Ajax Amsterdam and Maccabi Tel Aviv squared off in a soccer match on Thursday at the Johan-Cruijff Stadium in the Netherlands. What was supposed to be a friendly game turned into anything but as groups of seemingly pro-Palestinian supporters gathered in mobs to attack the predominately Jewish fans of the Israeli soccer club.
According to Amsterdam Mayor Femke Halsema and Dutch police, criminals on scooters searched the city for Maccabi supporters, launching multiple “hit-and-run” attacks. Social media videos showed people being beaten in the streets, and thrown into a river, along with assailants yelling ‘free Palestine.’
I’m so disgusted by what I just witnessed. In Amsterdam, Israelis & Jews leaving a soccer match were beaten unconscious by mobs, thrown in the river, and forced to say “free Palestine.” This is the direct result of normalizing antisemitism post Oct. 7, where the most flagrant… pic.twitter.com/NslFO5Kmje
— Elica Le Bon الیکا ل بن (@elicalebon) November 8, 2024
The attacks led to five hospitalizations and 20 to 30 others who were also injured. No fatalities are being reported at this time.
Multiple reports on social media seemed to claim that Dutch authorities had advanced warning of the attacks, including intel from Israel passed off to the Dutch intelligence. Other accounts of the attack showed a police presence during the attacks with Israelis creating citizen groups to help the victims of the attacks.
With no support from Dutch police, some Jews have chosen to unite and take matters into their own hands, deciding to fight back. pic.twitter.com/5whXLnB8kX
— Open Source Intel (@Osint613) November 8, 2024
In total, 63 individuals were arrested and 10 remain in custody as of Friday morning, police said.
In response to the attacks, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu dispatched multiple planes to the Dutch capital to rescue Israeli citizens. Netanyahu accompanied the announcement of the rescue planes with the release of a defiant statement on X saying, “We will not accept harm to the Jews – not in Amsterdam, not in Europe, not anywhere else.”
Dutch leaders from the political spectrum denounced the attacks on Friday.
In a phone call with Israeli President Isaac Herzog, Dutch King Willem-Alexander said the attacks were reminiscent of “dark and grim times for the Jewish people,” harkening back to attacks on Jews in the country during WWII.
“We failed the Jewish community of the Netherlands during World War II, and last night we failed again,” the Dutch King said to President Isaac Herzog in a phone call on Friday morning, according to a readout.
Geert Wilders, the right-wing leader of the Dutch Party for Freedom, was one of the first to condemn the attacks. Wilders took to X to denounce the attacks and vow to hold the authorities who failed to protect the Israeli citizens ‘accountable.’
A pogrom in the streets of #Amsterdam.
We have become the Gaza of Europe.
Muslims with Palestinian flags hunting down Jews.
I will NOT accept that. NEVER.
The authorities will be held accountable for their failure to protect the Israeli citizens.
Never again.
— Geert Wilders (@geertwilderspvv) November 8, 2024
Wilders’s statement caught the attention of Jewish leaders in Israel. Dutch news agency ANP reports that the right-wing leader will meet with Israeli foreign minister Gideon Saar and parliamentary speaker Amir Ohana at Amsterdam’s Schiphol airport on Friday to discuss the security failure by Dutch authorities.
