Coordinated anti-Israel riots in Amsterdam were fueled by social-media, probes find
Two local inquiries point to social media, lack of public information as contributing factors to violent, coordinated attacks on Israeli tourists after soccer game last November
Social media posts coupled with a lack of official information fueled the violent, coordinated attacks on Israeli soccer fans across Amsterdam last year, two local inquiries into the events said in reports Monday.
Dozens were arrested and five people were treated in hospitals after a series of violent overnight incidents following a November 7, 2024, soccer game between the Dutch team Ajax and Maccabi Tel Aviv.
Organized through WhatsApp groups, local Arab and Muslim gangs attacked Israeli soccer fans and searched and demanded identification from passersby to see if they were either Israeli or Jewish, while speaking on WhatsApp of a “Jew hunt.”
Israeli officials said 10 people were injured in the violence, while hundreds more Israelis huddled in their hotels for hours, fearing they could be attacked.
The attacks followed two days of skirmishes that also saw Maccabi fans chant anti-Arab songs, vandalize a taxi and burn a Palestinian flag.
“The events have left their mark on the city and led to fear, anger and sadness,” Amsterdam Mayor Femke Halsema wrote in a letter to the city council on Monday, presenting one of the reports.
The Rotterdam-based Institute for Safety and Crisis Management, tasked by the Amsterdam government to investigate the response to the violence, said the lack of official communication from the city allowed rumors on social media to flourish.
It noted that there was little to no official communication during the early hours of November 8, in part because the situation was so unclear.
In a separate report, the inspectorate for the Justice Ministry concluded that the police were prepared for large-scale demonstrations, not the “flash attacks” perpetrated across the city and sparked by social media.
“Calls and images spread rapidly, reinforce existing tensions and can lead to group formation and confrontations on the street within a short period of time,” the 57-page report found.
Both reports cautioned that even with improved communication, the authorities still could not have fully controlled the rapidly spreading violence.
The Justice Ministry’s report noted that “incidents, such as the removal of a Palestinian flag by Maccabi supporters, were shared, interpreted and magnified within minutes.”
More than a dozen people have been charged in connection with the violence against Israelis and several have already been convicted and sentenced to prison terms ranging from 11 days to six months.
Over the weekend, the public prosecution service announced it had dropped investigations into several Maccabi supporters because the city’s tram company, GVB, had deleted footage which could have been used as evidence.
The company replaced recording equipment at two metro stations in Amsterdam after the attacks and footage from the night was lost.
The Times of Israel Community.