The Genocide in Gaza Was Celebrated in the Streets of Amsterdam
Published on 9 November 2024
The recent media reporting on the riots in Amsterdam cannot be separated from the unconditional solidarity of the Dutch state and media with Israel. Our government remains committed to operating outside of the international legal order in order to support the Israeli war in Gaza at any cost. Earlier this year, the International Court of Justice in The Hague ruled, among other things, that Israel may be committing genocide and that the Israeli occupation of Palestine is illegal. The legal consequences of this ruling include that the international community is no longer permitted to provide support to the Israeli state. For the Netherlands, this would mean immediately suspending trade relations and halting the supply of military equipment, such as F-35 parts. This has not happened. On the contrary, support for Israel appears to be taking on an increasingly unconditional nature. The city of Amsterdam’s failure to protect its civilians from Zionist violence is yet another example of the political commitment to condone Zionist terror — both within and beyond our country's borders — and in this specific case, to actively enable it.
On Wednesday evening, hooligans from the Tel Aviv soccer club Maccabi repeatedly committed acts of violence against civilians with migrant backgrounds and Amsterdammers who visibly sympathized with Palestine. Near Dam Square, a group of hooligans tore Palestinian flags from building facades and terrorized residents. An Amsterdam taxi driver was also attacked by hooligans. In both cases, police were nearby but did not intervene. In fact, the police and riot units appeared to have been instructed to protect the Maccabi hooligans at all times — even as they gathered around Dam Square chanting genocidal slogans such as "Let the IDF win to fuck the Arabs" and "there are no schools in Gaza because there are no children left" — without any intervention. (Footage is available, among other places, on the Instagram accounts of ‘Plant een Olijfboom’ and ‘Mokum Tegen Fascisme’.) The Gaza genocide was celebrated in the streets of Amsterdam.
How is it possible that our mayor did not stop this match from happening in the first place, knowing that amongst the Maccabi supporters there were IDF soldiers on "leave" as well as Mossad agents? Whose interests are being protected here — and which Amsterdammers are implicitly outlawed?
The media narrative and statements of prominent politicians on Twitter (X), predictably shift the timeline of violence according to the ages-old colonial playbook: "rioters" are said to have actively and without provocation gone looking for Israeli football fans — with no mention of what preceded their retaliatory actions, nor of the complete absence of police intervention. The full support of the state apparatus — including the police and riot units — for violent Zionist hooligans chanting genocidal and Islamophobic slogans in our capital city is taken as a given, and apparently as a neutral, unremarkable fact of life. All of it serving to continue manufacturing support for Israel and to sustain the image of "violent rioters with migrant backgrounds," regardless of the actual timeline of events. The parallel with October 7th is painfully clear.
The times we live in are defined by a political climate that increasingly operates post-truth. Far-right ideology has made its way back across the entire political spectrum, and nothing lays bare this terrifying reality more than the political responses to the war in Gaza. If politicians, police, and riot units refuse to protect people with migrant backgrounds from openly racist, Zionist violence — and then proceed to demonize those same communities as perpetrators — what do we have left?