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Pogrom in Amsterdam. “Globalise the intifada” they’ve screamed for a year. This was the result
Melanie Phillips, November 9, 2024
'Two days before tonight’s 86th anniversary of Kristallnacht, the pogrom in Germany in 1938 that acted as the prelude to the Holocaust, a pogrom took place in Amsterdam.
"On Thursday evening, following a football match between the Dutch club Ajax and the visiting team of Maccabi Tel Aviv, there were horrifying scenes in what appears to have been an organised onslaught on Jews.
"Hundreds of Israelis were hunted down and beaten by rampaging mobs of Arabs and other Muslims.
"The victims reported what appeared to be a planned and co-ordinated onslaught, with attackers waiting at various points to ambush fans as they returned from the match. The police did nothing to stop this, reportedly driving nonchalantly by as Jews were attacked on the streets. Fans reported that the police told them not to take taxis because Muslim taxi-drivers were themselves hunting for Jews to attack.
"The Jews were beaten, stabbed and run over by cars. One Maccabi fan told Israeli TV:
They were waiting for us, terrorists on every street corner and simply tore apart every Israeli that came their way. We were beaten, humiliated, stabbed, run over. They literally drove on sidewalks in order to run over Jews. Until the Fanatics organisation came out to protect the beaten, no one helped us, the police ignored everything that was happening.
"Another said he was attacked by around 15 young Arab men, some of whom were armed with knives and clubs, as he left the game with his son:
“They started hitting us, they broke my face, knocked out a tooth, cut my lip,” he said. ‘My son got punched twice in the face.” He added that he is now locked in his hotel room with tables blocking the door.”
"Many barricaded themselves inside their hotels. Others pleaded with their assailants: “Not Jewish, not Jewish” before they were beaten.
"Jews were pushed into canals. The Telegraph reported:
One piece of footage posted online shows a man who had jumped into a canal in a desperate attempt to escape his attackers. As he thrashes around in the water, a pursuer shouts: “Say Free Palestine, and we’ll let you go,” and spits out a vile Dutch phrase that means “Cancer Jew”.
The person who posted the video on X commented: “This coward jumped into the canal, afraid of getting beaten.” It was accompanied by “crying with laughter” emojis.
Another video shows a man who appears unconscious on the street being repeatedly kicked as he lies in the fetal position. A third film shows a young Israeli football fan cornered in a narrow alley where he ends up crouching on the floor. He begs for mercy but his assailants knock him out with a punch to the head.
There is little wonder why one Israeli diplomat described it as “a pogrom”.
"This was not violence by rival groups of football fans. The Israeli fans were set upon by Muslims who planned to attack Jews because they were Jews — in support of their genocidal aim of “freeing Palestine” from the Jews. They said so; and in a chilling echo of the October 7 pogrom in Israel, they filmed their violence and posted the footage on social media.
"The BBC reported:
Adi Reuben, 24, said he was kicked on the ground and had his nose broken when he and his friends were confronted by a group of over 10 men while walking back to their hotel. The men asked Mr Reuben where he and his friends were from. “They shouted ‘Jewish, Jewish, IDF, IDF’,” he said, referring to the Israeli military. “They started to mess with me and I realised I had to run, but it was dark and I didn't know where to go. I fell to the floor and 10 people were kicking me. They were shouting ‘Palestine’," Mr Reuben told the BBC…
British men Aaron and Jacob, who are Jewish, told the BBC they went to the match, but left early. Afterwards, they said they saw men yelling antisemitic threats and stamping on an Israeli man. They intervened, helped the man to his feet, and went to leave.
Shortly after, a group asked the men if they were Jewish, and Aaron said that they were British. “But they said ‘You helped the Jew’, and he punched me in my face and broke my glasses,” Aaron said. “I was bleeding and have a black eye. I’m okay but a bit shaken.”
"The spectacle of mobs in Europe hunting for Jews to attack has reawakened a horrific collective Jewish memory. The Dutch have an appalling record. Some 75 percent of Amsterdam’s Jews were murdered in the Holocaust. In a phone conversation with Israel’s president Isaac Herzog, the Dutch King Willem-Alexander compared the Amsterdam pogrom to the Netherlands' failure to protect Jews during the Holocaust, saying, “We failed the Jewish community of the Netherlands during World War II, and last night we failed again.”
"A key feature of the Holocaust was the indifference of others to the Nazi onslaught against the Jews. That indifference was apparently on display once again in Amsterdam. The Israeli government had warned the Dutch authorities in advance that there was a plan to attack the Jewish fans — yet no notice was taken.
'The Telegraph has reported messages showing that the attacks were co-ordinated in advance using WhatsApp and Telegram. It said:
The Telegraph has seen messages from a group chat called Buurthuis, a Dutch word for a type of community centre, which were posted on Wednesday, the day before the match. One message says: “Tomorrow after the game, at night, part 2 of the Jew Hunt.“Tomorrow we work them.” Another member of the group says: “Who can sort fireworks?” adding, “We need a lot of fireworks”. Participants refer to “cancer dogs”, a particularly vile insult in the Netherlands.
The previous day had some skirmishes, which the Jewish fans escaped by going into a local casino. One of the messages sent by the pro-Palestinians said: “They won’t go to the casino any more.” Tensions had been running high before the match because Amsterdam was in the midst of a week of pro-Palestinian protests. The demonstrators had wanted to protest at the Johan Cruyff Arena, home of Ajax, but Femke Halsema, the city’s mayor, ordered police to keep them a kilometre away from the stadium.
"Yet in another chilling echo of October 7, much of the initial media reaction to the Amsterdam pogrom was grotesque beyond belief. For the instinctive reaction by outlets such as the BBC, Associated Press, New York Times and others was to blame the Jews.
"The AP wrote that the attack followed a Palestinian flag being “torn down from a building in Amsterdam on Wednesday,” and that the rioters were angry because “authorities banned a pro-Palestinian demonstration near the stadium”. The New York Times originally reported that “the tensions in the hours leading up to the violence” was in part caused by “one man [being heard] saying in Hebrew, ‘The people of Israel live,’ while others shout[ed] anti-Palestinian chants using expletives.”
'These outlets somehow forgot to mention that the Israeli fans’ reported abuse was in response to abuse shouted by Palestinian demonstrators, who in their week of anti-Israel protests had already posed threats grave enough to cause the Amsterdam authorities to ban them from demonstrating near the football stadium.
"Aggressive taunts between football fans are nothing new. But these media outlets appeared to be actually suggesting that the Israeli fans deserved to be lynched because they had uttered inflammatory insults and torn down a Palestinian flag.
"Yet every week, demonstrators have been on the streets of western cities chanting for the destruction of Israel and the murder of Jews, sometimes setting fire to the Israeli flag, and tearing down pictures of the Israeli hostages. Are these media outlets — who have ignored, minimised, sanitised and excused this genocidal frenzy against Jews — suggesting that Jews should therefore hunt down anti-Zionists to beat up as a result? Or are the media once again demonstrating a grotesque and all-too revealing double standard?
'For the last year, Jew-hating demonstrators on the streets have been screaming “Globalise the intifada!” What happened in Amsterdam is what “globalise the intifada” looks like in practice.
"Various authorities have expressed their shock at the Amsterdam pogrom and vowed to protect the Jewish community. What absolute humbug. During this year of continuous antisemitic demonstrations, intimidation and law-breaking, these same authorities have stood by mouthing grotesque banalities about “freedom of speech” — as if genocidal incitement is something that needs to be protected.
"Moreover, this threat has been building for years. On The Free Press, philosophy lecturer David de Bruin, who grew up in the Netherlands, has written that abundant antisemitism has been part of the daily life of Dutch Jews for decades. He writes:
As a young boy, I vividly recall how The Hague's football hooligans—viciously opposed to Ajax, Amsterdam’s “Jewish” team—walked the streets under a banner reading “We’re hunting for Jews.” (Indeed, for my entire life, football stadiums in my home country have been filled with lurid chants like “Hamas, Hamas, all the Jews on gas!” and “My dad was in the commandos, my mom was in the SS, we like to burn Jews, because Jews burn the best.”) In high school, second or third-generation Moroccan kids would point and hiss “Psst, psst, that’s a Jew, that’s a Jew!” as they passed by on their bikes…
Seen from the front, The Hague synagogue is not recognisable, two thick green doors presenting a closed facade to the street. Behind these doors are glass doors that open only once additional permission is given. All the windows are made of bulletproof glass. A permanent police post guards the synagogue. In Amsterdam, the Jewish primary school has even more dystopian levels of protection, hidden behind several layers of metal spikes and fencing.
"Violent attacks on Jews have become more and more frequent. Yet last month, Dutch police officers said they would refuse to guard Jewish institutions because of “moral objections” to Israel.
"The Netherlands is hardly alone in hosting a seething frenzy of Jew-hatred. Antisemitic attacks have been rising in Europe and America for years and are now running at epidemic levels.
"In Britain, antisemitism has become normalised. The media led by the BBC continues to pump out inflammatory demonisation of Israel based on lies and distortions straight from the psychotic Palestinian playbook. Politicians parrot it. The universities label this murderous propaganda “scholarship” and “education,” and turn a blind eye to the intimidation of Jewish students on campus.
"This is by no means a threat only to Jews. For decades, a blind eye has been turned to Islamist incitement in the west and against the west. In Britain, undercover recordings have revealed that imams are radicalising Muslims by spreading hatred and calls to jihad against Christians and others as well as calling for the genocide of the Jews.
"Yet nothing is ever said about this. Any criticism of the Muslim world is denounced as “Islamophobia” (and please let’s not forget that this is “Islamophobia month”). Immigration policies are admitting into the country large numbers of people from countries where the majority hate Jews, Christians and others “infidels” and want to kill them. Anyone who questions this as simply insane — as I did as long ago as 2006 — is denounced as “Islamophobic”. The political and administrative class — including the intelligence service — refuses to acknowledge that violence in the name of Islam has anything to do with the religion of Islam.
"Yes, many Muslims have nothing to do with extremism and pose no threat to anyone. But has anyone yet heard any institutional denunciation of the Amsterdam pogrom as a stain upon Islam that must be addressed uttered from within the Islamic world?
'Eli Beer is president of United Hatzalah, Israel’s volunteer medical responder agency. After what happened in Amsterdam, Beer observed:
This is happening in the heart of Europe, and it’s only the beginning.
"Is anyone in authority yet listening?"
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