What did you think would happen when you screamed “Death to Arabs” in Amsterdam?
There is no justification for violence. But in light of the events in the city in the days before by Israelis, Thursday night does not fall under the definition of an antisemitic pogrom against innocent people. It falls under the reaction of city residents to visitors who came to their city and provoked them unnecessarily. ■ Israeli fans came to the city, chanted “Death to the Arabs” and mocked the murder of children in Gaza. Imagine if fans of a European team came to Tel Aviv or Jerusalem, marched in the streets shouting “Death to the Jews” and mocking the death of children in the Holocaust. Would Israelis accept this with equanimity? Wouldn’t gangs of young people go out to attack those people?
By Yarden Skop • Translated by Sol Salbe
For us, the incident didn’t start on Thursday. Back on Wednesday I saw videos of Israeli Maccabi fans traipsing around Amsterdam, shouting racist slogans and even climbing houses and tearing up Palestinian flags. I cringed in embarrassment, but I was also worried. As everywhere in the world, and especially since October 7, life together in Amsterdam is complex. As a Jewish immigrant in a Muslim-majority neighbourhood, I love my neighbours, Muslim and Christian alike, and I have never encountered any problems or manifestations of antisemitism. When I go out on the town with Israeli friends, I have never felt the need to hide my Hebrew. Nevertheless, since the far-right government came to power in the Netherlands, it is clear that ethnic tensions have increased, and I did not want hatred from Israel to be imported here by football fans.
On Friday morning, I woke up to worried messages from friends and family in Israel. “Are you okay?”, “What’s going on in Amsterdam?” they asked. I opened the news sites and saw that the headlines asserted that there had been an antisemitic pogrom in the city last night. I wasn’t surprised that it happened. I reassured everyone that I was okay and sent them the videos from the night before, from Wednesday, of Maccabi fans climbing on houses in the centre of Amsterdam to tear down the Palestinian flag and shouting “Let the IDF win, we will screw the Muslims” at the central bus station. My friends in Israel were surprised, none of them had heard of it. In the Israeli media, the situation was portrayed as if evil Moroccans were waiting for the innocent Jews who left the game to their hotels in the city centre and attacked them through no fault of their own. I’m sorry, but in light of the events in the city in the days before by Israelis, Thursday night does not fall under the definition of an antisemitic pogrom against innocent people. It falls under the reaction of city residents to visitors who came to their city and provoked them unnecessarily.
Of course I’m opposed to violence. The Muslim residents of the city should not have attacked the Israeli football fans, but Israeli football fans also should not have climbed on houses in the city and chant racist slogans imported from Israel or organised a large demonstration in Dam Square with firecrackers and signs egging on soldiers who are killing Arabs in Gaza, including quite a few civilians and perhaps also relatives of Arab residents of Amsterdam.
In Amsterdam, about 12 per cent of the population is Muslim. Israeli fans came to the city, chanted “Death to the Arabs” and mocked the murder of children in Gaza. Imagine if fans of a European team came to Tel Aviv or Jerusalem, marched in the streets shouting “Death to the Jews” and mocking the death of children in the Holocaust. Would Israelis accept this with equanimity? Wouldn’t gangs of young people go out to attack those people?
Even more concerning was the conduct of the Dutch police, which did not appear to have dealt with violence by Israeli fans on Wednesday. Why were Israeli fans given immunity to chant racist slogans in a foreign city and vandalise private property? Is it legal? Perhaps if the police had responded appropriately to the behaviour of the Israeli fans, we would not have faced attacks on Thursday by people of Moroccan extraction in the city, who apparently felt they had to do something and take the law into their own hands in the absence of a response from the authorities.
Another aspect that worries me as a Jew living in Europe is the cheapening of the term antisemitism. Yes, there is still antisemitism in the world, and I can understand why the images of a man lying on the floor in Amsterdam shouting “I am not Jewish” while being kicked are terrifying scenes that evoke emotional reactions from the Jewish collective memory of the Holocaust and pogroms. But this is neither a Holocaust nor a pogrom. These were violent riots in which two sides took part: Jewish Israelis, who came as guests from a foreign country, violated the order and did not respect the locals and even attacked them; And local Arabs who feel discriminated against by the establishment for many years, and the police have given those who provoked and attacked them sweeping immunity from the consequences of the law.
Local politicians, should not get off the hook either. They did not say a word against the Israeli hooligans’ behaviour. In effect they took sides failing to protect the citizens who elected them and whom they are supposed to serve. There should have been condemnation of violence on both sides — Israelis and Dutch Arabs alike. I, too, as a resident of Amsterdam, feared the violence of the Israeli fans and the disturbances in the city that were not addressed. This is a failure of local government.
On top of all this, I fear that using explosive blind antisemitism to describe these incidents will diminish our credibility as Jews when there are unprovoked antisemitic incidents against innocent Jews. And I believe that in the coming years we will see more and more violence by the rising political right against Jews abroad. I know that these words have become empty in Israel, but we have a responsibility, and we must take that responsibility. The residents of Amsterdam do not wander around the city looking for random Jews to attack. Even the thousands of Israeli tourists I hear speaking Hebrew in central Amsterdam all year long prove that Israelis probably don’t feel any danger in Amsterdam in the normal state of affairs.
