Amsterdam football riots: How a toxic mix of anti-Semitism, racism and xenophobia culminated in violence

Amsterdam
CNN
—

Anger, fear and anxiety still simmer in Amsterdam.

Last week, Israeli soccer fans were attacked in the streets, Palestinian flags torn from walls and anti-Semitic veil shouted during riots.

While the Dutch capital now feels calm, residents and lawmakers fear tensions have still not peaked.

“It’s not just anti-Semitism, it’s also about anti-Muslim racism. It’s also about xenophobia. We’re seeing an increase in all these kinds of discrimination and racism,” said city councilor Sheher Khan, the leader of a local party that has aimed at addressing institutional racism and Islamophobia, to CNN.

“And I don’t even think I’m sorry to say that we’ve reached our boiling point because the root causes of the tensions that are going on have not been addressed.”

Khan said the biggest underlying issue for his constituents is the Dutch government’s complicity in funneling weapons and money to Israel’s war in Gaza. The Netherlands’ Muslim community is about 1 million strong, and many have been vocal in their support for the Palestinians.

“On the side we have a far-right government which is keen to blame society’s problems on minorities, especially Muslims,” ​​Khan added.

But the timeline of how tensions ignited in Amsterdam differs depending on which community you ask.

Some residents claim the spark was just last week, when Maccabi Tel Aviv soccer fans pulled down Palestinian flags, vandalized taxis and paraded through the streets shouting racist slogans including “f**k the Arabs” and celebrating Israeli military strikes in Gaza.

What followed were violent attacks on the Israeli fans, with several people injured and five receiving hospital treatment. The city’s mayor said last week that rioters were moving in small groups in “hit-and-run” anti-Semitic attacks, ransacking the city and targeting Maccabi supporters.

On Monday, a tram in western Amsterdam was set on fire and police officers were pelted with stones. In videos circulating on social media, the small group of rioters can be heard shouting an anti-Semitic slur. Police said on Tuesday they had arrested a total of 68 people across the city in connection with the unrest, including 10 Israelis.

Other Amsterdam residents say a fire has been lit in the city for 15 to 20 years with the rise of the far right and a rise in anti-Semitism and xenophobia across Europe.

“It’s like a cocktail of emotions, of anti-Semitism, Muslim hatred, the attacks that happened (in Amsterdam), the war in Israel and Palestine,” city council member Itay Garmy told CNN. Garmy, a Dutch-Israeli citizen, urges people to be precise in how they talk about the facts last week.

“I feel that some people play down anti-Semitism by not mentioning it at all or saying that because of the Maccabi hooligans that the violence was justified or that the violence was only directed at the Maccabi hooligans,” Garmy said. He added that the fear is palpable among Jewish residents here, especially after last Thursday, when social media posts appeared discussing a “hunt for Jews,” according to a report by Amsterdam Mayor Femke Halsema.

Voters and friends have told Garmy they are now afraid to wear a Star of David or kippah in public, and some have changed their names on taxi and ride-sharing apps to avoid being identifiably Jewish.

“But when I say that, I feel that there are leaders, for example the Israeli prime minister (Benjamin Netanyahu), who overplay it for his own internal politics, and also the far-right leader here, Geert Wilders, overplays it too.” , the councilor added.

Mayor Halsema and other local authorities have also received criticism from Muslim and pro-Palestinian communities for not highlighting the racist and threatening actions of Maccabi supporters in the immediate aftermath of the violence and giving what they see as a skewed version of events.

Garmy and Khan have a long history of organizing community dialogues — they both told CNN they believe the only way to cut through prejudice is to talk to the other side. Khan added that he feels the country’s government is trying to “divide and conquer” Dutch society.

Last November, a month after the Israel-Gaza war began, the far-right populist Wilders and his Freedom Party (PVV) won the most seats in the Dutch parliament – ​​a shock to many people given Wilders’ anti-Islam, anti-immigration and anti. – Manifesto of the European Union.

On Wednesday, Wilders requested a legislative debate on the violence against Maccabi fans, and his party floated the idea of ​​revoking Dutch citizenship for certain people involved in the attacks.

“It’s really so, so manipulative… It only makes everything worse,” Jaïr Stranders, a local theater director and board member of the liberal Jewish community of Amsterdam, told CNN. Stranders condemned strong rhetoric from the Dutch and Israeli governments.

In the immediate aftermath of the attacks on Israelis, Netanyahu urged the Dutch authorities to act firmly, even saying he would organize evacuation flights. Senior Israeli officials said the violence was reminiscent of “pogrom” attacks from centuries past on European Jews. But in Amsterdam, many local Jewish officials, as well as the mayor, have urged not to use that description.

“What certain politicians are doing on the right, what Netanyahu and Israeli politicians are doing… is only adding fuel to the fire,” Stranders said, adding that some people in the Jewish community using charged rhetoric have also added to the fear. “You are only scaring your own community.”

There are around 40,000 Jews in the Netherlands – far fewer than before the Second World War – and it is not a unique community. There are secular Jews, Orthodox Jews, Israeli Jews, those from the wider diaspora and others. Stranders said a key focus now is getting people in this disparate group to agree to reduce tension.

As for anti-Semitism, some comes from the far right, he said, but anti-Semitism from the far left and Muslim communities cannot be ignored either.

“What you see is when the criticism that people have of Israel’s policies and how they conduct their war — sometimes the criticism is directed at the Jewish people and even in a hostile way,” he said. Stranders noted that the pro-Palestinian movement sometimes has a “blind eye” to how it makes the Jewish community feel, in a city where Jewish life has been constantly threatened and where synagogues and schools historically required security protection.

“Maybe it started out criticizing Israel, but then it becomes anti-Semitism,” he said.

At a pro-Palestinian protest on Wednesday, which got under way in Amsterdam’s Dam Square despite police banning demonstrations in the area, some of the chants were distinctly anti-war. “Stop the bombing,” chanted protesters in the mainly young, left-wing crowd as officers eventually forcibly cleared them from the square and moved them to a park where protesting was allowed.

“I’m here because of the bombing of the children and women of Gaza,” said Said Alawi, an elderly man standing by before police asked people to stand aside.

Alawi lives in Amsterdam but grew up in Morocco. “I ask to free these people, to free Palestine, that’s all.”

But other chants, like “f**k Israel,” were distinctly more hostile.

Faith leaders in the Muslim community are working with police and city hall officials to encourage de-escalation and even talk to youth at protests.

A local imam and the head of Moroccan mosques in the North Holland region, Abdelaziz Chandoudi, is holding a dialogue with taxi drivers in Amsterdam on Friday to try to ease tensions. He is also using his sermons this week to encourage fathers to speak to their sons and other young people, calling for peace and compassion.

“Since day one, we have tried to use the mosques to calm the situation. At the end of the day, the most important thing is safety,” Chandoudi told CNN. But he added that it is not right to blame the unrest on Moroccan youth, as some media and right-wing Dutch politicians have done. “They are Dutch youth,” he noted, adding that Amsterdam is a city of many nationalities and many values ​​that can peacefully coexist.

Mohammed Rasool in Amsterdam contributed to this report.