Who attacked Israelis in Amsterdam? Some Dutch politicians can’t bring themselves to say
Victims, Israeli officials, some Dutch leaders blamed local Arab and Muslim gangs; others in Holland refer to ‘youths on scooters’ and ‘taxi drivers,’ highlight Israeli hooliganism
AMSTERDAM, Netherlands — As the controversy over references to the religion and ethnicity of the scores of mostly young people who attacked Maccabi Tel Aviv soccer fans in Amsterdam on November 7 rocks the nation and even threatened to bring down the ruling coalition on Friday, two political debates on the subject were held in the past few days — one in the capital and one in the seat of parliament.
The first debate, dominated by left-wing parties, was held in the Amsterdam city council on Tuesday. The other took place the following day in the Second Chamber, the main body of the Dutch national parliament in The Hague.
In Amsterdam’s city hall (dubbed the Stopera, since it doubles as an opera house), with the help of center-left, far-left, and Islamist parties, Mayor Femke Halsema easily survived a no-confidence vote requested by right-wing opposition party JA21.
At that debate, the religious and ethnic backgrounds of the youths who attacked Israeli fans in the streets of the Dutch capital were mentioned only by a handful of center-right and right-leaning council members. There were frequent references, however, to genocide in Gaza and Islamophobia as causes for the unrest in the capital — though no Muslims were targeted in Amsterdam before, during, or after the attacks.
Israeli officials said 10 people were injured in the November 7 violence carried out by local Arab and Muslim gangs against Maccabi Tel Aviv fans, after a soccer match in the city. Hundreds more Israelis huddled in their hotels for hours, fearing they could be attacked. Many said that Dutch security forces were nowhere to be found, as the Israeli tourists were ambushed by gangs of masked assailants who shouted pro-Palestinian and anti-Israel slogans while they hunted, beat and harassed them.
One councilwoman, Nilad Ahmadi of the far-left and staunchly anti-Zionist party Vonk (meaning “Spark”), blamed Israel’s Mossad intelligence agency for the violence.
Overall, even though some council members warned against open antisemitism and were apprehensive about the fate of Dutch Jews, the blame was squarely shifted toward purported Maccabi Tel Aviv hooligans. This fits the narrative of the country’s major newspapers and television stations in the last few days, as well as remarks by Amsterdam police chief Peter Holla.
Similarly, a preliminary police timeline extensively referred to the “provocations” of Maccabi Tel Aviv supporters — most notably the removal of a Palestinian flag from the façade of a house in Amsterdam’s city center and the chanting of racist slogans including “Fuck the Arabs” on the way to the game versus local club Ajax.
Since the October 7, 2023, Hamas-led massacre in southern Israel and subsequent conflict in Gaza, desecrating Israeli flags at protests has become a common occurrence in the Dutch capital.
The emphasis on provocations, hate speech, and violence on the Israeli side is in stark contrast with initial reports by the mayor and local law enforcement. These clearly laid the blame on those who were labeled “youths on scooters” and “taxi drivers” who carried out “hit-and-run” attacks on individuals or small groups of Maccabi Tel Aviv supporters.
These terms are widely seen as euphemisms that avoid mentioning the ethnic or religious background of the perpetrators of the violence, or the scale and organization of what many in the Dutch-Jewish community have dubbed a “pogrom.”
“I don’t think their mode of transportation or job description is the defining aspect of these groups,” Kevin Kreuger, a council member for JA21, told The Times of Israel. “There was clearly an Islamic motive behind the attacks.”
Kreuger lamented the unwillingness to name the attackers by their background and motive, which he described as “Jew-hatred driven by Islam.”
“Everybody saw the videos, heard the attackers speak Arabic. It’s like they are a group we need to feel sorry for and protect,” Kreuger said.
Meanwhile, back at The Hague
The debate in the Dutch parliament concentrated on rising antisemitism within the country’s sizeable Muslim minority and the radical left, as progressive parties blamed “extreme right-wing provocations” for the violence rocking the capital.
Dilan Yesilgoz, leader of the center-right liberal party, brings a unique perspective to the events in Amsterdam. She served as justice and security minister under former prime minister Mark Rutte, fought antisemitism as an MP, and started her political career on the Amsterdam city council.
Yesilgoz was born in Ankara and is the daughter of Turkish immigrants. Like Kreuger, she noticed a tendency among left-leaning parties to avoid mentioning the ethnic or religious background of the attackers of November 7.
“It’s bad enough that Jewish institutions like schools and synagogues need to be protected, but now youths are demanding to see citizens’ papers to check if they are Israeli or Jewish. If they are, they get beaten up,” Yesilgoz told The Times of Israel.
“This is an absolute low point for Amsterdam and an example of bad integration of migrants into Dutch society. The attackers were probably of Moroccan background, and police are investigating this,” she claimed.
Yesilgoz said such tiptoeing around identity has been a frustrating experience throughout her career.
“I can speak freely about antisemitism among the extreme left and right, but as soon as I mention Islam as a motive, everybody freezes up and starts talking about exclusion and Islamophobia,” said Yesilgoz. “But how can you fight the problem if you’re not allowed to talk about it?”
Moroccan-born Nora Achahbar quit on Friday as junior finance minister after prominent ministers accused Dutch youths of Moroccan descent of attacking the Israeli fans, local media NOS cited sources in the cabinet session as saying. “Achahbar reportedly indicated then that she, as a minister, had objections to certain language used by her colleagues,” NOS stated.
The new center-right Dutch government has, however, announced that it wants to treat violent antisemitic assaults as terrorism, which under Dutch law makes it possible to strip the perpetrators of their Dutch citizenship as long as they own a passport from a different country. This can have an impact on the country’s many Moroccan immigrants and even their children and grandchildren.
Wheels of justice begin to turn
On Tuesday night, the images of five youths who “committed the most serious violence” during the attacks were shown on Dutch television for the first time — albeit with their faces blurred to give them a chance to come forward on their own.
Two were subsequently taken into custody; unblurred pictures of the other three were then made public by the police.
Dutch police said Sunday they were probing 45 people for violent crimes in relation to the attacks, with nine of them already identified and arrested.
It became clear very soon after the attacks that their instigation was to a large extent premeditated, as messages in several WhatsApp groups associated with the attackers instigated violence, even describing a “Jew hunt.”
Even before November 7, street gangs of largely third-generation Moroccan immigrants were notoriously quick to commit acts of violence against police, members of the LGBTQ community, and occasionally what is known in the Netherlands as “visible Jews” (Dutch links). Because there are few ultra-Orthodox Jews in the Netherlands, verbal and physical violence is often directed at rabbis, who can be recognized as Jewish by their mode of dress.
Unlike the Islamist perpetrators of terror from earlier in the century — most infamously Mohammed Bouyeri, the murderer of Islam-critic Theo van Gogh — these current street gangs are generally not politically educated or especially religious (Dutch link). Preliminary reports do not indicate any foreign hand in the violence, and it is not expected that investigations will find a sophisticated level of organization or financing for the attacks.
However, the ongoing war in Gaza has likely only increased antisemitism that, according to several research projects (Dutch link) over the last few decades, is much more common in Muslim families than in other Dutch religious and ethnic groups.
Many Moroccan households receive their news on the Israel-Hamas conflict through satellite television stations in North Africa and the Middle East. Teachers in the Netherlands’s bigger cities often find it difficult to speak neutrally about the wars in Gaza and Lebanon to their Muslim students, who in some areas of Amsterdam form a majority in their classrooms.
Although the city was home to the famous young Holocaust diarist Anne Frank before she perished at the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp in Germany, history teachers frequently find themselves unable to teach lessons on the Holocaust because of racist and sometimes aggressive reactions by their students.
Local Jews next?
David Beesemer, chairman of Maccabi Netherlands and Europe, says Dutch Jews are “gravely concerned” that they will be targeted next.
“Now that there are no Israelis to hunt in Amsterdam, what will stop this horde from marching into Buitenveldert?” he asked, referring to an affluent Amsterdam suburb with a large number of Jews.
Beesemer was one of the community leaders who overnight on November 7-8 organized “rescue missions” to evacuate stranded Israelis from the city center and take them to safe houses and the airport, where they were repatriated by planes that were especially sent from Israel.
“Every day we are contacted by scared members of the community who feel like they are living a nightmare,” said Beesemer. “Community leaders are trying to keep a brave face, but the pressure on Dutch Jews is enormous. The day after the ‘hunt,’ hateful protests continued, as did the Gestapo-like ID-checks and assaults.”
Even as late as Wednesday last week, Dutch police detained 281 anti-Israel, pro-Palestinian protesters rallying in central Amsterdam in defiance of a ban imposed after violence against Israeli soccer fans. Dozens of demonstrators, some with Palestinian flags, chanted “Amsterdam is saying no to genocide” and “Free Palestine.”
“It’s a disgrace that the city of Anne Frank has become world news because of violent antisemitism and the city council’s priority seems to be to blame Israelis or the government in The Hague,” said Yesilgoz, leader of the center-right liberal party. “Damn it, I’m a citizen of Amsterdam. Show me you can and want to guarantee my safety. Show us at least that you care.”
With contributions from Agencies.
