Lessons to Be Learned from Amsterdam
My thoughts on the recent performance of Israeli football fans in Amsterdam along with the response from Western politicians and mainstream media
Two weeks ago in Amsterdam, Zionist Israelis showed the whole world once again who they really are: thugs, hooligans, racists, ethnosupremacists, fanatics, monsters. Dare I say it? Human animals.
By now, you’ve probably seen a couple of pictures or a video of the 2,600 Maccabi Tel Aviv soccer fans who descended upon Amsterdam and wreaked havoc from November 6-8. Of the many disturbing scenes of Israelis marching through Amsterdam’s streets, wielding metal scaffolding tubes and wooden planks pilfered from construction sites, chasing and beating Dutch pro-Palestinian residents and anyone resembling an Arab Muslim, setting off fireworks, scaling buildings to tear down Palestinian flags, attacking taxi drivers and destroying property, the most chilling and reprehensible scenes are those in which the raucous, pumped-up horde of Israeli fans are:
riding an escalator and chanting “Ole, ole, ole, Let the IDF win, we will fuck the Arabs!”
gathered in Dam Square and waving Israeli flags and brazenly insulting the citizens of Amsterdam with a chorus of:
You’re the whores of Arabs, We are ashamed of you, At the end of the day Gate 5, We will fuck you, We will fuck you, Then we will drink your blood, In the town’s square we will hang every communist who comes here, We will take your girls who love to party, When we rape them we will shout “Today is death” Hapoel! (See the video here)
interrupting the one-minute silence for the flood victims in Valencia with chants of “There are no school in Gaza because there are no children left.”
That these Zionist thugs got a good taste of the kind of violence they were dishing out was more than justified because let’s not forget: These goons were foreign guests in Amsterdam, not citizens or residents!
So, how did Dutch police, Dutch and western politicians, and the mainstream media react?
Even though Amsterdam’s chief-of-police later made a public statement, confirming that the Israelis had provoked the violence, the Dutch police on the street kept their distance while the Maccabi fans were carrying out what journalist Patrick Lawrence termed a freak-show. Of the 62 arrests made, only 10 Israelis were detained and released. On the other hand, 4 Dutch nationals were kept in custody, and the ensuing investigation would focus, public prosecutor René de Beukelaer vowed, on the antisemitic attacks against the Israeli fans.
Dutch politicians went into contortions.
Prime Minster Dick Schoof likened the incidents to the pogroms of the last century and expressed his deep shame that such terrible antisemitic attacks could happen in the Netherlands in 2024.
Amsterdam’s mayor, Femke Halsema1, called the events a crime perpetrated by “hateful antisemitic criminals”, invoked memories of pogroms and banned public demonstrations for three days.
King Willem-Alexander chimed in to say “We failed the Jewish community of the Netherlands during the second world war, and last night we failed again.”
Geert Wilders, leader of the right-wing anti-Muslim Freedom Party, referred to a Jew hunt, and vowed “to stop and expel Islamic radicals”.
Western politicians could not have prostrated themselves or parroted each other more ably.
US President Joe Biden called the attacks on Israeli soccer fans antisemitic and despicable, echoing “dark moments in history when Jews were persecuted”.
Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau wrote on X that “This is a dark moment for our world—and one we have seen before,” and on behalf of the whole country, as he is wont to do, condemned “this disgusting antisemitism”.
EU President Ursula van der Leyen strongly condemned these unacceptable acts, and expressed her determination to fight all forms of hatred and to see Jewish life and culture thrive in Europe. (Note that she did not mention hatred of Arabs and Muslims.)
British Foreign Minister David Lammy utterly condemned these “abhorrent acts of violence” and stood with Israeli and Jewish people across the world.
German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock referred to the images out of Amsterdam as “awful and deeply shameful for us in Europe” and wrote on X: “The outbreak of such violence against Jews breaks all boundaries. There is no justification for this.”
(Don’t these politicians ever check the facts, or consult someone who has before they open their big fat mouths?)
If these soccer hooligans had been Russian or Iranian, for instance, or even the usual British suspects, their behaviour would have been met with convulsions of outrage, indignation, and scorn from esteemed world leaders. But instead of being condemned and chastised, the victimizers were made out to be the victims. And why? Because they are Jewish Israelis.
Statements on the Israeli side were predictably nauseating.
Netanyahu couldn’t resist invoking the memory of the 1938 Kristallnacht (which just happened to have occurred 86 years ago almost to the date), and spewing the usual tropes of Jews being attacked for being Jews.
President Isaac Herzog demanded, in typical Israeli fashion, that action be taken against violence and antisemitism.
Security Minister, Itamar Ben-Gvir wrote on X: “Fans who went to see a football game encountered antisemitism and were attacked with unimaginable cruelty just because of their Jewishness.”
(If the Israelis were victims of unimaginable cruelty, I might ask, where were the reports of injuries, emergency surgeries and hospitalizations?)
Then there was the mainstream media’s customary headlines:
Amsterdam bans protests after ‘antisemitic squads’ attack Israeli soccer fans— Reuters
Israeli soccer fans attacked in Amsterdam, officials say — BBC
‘Toxic cocktail’ leads to Amsterdam violence, mayor says — The Guardian
Dutch PM ‘ashamed’ by Amsterdam attacks on Israeli soccer fans — CBC
Amsterdam bans protests for three days after violent attacks on Israeli soccer fans — CNN
Amsterdam bars protests after antisemitic attacks on soccer fans — New York Times
(Couldn’t the hacks who write these headlines have at least used different words?)
In addition to one-sided news articles, the venerable New York Times published the usual one-sided op-eds: Amsterdam is About Jew Hatred—and Gaza by Thomas Friedman, A Worldwide 'Jew Hunt' by Bret Stephens and The Age of the Pogrom Returns by Michelle Goldberg.
Reports that actually showed the real picture were either falsified, doctored or killed, as in the following examples:
a SkyNews report that accurately described events was pulled for not meeting “standards for balance and impartiality”, then re-edited before it was re-posted to downplay Israeli violence and make the victimizers out to be the victims. (So much for said standards!)
BBC along with other media organizations used a video recorded by Dutch photographer Annet de Graaf that showed Maccabi fans chasing down a Dutch person as evidence of a Dutch gang running down an Israeli. To de Graaf’s demand for an apology and a retraction for the misuse of her video, she received only one apology from the German Tagesschau.
The New York Times took journalism’s cake, once again, by killing a moment-by-moment visual investigation by Dutch reporter Christiaan Triebert that, according to Asa Winstanley’s Electronic Intifada article, “would set the record straight, remediating the false narrative insistently advanced by his own newspaper – that the Israeli fans were victims of mob violence motivated by anti-Jewish hatred”.
This is the kind of shit, for lack of a more appropriate word, that happens when one little country, namely Israel, has been given special treatment by the feckless and corrupt international community since the state’s founding. I liken the situation to hapless parents who indulge and spoil a favourite child to the point where he/she evolves into a narcissistic holy terror or an untameable wild beast that, having developed no inhibitions or superego to control them, can only be caged and contained at the very best. The state of Israel and its citizens are so used to having their way that they boldly act as though the world owes them the absolute right to harass, intimidate, extort, defame, terrorize, attack, murder, assassinate, massacre, occupy, destroy, and do whatever the hell they want, always under the pretext of self-defense, while enjoying total impunity from the law2.
Two of my go-to journalists, Patrick Lawrence and Jonathan Cook, have exposed the essence of the Amsterdam debacle in highly recommended articles:
We find in these chaotic days a picture in miniature of the sickness that has overtaken “the Jewish state,” the shameless apology those purporting to lead the Western post-democracies make for the straight-out barbarities of Zionist zealots, and the full-frontal disinformation spread by corporate and state-funded media as they pose as the first line of defense against disinformation. — Patrick Lawrence
There has never been a harder time to do political and media analysis than right now. Each day, the western establishment unmoors itself further from reality. Its priorities are so inverted, so obscene, that the most appropriate response is ridicule.— Jonathan Cook
The answer to what took place in Amsterdam, as Lawrence says, is simple: No! And I would hope that I am not alone in saying:
No to outright lies!
No to propaganda!
No to media-fuelled hysteria!
No to exceptionalism!
No to lawlessness!
No to Israeli intimidation!
No to false accusations of antisemitism!
No to Western hypocrisy!
No to political corruption!
No to moral depravity!
No to racial violence!
No to genocide!
No to war!
No, no, no!
(Feel free to leave your own “No’s” in the comments!)
The lesson to be learned, however, from Amsterdam and all incidents like it3, as Lawrence cogently concludes his article, involves going much farther than just saying no:
It falls to those not of high office but of high principle to defend, in the streets or elsewhere, the remnants of the humane in the Western post-democracies.
Because if we don’t do right at the bottom, we can wait literally until hell freezes over for any signs of morality at the top.
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In a recent interview on Dutch TV, Mayor Halsema walked back her use of the word, pogrom, to describe the violence.
Yesterday, the ICC finally issued arrest warrants for Netanyahu and Gallant. One can only hope this move will prompt the ICJ to rule in favour of South Africa’s case and hold Israel to account for the genocide it has been committing for over one year.
On November 14, Israeli soccer fans assaulted a French fan at the Nations League match between Israel and France in Paris. Because the match was poorly attended and police were prepared, the same level of violence did not break out as it did in Amsterdam. See Peter Allen on X.)
"So, how did Dutch police, Dutch and western politicians, and the mainstream media react?"
Every Dutch and every european politician knows full well whom they answer to and what their American Master expects of them. Some minor Americna functionary snaps his fingers, and european knees hit the floor with a resolute thud, grateful for being given the opportunity to service Master.
Don't like what I wrote? Then don't act like that.
No to the racism that's being unleashed by this behaviour towards both Arabs and Jews!
No to the gaslighting that makes it so hard for people to find out what's really going on in the world!
So many Jewish people have not only led protests against the genocide Israel is committing in Gaza, but are also telling their stories about the Zionist indoctrination they receive, and are working hard to get over and to let others know about it.
Our western leaders and mainstream media have failed humanity. It's up to ordinary people to lead us all to higher ground. We can't descend into lies, racism and violence. We need to heal ourselves and each other and our one and only planet that provides life for us all.