Claims of Anti-Jewish “Pogrom” Are a Lie

Operation Amsterdam: Zionist Soccer
Hooligans Stage Racist Rampage

Screenshot from video of “fans” of Israel soccer team Maccabis charging across downtown street in Amsterdam, Netherlands to beat someone in the early hours of November 8. The imperialist press lyingly used this image as supposed proof of an antisemitic mob attacking Israelis (see images below). (Photo: iAnnet / X)

NOVEMBER 12 – On Friday, November 8, “mainstream” media around the world exploded with a story of supposed “antisemitic attacks” on Israeli football fans in Amsterdam, Netherlands: “Violent Attacks in Amsterdam Tied to Antisemitism,” (New York Times), “Antisemitic Attacks in Amsterdam Prompt Tight Security at Jewish Sites” (Wall Street Journal), “Israeli football fans attacked by pro-Palestine mob in Amsterdam” (Telegraph [London]), and in the German tabloid Bild, “‘The Hunt for Jews Has Broken Out Again’.” The Israeli press labeled the incidents a pogrom, recalling murderous attacks on Jews in tsarist Russia and Nazi Germany: “The Mossad warned of a threat in the Netherlands ahead of the pogrom” (Jerusalem Post), “Israel decries ‘pogrom’ in Amsterdam as soccer fans come under attack by rioters” (Times of Israel).

The pièce de résistance (showpiece) supposedly illustrating this was a video that indeed showed a mob hunting and attacking defenseless individuals. But what the video actually showed was the exact opposite of what has been claimed: the attackers were actually rioting Israeli “fans” of the Maccabi Tel Aviv soccer team, chanting anti-Palestine slogans, charging at and beating Arab local residents. There were no antisemitic mobs attacking Jews on November 7-8, there was no antisemitic pogrom. What there was, was an organized rampaging mob of Zionist hooligans marauding through central Amsterdam, tearing down Palestinian flags, spewing out racist filth, brandishing metal rods and makeshift clubs, throwing rocks at passers-by and buildings, threatening and assaulting Amsterdamers. And throughout this, they were escorted and protected by the police, who even led them to buildings with Palestinian flags.

This whole operation was a set-up from the beginning, taking the war on Gaza to Europe in order to provoke opposition from defenders of the Palestinians, which could then be portrayed as antisemitic. It was reported beforehand that Mossad (Israeli intelligence agency) agents would be accompanying the Maccabi Tel Aviv team and its fans to Amsterdam for a soccer match with a local Dutch team, Ajax, even though Dutch authorities found no specific threats.¹ Once the “Maccabi Fanatics” (the “fans’” own term) – 3,000 of them – arrived in Amsterdam they immediately began congregating in huge groups of hundreds roaming around the city center. Many were reservists in the Israeli military (IDF), clearly in good shape physically, some no doubt recently back from participating in the genocidal war on the Palestinian people of Gaza.

More lies: What the photo actually shows is Maccabi Tel Aviv Zionist fanatics celebrating Gaza genocide in Dam Square, Amsterdam, on November 6. (Screenshot from ITV)

On Wednesday, November 6, the Maccabi hooligans rallied at the city’s Dam Square, where a video captures a large crowd jumping up and down singing, and assaulting a person with a bicycle who got into an argument with them. The cops detain the victim while the hooligans chant “Olé, olé. Let the IDF win. We will f**k the Arabs.” That evening, the Maccabis tear down and burn a Palestinian flag, throwing rocks at windows and chanting “F**k you, Palestine.” Residents reported that the thugs tried to enter the building where the flag was hung, saying, “We’re going to kill you and we will come back.”² An Arab taxi driver was assaulted (as confirmed by the police), which led drivers (many of them Arabs) to mobilize in protest against hundreds of Maccabi supporters massed at a casino, but the cops blocked them.

Maccabi hooligans tearing down Palestinian flag on November 6. Another video of the same scene shows a police car passing by, while a crowd stood around chanting, and doing nothing to stop this vandalism. The next night, Maccabis tore down more Palestinian flags.
(Screenshot from Middle East Eye video)

The next day, Thursday, November 7, the authorities banned any protests near the soccer stadium, corralling a pro-Palestinian demonstration at the Amsterdam’s Anton de Kom Square, some blocks away. (Anton de Kom was an anti-colonialist communist from the former Dutch colony of Surinam and fighter in the Dutch resistance movement who died in a Nazi concentration camp.) The media later announced that 62 people were arrested that day, all detained when the pro-Palestinian protestors tried to march, long before the soccer match. On the way to the stadium, the Maccabi hooligans repeated their racist chants, including, “There are no schools in Gaza because there are no children left.” Once inside, they disrupted a minute of silence for flood victims in Spain, because the Spanish government has formally recognized a Palestinian state.

After the match, there was some skirmishing. The imperialist press showed snippets of videos with a chaotic swirl of images of two or three or four individuals being threatened, attacked and kicked while lying on the pavement. Five people were reportedly hospitalized, but quickly released, and about 20-30 “suffered light injuries, police said” (AP, 8 November). There are no videos or photos or any evidence at all of crowds of Arabs confronting Israelis, or of pro-Palestinian protesters, or taxi drivers or any other group now being blamed for the non-existent pogrom, only several handfuls of youth lashing out and then running off. Such acts of individual revenge against random Israelis will, course, achieve nothing for the embattled people of Gaza, and instead are being used by the imperialists and Zionists to discredit Palestinian solidarity protests.

Supporters of Israeli soccer team Maccabi Tel Aviv displaying club and Israeli flags in Dam Square, November 7. Maccabi “fans” attacked a pro-Palestinian activist in Greece last March, and have attacked anti-Netanyahu protesters in Israel. (Photo: AFP)

But that is not the whole story, or even the main story – not by far.

The next day, Friday, November 8, Amsterdam mayor Femke Alsema labeled “boys on scooters” as “antisemitic hit-and-run squads,” grotesquely saying this “brings back the memory of pogroms.” Even more obscenely, Israel’s genocidal war criminal prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu compared the events to Kristallnacht, the 10 November 1938 pogrom in Nazi Germany. In that “night of broken glass,” frequently cited as the start of the Holocaust, 91 Jews were killed and 30,000 Jewish men were arrested and sent to concentration camps. In fact, the anti-Zionist Jewish organization Erev Rav and the Stop Racism and Fascism Platform had to call off their scheduled Kristallnacht commemoration because “the mayor and police of Amsterdam allowed Israeli Zionists to wreak havoc, burn Palestinian flags, wish death to ‘Arabs’ and mistreat taxi drivers.”

While media reports regurgitated handouts from the police and Israeli embassy, lyingly portraying a video of Maccabi thugs attacking people as supposedly showing an antisemitic mob, the photographer who took that video, Annet de Graaf, posted an online letter (which quickly went viral) to CNN, BBC, the London Guardian and New York Times, calling on them to publish an apology and a correction.³ They did not reply, although the Times later correctly described the video (and took it down so readers could not see it). Fortunately, there is an extensive (17-minute) video from a perceptive brash young (16-year-old) reporter on his YouTube channel “Bender,” which vividly shows the reality (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ySHIOYyJ95A&t=450s, with excellent English captioning). We urge our readers to watch it.

Screenshot from Bender video showing Maccabi “fans” marauding through Amsterdam in early morning hours of November 8, throwing paving stones and attacking bystanders.

Accompanied by a cameraman, “Bender” follows the hooligans on the night of November 7-8 from the stadium to the central train station, where they march through downtown Amsterdam. He shows them ripping down yet another Palestinian flag, and arming themselves with metal pipes and wooden slats, while the Amsterdam police stand by. He notes that this crew acts very differently from the fans of local clubs, that they are very organized, moving in groups of 100 or more; his video shows them being briefed by an obvious leader, and he notes that many of them are presumably soldiers or ex-soldiers. He also shows how the much-maligned taxi drivers were only able to honk their horns in protest against the Maccabi marauders. And the Bender footage shows even more close up how they charged across a street to beat someone.

Strikingly, even though their team, Tel Aviv Maccabi, lost 5-0 to Ajax, these “fans” are not at all dejected but energized. They are there on a mission to provoke. The Israeli press barrage about alleged knifings, attempts to run over Israelis with cars, Israelis cowering under siege in their hotels, etc., are without evidence, and the report of kidnappings was refuted almost as soon as it was issued by the conservative daily De Telegraaf (8 November). The Zionist state got full cooperation from the Netherlands in this propaganda ploy, of course. The right-wing Dutch government, which includes the fascistic PVV (Party of Freedom) of the Muslim-bashing racist demagogue Geert Wilders, wants to tear up refugee rights and maybe deport Africans to Uganda. It wants to implement Wilders’ program, while for appearances’ sake, not giving him a cabinet post (for now).

Prime Minister Dick Schoof is also seeking to overturn a court order blocking the Netherlands from sending F-35 fighter plane parts to Israel, and the government announced anti-immigrant police checks at the border starting on November 11. More insidious was the avid participation of Amsterdam’s mayor Halsema, a supposed “liberal” from the GroenLinks (Green/Left) party, in the “pogrom” frame-up. And the king of the Netherlands, parrot of the racist regime, drew a parallel with the fate of Dutch Jews in World War II. He wasn’t praising the Dutch workers’  strike of February 1941⁴ against the Nazi deportations, but rather was providing window-dressing for support to Zionist genocide in Gaza. Against the pro-Zionist consensus, it was left to Amsterdam city councilor Jazie Veldhuyzen (from the small leftist De Vonk [The Spark] group) to insist in multiple interviews that the inhabitants of the city were responding to racist provocations.

This photo, portrayed as rioters attacking Israeli “fans” after July 7 Maccabi-Ajax soccer match in Amsterdam actually shows pro-Palestinian marchers being chased by police before the match.  (Photo: Jeroen Jumelet/EPA)

Not all media joined the orchestrated chorus covering up the organized Israeli provocation with false claims about “antisemitic attacks.” Al Jazeera (8 November) quoted Veldhuyzen saying the police “acted only to protect the Maccabi hooligans when Amsterdammers stood up to defend their own people and defend their own houses.” It also ran a video of analyst Ori Goldberg from Israel saying that when “Israeli fans riot and rampage in Amsterdam, sing racist songs … tear down Palestinian flags,” there is a sense of impunity and “complete rejection of the notion that actions have consequences.” Middle East Eye (8 November) headlined that “Israeli hooligans provoke clashes in Amsterdam,” and “Israeli football hooligans bring culture of genocide to Amsterdam,” adding that this reflects “a society that celebrates mass slaughter.” It certainly does.

Yes, there were some expressions of antisemitism on November 7/8 in Amsterdam – for example, as bystanders chanted kankerjood (“cancer Jew”) as a Maccabi supporter was chased into a canal – which Marxist internationalists resolutely oppose. But it is the horrific Israeli genocide in Gaza – and its deadly occupation of the West Bank, terrorist war on Lebanon, etc. – that is breeding antisemitism. When mobs of thugs glory in the killing of 45,000 Palestinians by the official count of Gaza health authorities, 70% of them women and children, mostly in air strikes on residential buildings, while medical teams from the U.S. who have visited the enclave put the number of dead at almost 100,000 – this has consequences. Striking back at the Maccabi marauders, even attacking a few of them individually, is an understandable reaction of impotence and rage in the face of an unspeakable crime. And the Zionists’ identifying opposition to the Gaza genocide as antisemitic, and equating the Israeli state with Jewish people in general, can only aid genuine antisemitism.

Supporters of Israeli soccer team Maccabi Tel Aviv displaying maga banner in Dam Square, Amsterdam, Nov..  6. (Screenshot from Football Culture video)

For all the cynical propaganda about a supposed “antisemitic pogrom” in Amsterdam, the police reported no (as in zero) attacks on Dutch Jews and no (zero) attacks on synagogues. While some agency dug up a call on a Telegram group for a “Jew hunt,” that is not what occurred. What actually happened was summed up by the Amsterdam for Palestine group on Instagram: “When people stand up against genocide and want to speak out against the zionist state of Israhell, @burgemeesterfemkehalsema chooses to silence them and sends the riot police against demonstrators while IDF and the Mossad are given free rein in the city of Amsterdam.” Days later, the Zionist provocateurs are gone, but pro-Palestinian protests there are still banned.

The League for the Fourth International calls for an Arab/Hebrew Palestinian workers state in a socialist federation of the Middle East. Breaking the murderous yoke of Zionist oppression requires a joint struggle of Arabs and Jews for a workers revolution, led by an authentically communist vanguard, to overthrow the religious-based, anti-democratic capitalist state of Israel. That may be difficult to imagine today amid the carnage and war hysteria that has seized Israeli Zionists, of both the “liberal” and fascistic “ultra” kind, but it is the only road to liberation of all the oppressed. Otherwise, while Israeli leaders seek to set off a general Middle Eastern war, the Zionist enterprise may become, in the warning words of Leon Trotsky some 85 years ago, a “bloody trap” for Jews⁵ – and a holocaust for Arabs and other peoples in the region.

Maccabi “fans” celebrate in Tel Aviv airport upon return to Israel, again chanting “There are no schools in Gaza because there are no children left.” (Photo: Thomas Peter / Reuters)

“Operation Amsterdam” – which is what this whole affair really is – was a Zionist psychological warfare ploy. Three thousand militarily organized Israeli men, complete with Mossad minders, showing up in a European country roiled with ethnic conflict, rampaging in disciplined mobs through the city attacking anything and anybody identified with Palestine, is not a bunch of soccer fans off on a jaunt who happen to run amok. They were on a mission, to provoke a reaction that could then be used to line up racist political forces to expel Muslim immigrants, even as the Zionist military are doing in Gaza (and fascistic settlers are itching to do in the West Bank). It was all about bringing the Gaza war to Europe.

This underscores the crucial importance of mobilizing mass opposition in the imperialist centers to the U.S./Israel war. As we have stressed, without U.S. military supplies (and the complicity of other NATO countries), the genocide now underway would not be possible.⁶ The mass murder and deliberate starvation of the Arab population of Gaza continues. It is vital that the youth protests of this past spring spread to the working class, which has the power to put a stop to this monstrous crime. The focus must not only be against the Israeli Zionist war criminals but above all against the imperialist rulers, who have murdered over one million people in their Middle East wars since 2001, from Afghanistan and Iraq to Yemen, and are still at it in Gaza.

As Trotsky, the co-leader of the Russian October 1917 Revolution wrote 85 years ago, salvation for the peoples of the region is “bound up inseparably with the overthrow of the capitalist system.” ■

To contact the Internationalist Group and the League for the Fourth International, send e-mail to: internationalistgroup@msn.com

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