rav, a Amsterdam-based anti-Zionist Jewish group, issued a statement strongly condemning the police handling of events. “We are deeply concerned that instead of restraining the group who caused disturbances… the police allowed the situation to escalate into widespread street violence. It is troubling that arrests were selective, primarily targeting local Moroccan youth who confronted these groups, while Maccabi fans who initiated the provocations faced no consequences.
Global Jews for Palestine, a coalition of Jewish groups in 18 countries, condemned the Israel attacks as “unequivocally anti-Arab, and anti-Palestinian racism in living color.” The group also condemned “the manipulation of the facts …. That supporters of Israel and much of the media turned the narrative into one of pure antisemitism, calling it a pogram, makes a mockery of those terms.”
Since the beginning of the U.S.-Israeli genocide in Gaza the Western political establishment and its media have justified Israeli military actions there by placing an equal sign between support for Palestinian rights and antisemitism. Now we see this falsehood providing a cover for Israeli arch racist to run amok in other people’s countries.
Defending rampaging Israeli racists causes government crisis
As of this writing, this has caused a crisis in the Dutch government, which may collapse after Geevt Wilders of the PVV party called for the revoking of Dutch citizenship and the deportation of those involved in the defense against the Israeli fans. The PVV holds the most seats in the Dutch Parliament.
Amsterdam’s City Council, in contrast, sought to settle a very angry city with a motion passed by a vote of 35 of the 45 Council members calling for immediate action to address the “real and imminent” risk of genocide in Gaza.
Amsterdam population remains defiant
Meanwhile Amsterdam residents remain furious. They are taking to the streets every day in defiance of a demonstration ban, and are withstanding mass arrests and police storming the crowds to take their Palestinian flags and beating them. Their message is clear: “Free Palestine” and “We want our streets back!”
