What really happened at the Amsterdam "pogrom"?

Did an unprovoked antisemitic “pogrom” really occur in Amsterdam? The evidence tells a different story.

According to media reports, an antisemitic pogrom occurred in Amsterdam earlier this week, as Israeli football fans were hunted and beaten in the streets for no reason other than being Jewish. Western leaders — from Biden to von der Leyen to Trudeau — all rushed to express their support, suggesting that Europe is headed straight for a repeat of the Nazi horrors of the 1930s and 40s.

This would be terrifying indeed — if only it were true. In the wake of the violence surrounding the match between Ajax and Maccabi Tel Aviv, multiple accounts on X have shed light on what actually happened, revealing that the Israeli fans were not victims of an unprovoked attacks, but that the violent clashes were a reaction to provocative and aggressive behaviour by the Maccabi fans.

The incident unfolded over several days, with tensions escalating before the actual match. Reports from various sources indicate that Maccabi Tel Aviv fans, knowing for their extreme anti-Arab ideology, engaged in acts that were not only confrontational but also racially charged, part of a broader display of hostility towards the local community, particularly those of Arab or Palestinian descent.

For instance, one post described how a local resident was verbally and physically assaulted by Maccabi fans, which was captured and shared widely on the platform. Another local resident explained: “Last night a group of Israeli hooligans stood under my window (Palestine poster). Screaming, banging on the door, fireworks. For the first time in my life, I was really scared in my own home”. Other posts showed that the Maccabi fans were involved in tearing down Palestinian flags from buildings in Amsterdam, an act seen as both provocative and disrespectful by local residents. These actions, combined with alleged verbal abuse and attacks directed at taxi drivers and other locals, set the stage for what would become a volatile situation. This was confirmed also by local police as well as by a Sky News report (subsequently deleted from the media organisation’s account).

Maccabi fans also chanted anti-Arab slogans, which included threats and openly genocidal language such as “Let the IDF win to fuck the Arabs” and “There are no schools in Gaza because there are no children left”. Moreover, during the match Maccabi fans jeered during a minute of silence for victims of Spain’s floods.

Thus, while Maccabi fans claimed to have been the victims of unprovoked attacks, and Western authorities and most media outlets framed these attacks as solely antisemitic violence, everything points in fact to the violence being a reaction to the brazen and racist provocations of the Maccabi supporters, which led to confrontations with local residents and other football fans. This was also confirmed by Amsterdam councilman Jazie Veldhuyzen: “They began attacking houses of people in Amsterdam with Palestinian flags, so that’s actually where the violence started”, Veldhuyzen said. “As a reaction, Amsterdammers mobilised themselves and countered the attacks that started on Wednesday by the Maccabi hooligans”.

Framing what happened as an antisemitic pogrom is thus not only shockingly misleading — which is not surprising when it comes to mainstream media-political coverage of anything Israel-related — but also politically very dangerous.

Not only does calling everything antisemitism, even events that clearly have nothing to do with it, trivialise actual antisemitism; but blatantly weaponising anti-antisemitism as a cover for blanket support for Israel — even in the face of outrageous racist behaviour such as the one exhibited by the Maccabi fans in Amsterdam — only risks intensifying genuine antisemitic sentiments.

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Thomas Fazi

Website: thomasfazi.net

Twitter: @battleforeurope 

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