(Photo by Images George Rex via Flickr/CC BY-NC-SA 2.0)
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On the night of November 7th, supporters of football club Maccabi Tel Aviv clashed with Amsterdam residents in a violent event described as a “gitzwarte nacht” (pitch black night) for the city. The Maccabi supporters stole and burned Palestinian flags and cheered that there were “no children left in Gaza.” The Amsterdammers, many of North African or Arab descent, reacted to this by targeting them for their Israeli nationality in violent altercations and hit-and-run incidents.
Dutch politicians and the media reacted to these events by emphasizing the Islamic background of many of the perpetrators and depicting the Maccabi supporters as blameless victims of antisemitism. The mayor of Amsterdam, Femke Halsema, described the night as reminiscent of a ‘pogrom.’ Although there were examples of antisemitic behaviour, the anger being acted upon by the Dutch perpetrators was overwhelmingly anti-zionist in nature, a distinction Dutch politicians (and politicians around the world) fail to make.
This misuse and overuse of the term ‘antisemitism’ is being used as a way to further the Netherlands’ right-wing government’s Islamophobic agenda and is putting the country’s Jewish communities in danger in the process.
November 7th
On Thursday, the 7th of November, Israeli football team Maccabi Tel Aviv was scheduled to play against Ajax Amsterdam in the Europa League. Roughly 2,500 Israeli supporters flew to Amsterdam to watch. Tensions in the city started to rise the day before the match, with pro-Palestine protesters graffiti-ing the Ajax stadium and Maccabi hooligans tearing down and burning a Palestinian flag in the city center while chanting nationalistic, anti-Arab slogans. As a result, Mayor Halsema considered banning the match but ultimately decided to allow it to continue. However, she moved a pro-Palestine protest, scheduled in front of the Ajax stadium, to a square further away.
The tensions only grew from there. On Thursday, a large crowd of Maccabi supporters gathered on the central Dam square with fireworks and torches, clashing with pro-Palestine protesters. Police arrested ten people for disrupting public order. From here, the supporters moved to the Ajax stadium, chanting “Death to Arabs” and “Let the Israeli military win, f*ck the Arabs” on the way.
After the game, which Ajax won 5-0, violence erupted in the city center. Maccabi supporters and Amsterdammers, often of North African or Arab descent, clashed, with the Amsterdammers using heavy fireworks and hitting people with scooters and e-bikes. The attacks were targeted and anti-zionist in nature—Amsterdammers started checking people’s passports to determine Israeli nationality. They dragged one man into a canal and was not allowed to leave until he yelled, “Free Palestine.” During these attacks, antisemitic language was also used, with groups on Telegram describing their plans as a “Jew Hunt.”
Recordings also showed Maccabi supporters yelling pro-Israel chants and using metal rods and planks they found at a construction site as weapons. Over the course of the day and night, five people were hospitalized, and thirty were lightly injured. Sixty-two people were arrested.
The Initial Reaction
The night was chaotic and disorganized for the police and the city administrators. In a news brief the following morning, Mayor Halsema described the event as “reprehensible” – a “pitch black night.” With this, she specifically meant the actions against the Tel Aviv supporters. She considered the perpetrators “hateful, antisemitic rioters and criminals” who attacked “Jewish, Israeli visitors” on a night that “brings back memories of pogroms.” She gave no mention to the violence perpetrated by the Maccabi hooligans or to the difference between antisemitism and anti-zionism.
The Dutch king, Willem-Alexander, carried on a similar sentiment, saying that “antisemitism should never be tolerated on our streets” and that “we let the Jewish community down during World War II, and here we did again.” He, too, did not mention the hateful language used by the Maccabi supporters against the Arab community in Amsterdam.
The Prime Minister also described the events as “completely unacceptable antisemitic attacks on Israeli people,” and Geert Wilders, the chair of the PVV, the largest political party in the Netherlands, went so far as to depict the events as “Muslims with Palestinian flags hunting Jews.”
Prime Minister Netanyahu reacted to the evening with outrage, sending two planes to the Netherlands to “help citizens.” He condemned the events as “antisemitic” and aligned himself with Halsema in calling them reminiscent of pogroms. He, too, of course, did not mention the thuggish actions perpetrated by the Maccabi supporters.
The Overuse of “Antisemitism”
‘Antisemitism’ is an extremely loaded term because it not only labels actions or words as discriminatory or racist, but it also carries historical guilt from Western countries over the Holocaust.
The International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) defines antisemitism as “a certain perception of Jews, which may be expressed as hatred toward Jews. Rhetorical and physical manifestations of antisemitism are directed toward Jewish or non-Jewish individuals and/or their property, toward Jewish community institutions and religious facilities.”
However, the definition becomes contentious when put into practice, with the IHRA also considering accusing the State of Israel of racism antisemitic because it “denies the Jewish people the right to self-determination.” This line renders antisemitism, hatred toward the Jewish people, and anti-zionism, which is disagreement with Israel’s colonialist policies, indistinguishable.
Another important line in the IHRA’s working definition, however, is that “holding Jews collectively responsible for the actions of the state of Israel” is antisemitic. Keeping this definition in mind, I would like to argue that the rioters going on a Jew Hunt were not the only ones guilty of antisemitic actions, but that we could also consider the Dutch reaction to the events of November 7th antisemitic.
Israel’s Actions do not Represent all Jewish People
Although its roots and the Zionist project go back further, Israel was conceived as a state after WWII as a home for the Jewish people who had experienced genocide and discrimination during the war. As such, some of its founders envisioned it as a safe haven for anyone of Jewish heritage and portrays itself as such.
However, Israel is also a political entity, with both domestic and foreign policies that its elected leaders decide. The duality of the Israeli state, as both a home for Jewish people and a country like any other, cannot be understated. The state’s goal at its conception was legitimacy, and legitimate states must be held accountable for their actions.
To equate criticism or protest against Israel with antisemitism is to consider Israel representative of Jewish people around the world. And if Israel represents all Jewish people, then all Jewish people agree with Israel’s policies. This simply is not true and stands in the way of the right to self-determination of Jewish people in Israel and abroad. As a result, it is very important that governments actively distinguish between the two.
By overusing the term ‘antisemitism’ or using it as a blanket term to describe any dissatisfaction toward or protest against Israel, politicians and the media are conflating Israel as a state with Judaism as a religion and ethnicity. The overuse, in turn, puts Jewish communities in danger because the public is more likely to assume that all Jewish people agree with Israel’s policies and will turn on them as a result, examples of which were evident on November 7th. Ironically, by over-defending their Jewish communities, politicians are turning them into a public enemy.
Islamophobic Agenda
I do not believe that the end goal of the Dutch government is to villainize their Jewish communities. I believe that it is an unhappy side effect of their true intent, which is to villainize their Northern African and Arab communities. Geert Wilders, head of the country’s largest political party, the PVV, gained popularity based on his xenophobic and Islamophobic statements.
The right-wing coalition that also adopted the “strictest migration policy ever” reacted to the events of November 7th in an Islamophobic frenzy. The Minister of Asylum and Migration, Marjolein Faber, is reported to have said that she thinks that “antisemitism lives in the genes of Moroccans.” During a confidential debate revolving around the events of November 7th, racist remarks of such gravity were made that Nora Achahbar, a Moroccan-born member of NSC (the most centrist of the coalition parties), resigned. The government was in crisis for several days, and the coalition was at a high risk of failing.
In a plan to “fight antisemitism,” Prime Minister Schoof said that removing double nationality is “on the table,” implying that the government believes that multiple passport holders – largely people of migrant backgrounds – are primarily to blame for these incidents. Not surprisingly, Geert Wilders has been trying to remove the right to double nationality for years in an attempt to minimize the rights of migrants in the Netherlands, a large portion of whom are of Arab backgrounds.
In the last week, Mayor Femke Halsema has taken a step back from her initial statement, saying that she would not have used the term “pogrom” if asked now because politicians are using it to fuel racist and intolerant dialogue against Moroccan-Dutch citizens.
The Narrative Should be Reframed
The events in Amsterdam on the night of November 7th were deeply disturbing. Perpetrators committed violent acts and discriminated against people purely because of their ethnicity and background. However, the media and politicians skewed their depiction of the events and used it to further the Islamophobic agenda that the government already had. Although violence in any form should not be tolerated, it is important to know where the violence is coming from and who its intended targets are.
Equating disapproval of Israel’s expansionist policies with hatred toward Jews is incorrect and actually harmful to Jewish communities worldwide. Ignoring the discrimination that Arab communities in Amsterdam felt on November 7th and then weaponizing the pain felt by both the Jewish and Arab communities that night to further a xenophobic political agenda is both immoral and blatantly racist.
Edited by Anthony Hablak
