One of the most heartbreaking aspects of the Hamas-led massacre on October 7, 2023, which claimed the lives of 1,200 Israelis, was the glee with which Palestinian terrorists livestreamed their atrocities for the world to see. Just 13 months later, Jews on social media reappeared confronted with images of an anti-Semitic riot, which shook Amsterdam on Thursday night, after a football match between Maccabi Tel Aviv and Ajax.

After the match, social media was flooded with videos of hundreds of jeering and cheering attackers marauding through the city, throwing Israeli soccer fans into the river, beating them unconscious, and forcing them to chant “Free Palestine” before continuing to attack them. “Jew, Jew, IDF, IDF” some shouted while identifying the Israelis. Although the Dutch authorities have arrested 62 suspectsThe shock waves of this incident will not fade easily.

“We let Dutch Jews down during the Holocaust, and tonight we let them down again,” said the King of the Netherlands. said Israeli President Isaac Herzog on Friday.

This was not the first anti-Jewish riot since October 7. Just a year ago, the world witnessed an anti-Semitic outbreak in Russia’s North Caucasus region, where Mobs storm an airport in Dagestan in pursuit of Jewish passengers arriving from Israel.

What makes the Amsterdam incident particularly disturbing is that it occurred not in some distant, non-Western region, but in the heart of “enlightened” Europe, in a city known for its progressive ideals and cultural sophistication. Even more worrying is that the attack appears to have been premeditated and telegraphed, but no one with the ability to stop it did.

On Friday, Israel’s Minister of Diaspora Affairs, Amichai Chikli, published in X that his office had conveyed multiple warnings to local Dutch authorities, who failed in their duty to protect civilians. On November 5, the Jerusalem Post reported that members of the Mossad (Israel’s national intelligence agency) had accompanied the approximately 2,600 Israeli fanatics who traveled to the Netherlands to provide additional security. This participation stimulated some conspiratorial journalists suggest that the incident was a false flag operation intended to Raising support for Israel.

The Network Contagion Research Institute, a nonprofit organization that monitors the spread of emerging threats, revealed that several pro-Palestinian groups had coordinated the attack on platforms such as Instagram, WhatsApp and Telegram. In other words, the alarm bells rang loud and clear, but no one listened.

Despite overwhelming evidence pointing to a premeditated assault, some American media outlets attempted to frame the violence as an escalation of a fight between opposing soccer fans, alleging that Israeli fans had torn down a Palestinian flag and chanted anti-Arab slogans before the game. game. Even if it were true (and it is still not clear that it is), there is no justification for hordes of bloodthirsty raiders to rampage through a city and attack anyone they suspect of being Israeli. To suggest otherwise should be unthinkable in the 21st century. This is the West. People can say and do ugly things, but that never justifies the violence that occurred last night.

For its part, Deborah LipstadtUS special envoy to combat anti-Semitism and US ambassador to Israel Jack Lew both condemned the attack. The events in Amsterdam could easily be replicated in the United States, where American Jews have faced rising anti-Semitism since October 7.

In fact, last night, pro-Palestinian activists tried Comedian Michael Rapaport’s Chicago event derailspromoting leaflets that said: “Racists and Zionists are not welcome in our cities.” At the same time, in Bergenfield, New Jersey (home to a significant Jewish population), pro-Palestinian groups intimidated the community chanting “intifada” and brandishing images of adolf hitler.

This comes after more than a year of calls that have echoed across the United States, from public squares to college campuses, where radical activists have shouted: “Globalize the intifada.” In fact, the intifada has gone global.

The jump from “Zionists are not welcome” and images of Hitler to events like the Amsterdam riot is not as vast as it seems. Just like in Amsterdam, in the United States everything is written. If only those in power would pay more attention. What happened in the Netherlands can easily happen in the United States. American officials and law enforcement must remain vigilant before the horrors of Amsterdam reach the US.

Photo by JEROEN JUMELET/ANP/AFP via Getty Images