Police officers secure a road during a pro-Palestinian demonstration on the sidelines of the soccer match between Ajax Amsterdam and Maccabi Tel Aviv in Amsterdam on Thursday. Photo by Getty Images

By Arno Rosenfeld
November 8, 2024

Members of Amsterdam’s small Jewish community confronted the city’s deputy mayor on Friday morning, demanding answers for his failure to prevent violent attacks on Israeli soccer fans the night before, which international Jewish organizations and leaders condemned as a pogrom.

“My parents are terrified, I’m terrified,” one man shouted in Dutch during the meeting. “I have a little daughter. What will be done, damn it?”

An older Jew, wrapped in a winter coat, responded: “Nothing, absolutely nothing. Since October 7, nothing.”

It was an expression of the anguish that many of Amsterdam’s approximately 15,000 Jewish residents were feeling the day after five Israeli Maccabi Tel Aviv fans in the city for a match against Ajax were hospitalized following attacks by Arab and Muslim assailants who The mayor described it as an “anti-Semitic coup.” squads “and run.”

Videos on social media showed men running through the streets beating Israelis and shooting fireworks at them. “Loop!” a man lighting firecrackers shouts a clip. “Now you know how it feels.” a dutch blog posted screenshots from a WhatsApp group showing people discussing a “Jew hunt” before the attacks.

But some Dutch Jews noticed that roving gangs of Maccabi Tel Aviv fans had spent Tuesday and Wednesday nights prowling the city center chanting racist anti-Arab slogans, scaling a facade to tear down a Palestinian flag from the second floor of an apartment building. and assaulting a Moroccan taxi driver.

Jelle Ziljstra, who is Jewish and works as a community organizer in Amsterdam, made a post that went viral on Instagram stating that “multiple truths can exist at the same time.” He highlighted both the attacks on Israelis and the images of fans shouting “F—Palestine” the night before.

“There was definitely anti-Semitism involved in some of the events that took place,” Ziljstra said in an interview. “Were Jews attacked in the streets? Yes, but those Jews were also violent hooligans.”

Vandalism and street attacks

Hundreds of Maccabi Tel Aviv fans traveled to Amsterdam this week for a Thursday night match against Ajax, a major soccer team from the Netherlands that has long had warm ties with Israel and whose fans refer to themselves themselves as “Jews.”

Tori Eghermann, an American Jew who moved to Amsterdam 20 years ago, said she passed by Dam Square in the city center on Thursday night and saw Maccabi fans there singing and lighting smoke bombs. “They were really incredibly well organized and enthusiastic,” he said.

Eghermann noted that violent clashes between local residents and racist soccer hooligans are not uncommon in Amsterdam. “It’s not like football supporters clubs are known for their peaceful presence in the community.”

Israeli fans then they faced each other with pro-Palestinian protesters, chanting “Fuck Palestine” and shouting “Fuck the IDF the Arabs.”

Ori Goldberg, a left-wing Israeli academic who follows sports culture, said Maccabi Tel Aviv does not have a reputation for right-wing politics, like the infamous Beitar Jerusalem, whose fans long prevented the team’s owners from hiring Arab players.

“Maccabi Tel Aviv is mainstream mainstream,” Goldberg said. “But the behavior of the fans is very Israeli right now: the world hates us anyway because the world hates Jews, so we will take our fight and our cause wherever we go.”

It was unclear to what extent the attacks that took place Thursday night, including throwing an Israeli fan into a canal and forcing him to shout “Free Palestine,” were planned in advance, versus a spontaneous response to fans’ offensive behavior. Israelis. Israeli media reported that hundreds of men had gathered outside their hotel after the game and set up checkpoints demanding to see tourists’ passports.

“We don’t know if the people who were attacked last night were the same ones who were shouting racist slogans,” said Asjer Waterman, a rabbinic student in Amsterdam. “There is real evidence that people went to ‘hunt Jews.'”

Ami Shuman, photographer for the right-wing Israeli newspaper Israel HayomHe said he became trapped with his son while trying to escape the violence Thursday night, and that police eventually had to escort them back to their hotel.

“We saw violence, we saw people with black eyes, deep cuts under their eyes, we saw someone accidentally run over by a police officer and a woman crying,” Shuman said. The times of Israel. “They came in droves, running through the alleys.”

Forced to answer for Israel

Waterman, who also works as a strategic advisor for a local nonprofit called Jewish Social Work, spent Friday helping Israeli fans who volunteers had transported to a safe location provided by a Jewish sports club in Amsterdam.

He noted that the violence appeared to have been directed solely at Israeli visitors, and not at Dutch Jews or Jewish institutions. But Waterman said many in the community were nonetheless shocked, especially after a year in which they faced a surge in anti-Semitic and anti-Israel activity following the Oct. 7 terrorist attack in Israel and the start of the war. in Gaza.

Hundreds of protesters protested outside opening the city’s first Holocaust museum in March, objecting to the presence of Israeli President Isaac Herzog but also accusing Dutch Holocaust survivors who attended of being “Zionist scum” and “baby killers.”

Waterman said many Dutch Jews are treated as representatives of Israel, a special burden in a country of only 30,000 Jews. “You may be the only Jewish kid in your school and the kids say, ‘Hey, what are you guys doing in Israel?’ Why do they kill children?’” he explained. “It can force you to defend things you don’t necessarily agree with.”

Anti-Semitic chants are also common in Dutch football stadiums. “Hamas, Hamas, Jews to the gas” used to be a popular cheer among fans of teams playing against Ajax, due to their association with Jews. It has fallen out of favor in recent years, but other derogatory songs have taken its place.

“I’ll talk to fans who assure me they’re not anti-Semitic, they’re just doing it for Ajax, but there are definitely other factors,” said Boaz Krone, a social worker in Amsterdam.

Meanwhile, far-right Dutch politicians, who took control of the government in July, have positioned themselves as protectors of Holland’s Jews by taking advantage of the anti-Semitism of the country’s Arab and Muslim residents.

“A pogrom in the streets of Amsterdam,” said Geert Wilders, leader of one of the parties in the government coalition, on the social platform X (formerly Twitter) on Friday. “We have become the Gaza of Europe.”

This kind of rhetoric irritates Ziljstra, the community organizer whose Instagram post went viral. He has been frustrated by the left’s insistence that violence against Israelis was justified, and by politicians like Wilders who are removing context from the attacks to push an agenda that most of the country’s Jews do not support.

“I really think we should try to stay sane and not allow our pain and trauma to be weaponized like this,” she said.