Israel sends planes Amsterdam to rescue Israeli soccer fans under attack from street mobs
Videos circulating on social media showed men shouting “Free Palestine” as they beat Israeli tourists
Supporters of Maccabi Tel Aviv hold Israeli and team flags at Dam Square ahead of the Europa League football match between Ajax and Maccabi Tel Aviv, Nov. 7, 2024. (Jeroen Jumelet / ANP / AFP via Getty Images) Photo by Jeroen Jumelet / ANP / AFP via Getty Images
By Louis Keene November 8, 2024
Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu dispatched two planes to Amsterdam to rescue Israeli soccer fans beset by mobs after a game between Ajax, a local team, and Maccabi Tel Aviv, an Israeli team.
Videos circulating on social media Thursday, shared by the Israeli embassy in the United States, appeared to show Israeli soccer fans being chased and attacked on the streets of Amsterdam by men shouting pro-Palestinian slogans.
Both the Israeli and Dutch governments called the attacks antisemitic, with Ambassador Deborah Lipstadt, the State Department’s special envoy to monitor and combat antisemitism, saying the violence was “terribly reminiscent of a classic pogrom.”
Thousands of Maccabi Tel Aviv supporters traveled to Amsterdam for the team’s Europa League match against Ajax, the local football club. The mood in the city was tense even before the game, with clashes between fans on Wednesday resulting in at least two arrests.
But the scale of the violence increased dramatically after Thursday’s game, with videos variously depicting large groups brawling, individuals being followed and ganged up on, and in one instance, a van running over a pedestrian. The vast majority of the clips showed Israelis on the receiving end of the violence.
Israeli foreign minister Gideon Sa’ar said at least 10 Israeli citizens were injured and at least 30 people had been arrested, according to CNN.
Much of the footage circulating Thursday seemed to have been both recorded and posted on social media by the attackers themselves.
One showed a man on the ground fending off blows as his assailants shouted “this is for the children” and “Free Palestine.” Another clip showed a man crying “I’m not Jewish” as he was punched. A third video, showing men fleeing the person recording it, is captioned in Dutch, “Watch and enjoy six Zionists chased away by two.”
The videos from Amsterdam are horrific - a nightmare come to life. pic.twitter.com/XaBme6Z2ly
— Aviva Klompas (@AvivaKlompas) November 8, 2024
What caused the violence?
Ajax is a football club with Jewish history — the majority of Amsterdam was Jewish prior to the Holocaust, and Ajax fans, nodding to the team’s roots, have in the past waved Israeli flags at their games. And some of the interactions between Maccabi and Ajax fans had been friendly. A video posted before the game showed an Ajax fan being carried by Maccabi fans singing “Hava Nagila.”
It was unclear what set off Thursday’s violence or how long after the game it began. Some Amsterdam locals said the Israeli fans had spent the previous two days instigating.
Two videos from Wednesday showed Israeli fans climbing walls to pull Palestinian flags down from second-story windows; in one clip, scores of Israelis gathered below cheer the act before the flag is burned on the street. Maccabi hooligans also sang an anti-Arab chant Thursday as they entered the stadium.
Other footage seemed to show Israelis engaging in violence themselves. One dashcam clip, posted Wednesday night by a Dutch taxi driver, appeared to show a Maccabi fan smashing a taxi with an iron chain. Another video — whether it was filmed Wednesday or Thursday was unclear — appeared to show about 50 Israeli fans doing the chasing.
There seemed to be disagreement about what was happening in some of the videos. One widely shared on Jewish social media accounts as evidence of a mob attack against Israelis was disputed by the woman who recorded the video, who said it showed Maccabi supporters ganging up on a Dutch man.
But most of the clips, shared gleefully by pro-Palestinian accounts on X and Instagram, showed Israelis being attacked, unprovoked, in the streets.
One video showed men jumping out of a van to hunt down a man walking alone, then tackling and kicking him as he lay on the ground. The victims in the videos are often wearing yellow from the Maccabi team.
“The Israeli Foreign Ministry says that authorities in the Netherlands reported that 10 Israelis were wounded,” Haaretz reported. “The Israeli military banned all IDF personnel from going to the Netherlands until further notice.” Local authorities said that 62 people were arrested.
The Israeli embassy in the U.S. said on X that the Israeli fans were “ambushed.”
“The harsh pictures of the assault on our citizens in Amsterdam will not be overlooked,” Netanyahu’s office stated. “Prime Minister Netanyahu views the horrifying incident with utmost gravity and demands that the Dutch government and security forces take vigorous and swift action against the rioters, and ensure the safety of our citizens.”
In addition to Ambassador Lipstadt, Naftali Bennett, the former Israeli prime minister, also called what was happening a “pogrom in action.”
Horrified by the attacks tonight in Amsterdam, which are terribly reminiscent of a classic pogrom. I am also deeply disturbed by how long the reported attacks lasted and call on the government to conduct a thorough investigation into security force intervention and on how these…
— Ambassador Deborah Lipstadt (@StateSEAS) November 8, 2024
The leader of the Netherlands’ far-right Party for Freedom, Geert Wilders, denounced the incident on social media. Wilders, a hard-right populist known for crusading against Islam and immigrants, led his party to success in last year’s national elections.
“Looks like a Jew hunt in the streets of Amsterdam,” Wilders tweeted. “Arrest and deport the multicultural scum that attacked Maccabi Tel Aviv supporters in our streets. Ashamed that this can happen in The Netherlands. Totally unacceptable.”
There were signs that the events would resound internationally. Rep. Brad Sherman, a Jewish Democrat from Illinois, tweeted that he and other Jewish members of Congress would be discussing the Amsterdam violence on Friday with the Dutch ambassador.
JTA contributed to this report.
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