Amsterdam

[EricInk]

I can't believe how unbalanced the media reporting is of the events last night

The maccabi fans were behaving atrociously and inciting conflict the entire day, pulling down flags, chanting 'fuck Palestine' and intimidating Dutch Arabs

This is a really old documentary about Beitar Jerusalem which might give some context to the football thuggery in Amsterdam.

www.theguardian.com/news/video/2015/nov/24/beitar-jerusalem-most-racist-football-team-israel-video

Not to excuse Maccabi, but they are " less racist" than Maccabi!

The Dutch gangs responding to this and doing the "hunting" will have been a mixture of rival fans, thugs out for some violent fun, racists and those who see themselves as defending themselves.
There is context here. Football harbours some of the absolute worst behaviour by fans.
It needs to stop.

Absolutely shameful of you to make a comparison to Kristallnacht.

Shameful that it actually happened on the anniversary of Kristallnacht.

Obviously not. But this thread is not a discussion about whether not there is apartheid in Israel. This is about the violence in Amsterdam.

Less racist than Beitar....

I'm Jewish and as far as I can tell it's both the case that the Israeli fans were acting like arseholes and the attack on them was antisemitic

SharonEllis

Obviously not. But this thread is not a discussion about whether not there is apartheid in Israel. This is about the violence in Amsterdam.

Which happened precisely because of the apartheid and now slaughter inflicted on Palestinians in their own country by the Government of Israel.
With respect, (really, I fully respect that you have a different opinion) but you cannot control this discussion and people’s takes on the reasons for the incidents.

I don’t think it was only the guilty Israeli fans who were attacked…
People were attacked simply for being Jewish…

Echobelly · Today 11:09

I'm Jewish and as far as I can tell it's both the case that the Israeli fans were acting like arseholes and the attack on them was antisemitic

This. People need to step back from their entrenched positions and see it for what it was, on both sides.

@Limesodaagain you're absolutely failing to acknowledge that the Maccabi fans targeted Muslim/ Arab people the night before the match. It doesn't excuse what happened later.
Two wrong things can happen, without cancelling each other out.

I wish the posters who cry antisemitism but never acknowledge that there is also Islamophobia would come to their senses and realise that they are serving the purposes of those who would ultimately destroy them. Engaging in a hierarchy of victimhood is not useful.
Be under no illusion that the right wing racists and ideologues who are utilising antisemitism just now to divide and stoke hatred will be quite happy to throw everyone who is not them to the wolves at the first opportunity.

No one is free until we are all free...

But you agree it’s wrong to use the excuse of a conflict elsewhere to attack innocent people on the basis of ethnicity?
In which case the conflict in Gaza is not a reason/ excuse/ justification for what happened and is therefore irrelevant to this thread…

In Europe anti semitism is much more extreme and seems to be tolerated, even excused. The level of violence is not the same on both sides. The violence was much more extreme towards the Israelis in Amsterdam. That is not even debatable.

I do acknowledge the role of the racist Israeli fans. I’m objecting to the idea that the response was in any way understandable or acceptable

The mental gymnastics some of you go through is remarkable. When people want to talk about the extreme physical violence Palestinians are experiencing then you wanna equate it or make it less than the anxiety of fear people experience despite not coming to harm. Now some deliquent men got the trouble they were after and now assault is worse than words or fear and the fact that they were intimidating Arab people is neither here nor there. Nevermind how the taxi drivers felt having their windows smashed by these thugs and hearing them sing about the "extreme physical violence" children are experiencing in Gaza.
You chat shit you get banged as they say. If I saw a Jewish person punch someone who was provoking them with antisemitic songs I wouldn't be howling in outrage, I'd think the exact same as I do in this scenario that they got what they deserved. The fact they were back to their disgusting songs once they were safe in the airport says it all - cowardly scumbags.

@Millie1501 it seems that unfortunately you are exploiting the attack against Jewish people to perpetuate and justify your venom against Arabs, as can be seen by your various deleted posts. You are constantly pitting the two groups against each other in almost every single post of yours.

@Millie1501 I read your posts and it was racist so I have no problem calling you out for it. Mumsnet has deleted it so I assume they agree. You suggested "Arabs" (not sure you are referring to) are not civilised like others such as yourself. That is racist supremacist othering language.

Violent gangs exist in all cultures in all races so stop pretending one race is less civilised or worse than another. Using racist language to call out antisemitism is just demonstrating your own prejudices

We can absolutely call out the violence in Amsterdam as antisemitic and extremely worrying for the Jewish community without using racist language against another group. That does not serve anyone well. You either support equality and respect for all or you don't. There's no picking and choosing.

What happened in Amsterdam was a mess from start to finish. I have no problem calling out the antisemitic targeting of Jews and I am glad many of those involved have been arrested.

This just isn't true at all. There are at least as many videos circulating online of Maccabi fans attacking people (a number of them in daylight, which suggests they were very much the original instigators), that have appeared nowhere in the major media outlets, as there are of them being attacked.

Israel often speaks about her right to self-defence but that cuts both ways. If Israeli hooligans go into a city, attacking locals and vandalising their property, they can't have much complaint when said locals defend themselves. It also ignores that Maccabi fans have a track record of attacking people who are either Arabic or look so when they visit European cities.

It was a novelty 'fart' spray, widely available. In teresting to note that the pro-Israeli perpetrators were identified and punished. This one was suspended & Columbia had to pay compensation. See link below. The camps were volatile places with lots of provocation and bad behaviour. And varying levels of effective & even acceptable responses from universities.

Still waiting for the evidence of pro-Palestinian students being regularly targetted and beaten up, which was your claim.
www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/nov/01/columbia-student-protest-lawsuit

I think it's worth considering, if the football fans had behaved impeccably.... would there still have been an anti semetic attack?

My view is yes there absolutely would have been. History has shown us that

@SharonEllis if you read the full first page of this thread then you will see I clarified what I meant here and then you asked for examples and I gave you some. But you still seem keen to continue this discussion rather than the violence in Amsterdam.

Im not controlling the discussion. Im commenting on the way it has developed which is to move away from a discussion about attacks on Israelis to becoming the same old attacks on Israel that we have on a hundred other threads and that happens because either at a conscious or unconscious level people think its acceptable to excuse attacks on Israelis & Jews in Europe because of their views on the war in Gaza. And the fact that you say the attacks happened 'precisely because of the apartheid' suggests that you also think attacks are justified. Because we all agree that apartheid is wrong. Can you not see the problem with this line of argument? Tbe only way apartheid is relevant is if you think it has a material bearing on the attacks?

Given thay it was planned, that they were tooled up with masks and fireworks it looks that way. At least they almost certainly would have tried to stir something up.

Grim.

Youths on scooters targeted Maccabi supporters in "hit and runs" - DutchNews.nl

It's so interesting how some posters have suddenly developed an understanding of a proportional and disproportional responses to violence and any violence is now inexcusable regardless of what proceeded it. Very interesting.

Or you could just look at how this particular group of fans behave historically rather than imaging a reality where they behave impeccably. Would they have hospitalised someone again?
https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.middleeastmonitor.com/20240308-israeli-football-fans-assault-man-with-palestinian-flag-in-athens/amp/

I could list a whole load of anti semetic attacks that have occured in the UK and Europe.... absolutely none of which have involved football hooligans.

Jew hate and anti semetism is nothing new I'm afraid. Doesn't matter how we behave...it still happens.