[News] No, there were no ‘antisemitic pogroms’ in Amsterdam. Here’s what really happened.
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Sun Nov 10 11:36:57 EST 2024
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No, there were no ‘antisemitic pogroms’ in Amsterdam. Here’s what really
happened.
Sana Saeed
November 9, 2024
------------------------------
[image: Screenshot-2024-11-09-at-4.53.23 PM.png]
*“**Olé, olé!* <https://x.com/ireallyhateyou/status/1854986326355198248>
*Olé, olé, olé!*
*Let the IDF win and fuck the Arabs!*
*Olé, olé!*
*Olé, olé, olé!*
*Why is school out in Gaza? There are no children left there!”*
On the night of November 7th, there was an anti-Jewish pogrom in Amsterdam
as young Dutch Moroccans on scooters descended onto the streets to assault
Israeli Jewish football fans.
At least, that’s the story being told in Western newsrooms and by American
and European leaders <https://x.com/receipts_lol/status/1855132262855057533>
as the Israeli extermination of Gaza – especially the north
<https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2024/11/8/what-is-the-israeli-army-doing-in-gazas-north>
– continues unencumbered
<https://apnews.com/article/mideast-gaza-north-hunger-437b401b0ade2d934f00f88d027d467c>
.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called it a “horrific antisemitic
incident.”
President Joe Biden released a statement on X
<https://x.com/potus/status/1854953886328799588?s=46> saying “the
Antisemitic attacks on Israeli soccer fans in Amsterdam are despicable and
echo dark moments in history when Jews were persecuted.” He ended by
reiterating “We must relentlessly fight Antisemitism, wherever it emerges.”
Dutch Prime Minister Dick Schoof promised that “the perpetrators will be
tracked down and prosecuted.”
EU commissioner Ursula Von Der Leyen gave
<https://x.com/vonderleyen/status/1854823001302208741> the reminder that
“antisemitism has absolutely no place in Europe.”
Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau stated
<https://x.com/JustinTrudeau/status/1854892679831720330> “the news out of
Amsterdam last night is horrifying. This is a dark moment for our world —
and one we have seen before.”
The Anti-Defamation League called
<https://www.adl.org/resources/press-release/adl-statement-regarding-modern-day-pogrom-amsterdam>
it a “modern day pogrom”, its CEO Jonathan Greenblatt drawing comparisons to
Kristallnacht,
<https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/features/holocaust-kristallnacht/>
saying that “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.”
Headlines across U.S. news coverage, especially, signaled similar
alarm: “Violent
Attacks in Amsterdam Tied to Antisemitism
<https://x.com/SanaSaeed/status/1854790886414012486>”, “‘Scooter Youths,’
Not Soccer Fans, Hunt Jews in Amsterdam
<https://www.wsj.com/opinion/scooter-youths-hunt-jews-in-amsterdam-jews-europe-antisemitism-ad2603e3>”,
“Israeli soccer fans suffer ‘anti-Semitic attacks’ in violent Amsterdam
incident: Officials
<https://abcnews.go.com/International/israeli-soccer-fans-involved-violent-incident-amsterdam-officials/story?id=115632359>”,
“Amsterdam bans protests after ‘antisemitic squads’ attack Israeli soccer
fans
<https://www.reuters.com/world/israels-pm-aware-very-violent-incident-against-israelis-amsterdam-his-office-2024-11-08/>”,
“Israeli Soccer Fans Targeted in ‘Antisemitic’ Attacks In Amsterdam
<https://www.newsweek.com/israeli-soccer-fans-targeted-antisemitic-attacks-1982584>
”.
But that’s not what happened.
On November 5th, hundreds of Maccabi Tel Aviv fans – reportedly accompanied
by Mossad agents <https://www.jpost.com/israel-news/sports/article-827683>
– had flown into the city for a game against Ajax FC. It was reported, in
the preceding days, that pro-Palestinian groups were planning a large
protest outside the stadium against the presence of the Israeli football
team. In the two days before the game, there were many reported incidents
of violence and intimidation from the Israeli fans – including
<https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2024/11/8/israeli-football-fans-clash-with-protesters-in-amsterdam>
anti-Arab chants, attacking taxi drivers, ripping down Palestinian flags
and attacking homes with any Palestinian imagery.
Emerging video evidence <https://x.com/SanaSaeed/status/1854797428139966552>
and testimonies from Amsterdam residents (here
<https://x.com/HarrietmBergman/status/1854858919585157276>, here
<https://x.com/ingridkerr/status/1854785822991462709> and here
<https://x.com/SanaSaeed/status/1854972558237462945> for instance) indicate
that the initial violence came
<https://x.com/YounessOuaali/status/1855021528615702997> from Maccabi Tel
Aviv fans, who also disrupted
<https://x.com/leylahamed/status/1854651497604129256> a moment of silence
for the Valencia flood victims.
But despite that footage and Amsterdammer testimonies, coverage – across
international media, especially in the United States – has failed to
contextualize the counter-attacks against the anti-Arab Israeli mob.
Where there have been mentions of the actions of the Maccabi fans, the
critical context of anti-Arab violence and chants is simply an additional
detail versus the foundation of the counter-violence. The context of the
violence and racism against Arabs is also downplayed, with less severe
language being used to describe it.
Note this excerpt from a Reuters report
<https://www.reuters.com/world/israels-pm-aware-very-violent-incident-against-israelis-amsterdam-his-office-2024-11-08/>
on the Amsterdam incident:
*Videos on social media showed riot police in action, with some attackers
shouting **anti-Israeli slurs**. Footage also showed Maccabi Tel Aviv
supporters chanting **anti-Arab slogans **before Thursday evening’s match.*
Wishing death to Arabs at the hands of the IDF and mocking dead Palestinian
children, we are told, is a slogan. Forcing Israelis to say “Free
Palestine!” is a slur. Through the use of these two words, the weight of
violence and of blame is immediately shifted to those victimized.
Then there’s this Channel 4 news report
<https://www.channel4.com/news/amsterdam-violence-against-israeli-football-fans-condemned-as-antisemitic>,
which shows a bit of a masterful narrative manipulation. It begins with
images of people draped in Palestinian flags, marching in the streets of
Amsterdam, with the voiceover talking about the ‘shocking’ violence, and
how “men on scooters hunted down Israelis to beat them”. We immediately see
footage of random Israelis being beaten in the streets and then a jump to
the Dutch PM condemning these actions. When presented this way, it is
shocking – your initial introduction to this story is that Israeli Jewish
football fans were ‘hunted’ and assaulted in the streets by pro-Palestinian
hooligans.
A little over a minute into the three-minute report, we move onto what is
the critical context: 36 hours of violence and racist slurs and chants by
the Maccabi fans. The report spends about 40 seconds going over it, only to
return to framing the incident as antisemitic. It concludes with a brief
acknowledgement that Maccabi fans have a history of anti-Arab,
anti-Palestinian racism but its final note is about the historical memory
of Jews with regards to being ‘hunted and chased’ in the streets.
Nevermind the present experience of Arabs, of Muslims being exterminated in
their homes, hospitals, schools and tents by a Jewish military.
It’s also worth mentioning here that during the course of writing this
piece, Sky News posted and deleted a video report on the racist Israeli
mob’s instigation and violence — only to repost the report
<https://x.com/marcowenjones/status/1855322800220725404?s=46>, with its
content and copy edited to center the “antisemitism” framing. In other
words, a real-time manufacturing of a story to fit a specific narrative,
despite all the evidence available. Few things have captured the
intentional complicity of the news media, in the genocide of Palestinians,
as transparently and poignantly as this.
The coverage of events in Amsterdam reveals a troubling, but transparent
and tired pattern: it serves as a rhetorical tool to justify violence
against Arabs and Muslims, whether in Gaza or within the streets of Europe.
The coverage of events in Amsterdam reveals a troubling, but transparent
and tired pattern: it serves as a rhetorical tool to justify violence
against Arabs and Muslims, whether in Gaza or within the streets of Europe.
Each narrative, whether centered around October 7th or November 7th,
invariably positions Jewish suffering and historical trauma at its core,
thus reinforcing the notion of a Jewish right to violence. Any
contextualization that portrays Israelis or Jewish Zionist as aggressors
threatens to disrupt this carefully curated monopoly on suffering.
In the case of Amsterdam, the media framing and sensational headlines
reinforce an image of the Israeli mob as victims, besieged by an enraged
Arab mob that “hunts Jews” in the streets. The timing—occurring just before
the anniversary of Kristallnacht—adds a haunting resonance that has allowed
the narrative of Jewish persecution to be put at the center of coverage and
condemnation.
This framing, both directly and indirectly, echoes Israeli and Zionist
propaganda reliant on manufactured antisemitism and long-standing racist
tropes about Arabs and Muslim; it perpetuates a narrative of eternal
victimhood that is wielded to justify the ongoing extermination of 2.2
million Palestinians. And thus our media gives permission for violence –
American, European and Israeli – toward Arabs and Muslims. It gives
permission for the U.S.-backed Israeli eradication of Palestinians because,
we are told again and again, that Jews are not safe anywhere.
This framing, both directly and indirectly, echoes Israeli and Zionist
propaganda reliant on manufactured antisemitism and long-standing racist
tropes about Arabs and Muslim; it perpetuates a narrative of eternal
victimhood that is wielded to justify the ongoing extermination of 2.2
million Palestinians.
This has lent itself to fabricated stories – about beheaded babies
<https://www.declassifieduk.org/beheaded-babies-how-uk-media-reported-israels-fake-news-as-fact/>,
babies in ovens
<https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2024/3/21/october-7-forensic-analysis-shows-hamas-abuses-many-false-israeli-claims>,
mass rapes
<https://theintercept.com/2024/02/28/new-york-times-anat-schwartz-october-7/>
of Israeli women, command centers under
<https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/israeli-hamas-command-center-al-shifa-hospital-falls-report-1234934784/>
hospitals, UNRWA
<https://www.channel4.com/news/israels-evidence-of-unrwa-hamas-allegations-examined>
involvement in October 7th, journalists as “terrorists
<https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/fears-six-palestinian-journalists-israel-names-targets-al-jazeera>”,
unfettered antisemitism on college campuses
<https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rfaxZtvzgOE> and pogroms against Jews in
Amsterdam – defining American, Canadian and European coverage of the
genocide of Palestinians. The claims and experiences of Israelis, of
pro-Israel Jews are presented as sacrosanct
<https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QbrZt-ip6YM&list=PLZd3QRtSy5LNlwMhnvlXVYSkBv1dg2cG0&index=4>,
to question them is antisemitic; it is to deny and support the sort of
dehumanization and violence that led to the Jewish Holocaust.
The claims and experiences of Palestinians, of Arabs and Muslims, might be
tragic but we must always consider Jewish suffering and trauma first and
foremost – that is what must always be protected, always at the helm of our
outrage
<https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tJ_TgPlEfQs&list=PLZd3QRtSy5LNlwMhnvlXVYSkBv1dg2cG0&index=6>
.
The coverage of the anti-racist counter-attacks in Amsterdam exemplified
that: on the same day Western leaders flocked to condemn a non-existent
pogrom against Jews, the UN Office on Human Rights released a report
<https://www.cnn.com/2024/11/09/middleeast/un-warnings-gaza-humanitarian-conditions-intl/index.html>
indicating that 70% of those killed in Gaza are women and children – mainly
children, between the ages of 5 and 9. And the lack of condemnation, of
outrage – even acknowledgement – of that from Western leaders and
newsrooms, who are culpable in that 70%, is why there *is* condemnation of
a pogrom that never happened.
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