It’s now pretty clear what happened in Amsterdam this week. But first some background.

 

For over a decade the football governing bodies FIFA, the International Federation of Football Associations, and UEFA, the Union of European Football Associations, have consistently rejected demands to suspend or expel the Israel Football Association (IFA) and individual Israeli football clubs from their ranks.

 

FIFA and UEFA have been formally requested to do so by the Palestinian Football Association (PFA) on multiple occasions, and have additionally been called upon to adopt measures against the IFA by a variety of activists and fans who launched the Red Card Israeli Racism campaign.

 

The demands to sanction Israeli football were made on a variety of grounds: that Israel is an institutionally racist state and should be treated no differently than apartheid South Africa (suspended by FIFA in 1961) and Rhodesia (suspended in 1970); that the IFA includes clubs based in illegal settlements in the illegally-occupied Palestinian territories; that the IFA discriminates against Palestinian clubs; that IFA teams discriminate against Palestinian players; that Israel in 2019 prevented the PFA cup final from taking place when it prohibited the Khadamaat Rafah team traveling from the Gaza Strip to the West Bank to play against Balata FC; that Israel has killed and maimed Palestinian players; that Israeli clubs systematically tolerate racist and genocidal conduct by supporters; and a variety of other grounds, most recently that Israel is perpetrating genocide against the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip that has resulted in the killing of numerous Palestinian players, officials, and staff.

 

The PFA petitions were based not only on general principles or international human rights treaties, but rather, and primarily, FIFA’s and UEFA’s own regulations, which explicitly prohibit the conduct Israel, the IFA, and various IFA teams are engaged in.

 

On each occasion FIFA and UEFA have rejected the PFA’s and Red Card Israeli Racism’s demands on the grounds that sport and politics should not mix. On the same principle, namely that politics and sport must be strictly separated, teams and players who engage in gestures of solidarity with the Palestinians, or display symbols such as the Palestinian flag, have been fined and punished.

 

Glasgow’s Celtic FC, which strongly identifies with the Palestinian cause, is in this respect the most notable example. In 2014 it was fined GBP 16,000 after fans raised the Palestinian flag during a Champions League qualifier against KR Reykjavik of Iceland. In 2022 Celtic was fined a further GBP 8,619 after fans displayed hundreds of Palestinian flags during a Champions League match against Israel’s Hapoel Be’ersheva. In the latter case Celtic supporters responded by raising not only the full amount of the fine, but also a six-figure sum that was promptly disbursed to various Palestinian charities.

 

Elsewhere, individual players have also been sanctioned. In one of many such examples, in January 2024 the Asian Football Confederation fined Jordan’s Mahmoud Al-Mardi for displaying the slogan “Palestine is the Cause of the Honourable”, which he had imprinted onto his undershirt, after he scored a goal against Malaysia during the Asian Cup.

 

FIFA’s position on the strict separation between sports and politics is at least in theory an arguable proposition, but it was never consistently applied. Fans of Ajax, the Dutch club that hosted Maccabi Tel Aviv for the 7 November Europa League match, for example, routinely waved giant Israeli flags in support of their team, and were consistently able to do so freely. It was only when supporters of opposing clubs began waving Palestinian flags in response that action was taken by the football authorities to ban both symbols.

 

More importantly, the reasoning adopted by FIFA and UEFA ultimately proved to be a complete sham enveloped in brazen hypocrisy. Specifically: within days of the February 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine, both FIFA and UEFA suspended not only the Russian Football Union but also every single Russian football club. The entire process literally took less than a week. And in contrast to the suppression of gestures in support of the Palestinians, explicit solidarity with Ukraine, and the prominent display of the Ukrainian flag, were if anything encouraged.

 

As for the latest PFA application to FIFA to sanction the IFA on a variety of grounds, submitted this May and supported among others by the Asian Football Confederation, FIFA President Gianni Infantino has ensured his organization moves even slower than the International Criminal Court (ICC). Most recently, and after months of foot-dragging and refusing to even put the PFA petition on the FIFA agenda, Infantino in October announced that an investigation would be conducted to assess the PFA’s case, but refused to announce a date by which this would be completed or its results announced. Had he behaved similarly in response to the Russian invasion of Ukraine, he would have been dismissed faster than you can say “Infantino is a tool”.

 

It is against this background, and also that of the long- and well-established reputation of Maccabi Tel Aviv’s fanbase for uninhibited genocidal racism, that pro-Palestinian activists sought to have the Ajax-Maccabi Tel Aviv fixture of 7 November cancelled. When they predictably failed, the activists announced they would be holding a protest at the Ajax stadium, the Johan Cruijff ArenA, on the day of the game. Just as predictably, this too was rejected by the Amsterdam municipality and police, who ordered the activists to hold their protest at a location some distance from the stadium. The activists complied, and their demonstration passed without incident.

 

The violence that has been in the news for the past several days did not start during or after the game, but rather the day before it and even earlier. Several thousand Maccabi Tel Aviv fans, as is common for such events, had traveled to Amsterdam to attend their team’s away game. But rather than conducting themselves responsibly, or engaging in hooliganism directed at supporters of the opposing team or random passers-by – phenomena which are not uncommon in the world of football – the Maccabi Tel Aviv supporters set their sights on a different target altogether: Arabs.

 

Not only do the Israeli club’s supporters have a reputation for genocidal racism (their motto is “Death to the Arabs”, supplemented with the chant, “May Your Village Burn”), but many of those who traveled to Amsterdam have during the past year served in the Israeli military’s genocidal campaign against the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip.

 

Imagining themselves to have the same liberties they are accustomed to in Israel, they began attacking private homes in Amsterdam that had the Palestinian flag on display in solidarity

with Gaza; assaulting individuals of Arab appearance, including a number of Dutch-Moroccan taxi drivers; vandalized a number of taxis, completely destroying one; and more generally taunted those within earshot with chants of “We’ll Fuck the Arabs”, “Fuck you Palestine”, “Let the IDF Win to Fuck the Arabs”, and “There is No School in Gaza Because there are No Children Left”.

 

Simply put, these foreign terrorists – arming themselves with sticks, bicycle chains, and various other implements – rampaged through the center of the Dutch capital, subjecting the city and its residents to a racist reign of terror. In this regard Asha ten Broeke reports that for days before the match, chat groups of pro-Palestinian activists had been warning members not to wear keffiyehs, Palestinian buttons, or other visibly Palestinian items in public because such people were being physically assaulted and spat upon by Maccabi Tel Aviv supporters.

 

The Amsterdam police for the most part let their honoured Israeli guests go their merry way, and refrained from intervening. Indeed, there are several videos of police cars simply driving past physical assaults and similar incidents, as if attacks on residents by visiting Israeli thugs is completely normal behaviour. In one incident recounted by Ten Broeke that was filmed, Israeli hooligans threw a serving of French fries with mayo at an individual’s head then physically assaulted their prey. In this case the police did make an arrest – but of the victim rather than perpetrators.

 

As the game approached, the Israeli supporters were escorted to the stadium by the Amsterdam police force, apparently also a common practice in such circumstances but in this case likely intensified given widespread condemnation of Israel’s genocide and the attendant security risks. On their way to the stadium, gangs of Israeli supporters continued with their violent behaviour, all the while chanting their genocidal slogans. The Amsterdam police force is no less racist than its counterparts elsewhere in Europe or for that matter the West, and did not arrest a single one of the Israeli hooligans. It doesn’t take much imagination to understand how the police escort would have responded to supporters of an Arab club marching through the center of Amsterdam chanting “Death to the Jews” and assaulting anyone wearing a kippa.

 

Once inside the stadium, and before the game started, the Israeli supporters observed the minute of silence commemorating the hundreds who recently died in floods in Spain’s Valencia with loud whistles, more racist chanting, and setting off flares.

 

As the supporters left the stadium, their genocidal racism now intensified by the 5-0 drubbing administered to their club by Ajax, they essentially picked up where they had left off before entering the stadium earlier that evening. This time, their intended victims fought back.

 

According to some accounts the response was prepared and organized, according to others it was spontaneous. Most likely there were elements of both. Those who confronted the Israeli hooligans have typically been described as primarily consisting of Dutch Moroccans, with aggrieved taxi drivers prominent among them. More accurately they were primarily youths, consisting of many Amsterdammers of Arab origin but others as well.

 

In contrast to their previous inertia the Amsterdam police now swung into action, arresting approximately 60 of the Dutch defenders but again not a single Israeli. All but 4 were later released. Many more arrests are expected in the coming days and weeks based on CCTV footage and the like. But these too won’t include a single Israeli because the hooligans

quickly left The Netherlands and enjoy total impunity in Israel. Rather, they are playing the heroic victim to popular and official acclaim in Israel, and indeed that of Western elites and media.

 

The energetic support of the Amsterdam police notwithstanding, the Israeli hooligans discovered that fistfights on the streets of Amsterdam are somewhat more challenging than killing babies in Gaza. A number were beaten up, and five required hospitalization (all were discharged from hospital the following day).

 

At this point Kafka and Alice in Wonderland jointly seized control. In the perceptive words of Philip Proudfoot, “Probably the first time in history we’ve seen world leaders offer their thoughts and prayers to football hooligans”. This is if anything a massive understatement.

 

Almost immediately, Western leaders and media commentators began describing the events as a “pogrom”. Not by genocidal Israeli thugs, but rather against them. As if the Amsterdam police force encouraged attacks against the Israelis rather than allowing Israeli gangs to rampage through the city they are paid to keep secure.

 

Instead of being correctly framed as a confrontation between Israeli hooligans and those they sought out, it was instantly transformed into a massive “Jew hunt”. Genocide Joe, who still maintains he has seen images that don’t exist of beheaded Israeli babies, likened the disturbances in Amsterdam initiated by the Israeli hooligans to the rise of Nazism and preliminary phases of the Holocaust. He was far from alone in this respect. That this was an anti-Semitic rampage and nothing else and nothing less immediately became an article of faith.

 

With the commemoration of 1938’s 9-10 November Kristallnacht, a key milestone on the way to the Holocaust, only days away, the comparisons flew fast and furious. As if it was Jewish properties and not those displaying Palestinian symbols that were being vandalized, and as if those presumed to be Jews rather than of Arab appearance that were being assaulted. Selective outrage, and selective condemnation, enjoyed what is arguably its moment of greatest triumph.

 

For these attacks to even remotely qualify as anti-Semitic, a characterization which from the very first moment was and continues to be repeated as incontestable fact, the targets would have had to be not Maccabi Tel Aviv supporters or Israelis more generally, but Jews. In other words, Dutch Jews in Amsterdam, their institutions, and properties should have been prominent among the victims, or at least recognizably so. Yet there is no evidence Dutch Jews or their properties were targeted, or that members of this community felt sufficiently threatened on the night of 7 November to seek protection from the Amsterdam police or authorities. As this article demonstrates, the pogrom hoax has also served to once again divert attention away from the very real genocide in the Gaza Strip, and now Israel’s invasion of Lebanon as well.

 

Given that the Amsterdam Jewish community was subject to constant sensationalist reports about an ongoing anti-Semitic pogrom in their city, fears among its members that the attacks against Israeli football supporters would expand to include their community are entirely understandable. But they didn’t, because there was no pogrom and the violence was directed at real and perceived Israeli football hooligans rather than Jews.

 

It’s a crucial distinction. But it is also one that has been systematically ignored by Western media and politicians. Their effortless conflation of football thugs with Israelis with Jews – particularly on the eve of the Kristallnacht commemoration, in the city of Amsterdam that saw the vast majority of its Jewish population exterminated during the Holocaust – serves a transparently political agenda. A reminder, at the height of the Gaza genocide, that the real victims in 2024 are not Palestinians but those slaughtering them.

 

Just as history commenced only on 7 October 2023, Asha ten Broeke notes that the response to the Amsterdam disturbances has simply elided anything and everything that transpired before the end of the Ajax-Maccabi Tel Aviv match. Even by the abysmal standards set by the media during the past year with respect to Israel’s genocidal campaign in the Gaza Strip, coverage of Amsterdam very successfully plumbed new depths.

 

Among the most hysterical reactions has been that of Dutch strongman Geert Wilders, who although not in government effectively rules The Netherlands. Wilders is of partly Indonesian background, and during his youth was due to his appearance often taunted by racist classmates. Rather than resolving to strive for a society free of racism, he became a peroxide blond and decided that he would defeat his tormenters by becoming the most accomplished racist of them all. A stint working on an Israeli kibbutz, where he was treated no differently than other unpaid labour, also transformed him into a fanatic Zionist and Israel flunkie. He for example continues to insist that Jordan is Palestine, and has been a vociferous genocide cheerleader from the moment it commenced.

 

After 9/11 Wilders found his calling, and it was Islamophobia. Given the demography of The Netherlands, his poisonous bile was specifically directed at Dutch Moroccans, who he would like to see stripped of their citizenship and deported. Indeed, he was in 2016 convicted by a Dutch court for a 2014 appearance in which he promised his audience that he would “arrange” for “less Moroccans” in The Netherlands.

 

Wilders is very much the ideological heir of the wartime National Socialist Movement (NSB), the blood and soil Dutch fascist party which held that one could not be both Jewish and Dutch. The NSB enthusiastically collaborated with the Nazis during the 1940-1945 occupation, was outlawed after liberation, and its leaders (e.g. Anton Mussert and Rost van Tonningen) were variously executed or committed suicide.

 

Wilders’s rabid pronouncements proved too much even for the right-wing liberal (i.e. conservative) VVD, which in 2004 expelled him from its ranks. He thereafter formed the Party of Freedom (PVV), which is not a political party in the normal sense but rather a personal fiefdom with opaque funding solely and wholly controlled by Wilders.

 

Wilders won the 2023 Dutch parliamentary elections on the strength of his positions. But since no party ever wins a majority in Dutch elections, he had to form a coalition with several other parties. This particular coalition of pandemonium includes Wilders’s former party, VVD, which since Mark Rutte’s departure to NATO is led by Dilan Yeşilgöz, the Turkish-born daughter of a Kurdish trade unionist who received political asylum in The Netherlands in the wake of Turkey’s 1980 military coup. If the younger Yeşilgöz, a fanatic firebrand who can easily give Britain’s Suella Braverman a run for her money, has her way, her father would have been sent straight back to Turkey and left to the mercy of its generals. Their partners in crime are the Farmer-Citizen Movement (BBB), essentially an agribusiness front organization determined to achieve irreversible climate emergency before the end of the decade, and New

Social Contract, another new party led by former Christian Democrat Pieter Omtzigt. Omtzigt, who made a name for himself exposing government malfeasance and structural racism in what is known as the Child Benefits Affair, surprised many of his supporters when he not only sold his soul to Wilders but did so for a pittance.

 

Wilders’s coalition partners’ condition for joining his government was that Wilders forgo the premiership (to which he would normally be entitled) because he would be too great an embarrassment on the European and international stage. Wilders agreed, and nominated Dick Schoof, a former spy chief best known for authorizing the illegal surveillance of Dutch citizens, particularly Muslims. Cynics responded with the observation that if the elections reflected popular sentiment that government wasn’t listening to the citizen, they now had a prime minister who has been listening to them more than anyone else.

 

Wilders has even by his own standards reached new heights of hysterical rhetoric in response to the events in Amsterdam. Part of his project is to present anti-Semitism not as a European phenomenon that was exported to the Middle East, but rather a core Islamic value that is being imported into Europe by immigrants, and can only be extirpated by the mass expulsion of Muslim citizens, who not only don’t belong in the country but should never have been granted citizenship. His prescription goes somewhat further than that of Donald Trump, whose stated intentions for mass expulsion concern undocumented residents and other non-citizens.

 

Refusing to utter a word in defense of Dutch citizens violently assaulted by Israeli thugs, Wilders has instead spoken of “A pogrom in the streets of Amsterdam”, “Muslims with Palestinian flags hunting down Jews”, “A Jew hunt in Amsterdam” and to top it all off, “We have become the Gaza of Europe”. His solution is to “denaturalize” (i.e. revoke the citizenship) of “radical Muslims” and expel them from the country. His rhetoric about reclaiming The Netherlands from “Islam” would have one think he’s about to reconquer Andalusia and adopt the measures imposed by Ferdinand and Isabella.

 

Wilders’s Islamophobia is only part of the story. There’s also considerable domestic politics at play. He has demanded the immediate resignation of Amsterdam mayor Femke Halsema, who previously led the Green Left Party which represents everything Wilders hates, and during her tenure was the target of more misogyny by his supporters and other right-wing activists than in the entire history of Islam. Although she has been a loyal soldier repressing and demonizing pro-Palestinian activists during the past year with the familiar canard of anti-Semitism, Wilders clearly smells blood and is determined to extract his pound of flesh. He has also attacked the police in absolutely hysterical fashion and condemned the government for what he terms its limp response.

 

This is best understood as Wilders seeking to ensure that it is he and not Schoof who rules the roost, and to establish power and influence over institutions independently of formal government authority. It’s the authoritarian playbook, which Wilders hopes will eventually catapult him to official leadership of the country.

 

Seeking to maintain their own fiefdoms, Halsema, Schoof, coalition partners, and other objects of Wilders’s ire have for all intents and purposes adopted the pogrom/Kristallnacht 2024 narrative and gotten with the program. Even the Dutch monarch, King Willem-Alexander, has gotten in on the act. Collectively, they have not only demonized their own citizens and thrown them under the bus in defense of violently racist Israeli thugs, but

knowingly and willingly dragged their country’s reputation through the mud in the most public fashion possible as they jostle for power and position against each other.

 

Whichever way the internal power struggle plays out, massive repression of opposition to Israel’s genocide in The Netherlands now seems all but certain. Indeed, Mayor Halsema, the Amsterdam police, and government have already placed the city under a state of emergency banning all demonstrations for at least the coming week. The decision, confirmed by the judiciary, was challenged by hundreds of pro-Palestinian and anti-genocide protestors on 10 November, several days after the last Israeli hooligan left for safer shores. Dozens were arrested at this demonstration, which by all accounts was entirely peaceful.