Amsterdam--What really happened? A lot of people don't want to know.

There was an ugly eruption of anti-Semitic attacks against Israelis in Amsterdam last week. That was the story.  Neat and tidy. Once again, Jews are the innocent victims of rabid anti-Semites in Europe. Attacked just for being Jews. Watch out, Israelis, if you go to Amsterdam or many other European cities.

But before you jump to easy conclusions…

The story is far more complex and less clear-cut than most media would have you believe. It’s a story that is as much about the murderous state of mind of many Israelis today as it is about anti-Semitism in Europe. Truth be told, the violence should be as deeply embarrassing to Israel as it is to Holland.

But the truth isn’t being told.  At least not by many Dutch and Israeli officials—as well as many of the mainstream media.

The problem began with a scheduled match on October 31 between a Dutch soccer team, Ajax, and an Israel team, The Maccabees. When they play outside Israel, the Maccabees are often accompanied by fervid supporters, hundreds of whom have gained the status of “football hooligans,” with a reputation for enjoying a good nationalist brawl as much as a brilliant winning goal. Many of them have served in the Israeli Defense Forces and thus played a direct role in the horrific slaughter being carried out in Gaza following the brutal Hamas attack of October 7, 2023.

The threat of racial strife, if those fervid Israelis came to Amsterdam, couldn’t have been more explicit.  About ten percent of the population of Amsterdam are  Muslims. The majority are of Moroccan and Turkish descent. For the past year, the horrific images of Gaza and the West Bank have filled their social media. Their anger towards Israel –and those who support that country—has only grown. What else would one expect?

There have been hundreds of pro-Palestinian protests. One occurred at the opening of a new Holocaust memorial in Amsterdam. What was the symbolism, the demonstrators asked, of opening a new Museum to commemorate the slaughter of Jews when Jews were in the process of slaughtering Arabs?

As the date for the football match between the Maccabees and Ajax approached, a few leaders in the Netherlands suggested calling off or postponing the game. The mayor decided to proceed.

On the eve of the game, Amsterdam was like a gas-filled room. Maccabee hooligans tossed in the match.

Their brutal arrogance and appalling racism were, in many ways, the mirror-image of the Nazis who once terrorized their ancestors.,

In one particularly terrifying moment on Thursday before the game, a mob of Maccabee supporters, protected by the Amsterdam police, descended an escalator, jabbing their hands into the air as they screamed in unison one of their favorite chants.

“Death to the Arabs

 Ole ole!

Ole ole!

Let the IDF  (Israeli Defense Forces) Win

And fuck the Arabs!”

At another time, they added.

“Ole ole!

Ole ole!

Why is school out in Gaza?

Because there are no more children left.”

Forbidden to protest, enraged residents of Amsterdam looked on helplessly.

The night before, some of the Israeli fans had roamed downtown Amsterdam insulting and threatening people who were wearing Kaffiyehs, scaling a building to tear down a Palestinian flag, and assaulting a Moroccan cab driver who had taken a picture of them with his cell phone. They continued their obscene chanting at the game after the announcer asked for a minute of silence in honor of the hundreds of flood victims in Spain.

It was after the game that roaming bands—probably organized on social media set about roaming the streets, looking for Israelis to beat up. Fifteen people were injured, five of them hospitalized. Over the next few days, Dutch authorities arrested more than fifty people. The unrest continues.

The violent attacks were condemned as anti-Semitic by the mayor of Amsterdam; the Dutch premier said he was “horrified.”

U.S. President Biden described them as "despicable" and said they "echo dark moments in history when Jews were persecuted. The United United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres was shocked.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was livid, comparing what happened in Amsterdam to the Nazi's massive pogrom of Kristallnacht in November 1938.  He dispatched three planes to bring the menaced Israeli supporters safely back home. Israel, he vowed, would protect Jews not only in Israel but wherever they are.

When the first groups of Israeli hooligans returned, they doubled down on their arrogance and unrepentant racism for the benefit of the waiting supporters and cameras, bravely chanting.

 “Death to the Arab

Let the IDF win,

Fuck the Arabs.”

Question: What would the world’s reaction be to gangs of young men storming through the streets of a European (or American) city screaming,

 “Death to the Jews!’

“Fuck the Jews.”

And these are not just any young men. Most, as I said, have been—or still are— members of the Israeli Defense Forces. Over the past year, they have put those horrific chants into deadly action. Even gloating at the fact they have managed to kill so many children.”

Now, all this presented a problem to major Western media. Their problem is when it comes to reporting on Israel, they are incredibly leery of criticizing the Zionist State. So, if they can avoid it, they don’t. Accounts of what happened in Amsterdam, led with the images of Israeli football fans fleeing through the streets of Amsterdam, attacked by gangs of “anti-Semitic gangs on foot and motor scooters. Then came the abject apologies of various political leaders and the outrage of Bibi Netanyahu.

The stories were vague on facts, particularly on the racist taunts of the Israeli hooligans.  It took Britain’s SKY News several days of putting up reports, then taking them down before they finally wound up with a precariously balanced version.

You had to wade through twelve paragraphs of the New York Times report to find any mention of the racist taunts of the Israeli hooligans:

“Tensions had risen a day earlier, when Israeli fans vandalized a taxi, burned a Palestinian flag in the city and chanted incendiary and racist slogans, according to the police.”

The Times did not quote those incendiary and racist slogans. 

Nor did most of the Israeli media. They know their audience.

The fact is that a considerable number of Israelis and their supporters abroad don’t want to know the truth. They don’t want to know the horrors of what Israel is doing day after day in Gaza, in the West Bank, and in Southern Lebanon.

Don’t tell us. Just get it done.

They don’t want to recognize how twisted the minds of their young soldiers have become.

They don’t want to understand the upsurge in anti-Israel feelings around the world.

Over the years, many different Israeli military and civilian leaders have warned that Israel, which was established to save the Jews in the Diaspora from anti-Semitism, may—by its ill-conceived actions— turn out to be the greatest promoter of anti-Semitism on the planet.

There must have been plenty of Mossad agents in Amsterdam if only to provide routine protection to the visiting Israeli football team. Certainly, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had to know what happened, the provocative role played by the Maccabees supporters.

But, as I wrote in a previous substack, Netanyahu has never been one for choosing truth when lies will do the job far more effectively.

As of this evening, Amsterdam is still seething. One of the things that particularly outrage the Arab population and their supporters is the dishonest fashion in which the whole sorry affair has been interpreted by the world and most of their own country’s leaders.

Meanwhile, in the wake of the Amsterdam violence, Israeli citizens have been advised not to attend sports and cultural events abroad.