Hunting Arabs in Amsterdam
The message from our so-called leaders is clear: The Dutch can go to hell. Just let yourself be beaten up by an Israeli, chant along that there are no children left in Gaza, and that Arabs must die.
This is Karim's translation of Peter Breedveld's blog article, originally written in Dutch. Please note that Dutch language and culture can be very direct; reader discretion is advised.
If you're Israeli, it seems you can do anything: murder babies, maim children, torture and rape prisoners—no problem. Proudly film your crimes against humanity and post them on TikTok as part of the "world's most moral army." You can come to Amsterdam, beat up taxi drivers, and tear down flags from someone else's house. Assault citizens of Amsterdam with clubs and bike chains, terrorize the entire city—all with no repercussions. Singing that there are no schools left in Gaza because there are no children left is completely fine. "Fuck the Arabs," totally fine. Racism, genocide, destruction, and abuse, oh, please continue.
But if you speak out against this, then there is a problem. That's when it's labeled “antisemitism”. And if a terror-instigating Israeli gets hit back, the whole world screams about a pogrom; then people are accused of being on a "Jew hunt." Then, Israel wants to deploy planes to rescue these so-called Israeli "tourists."
Hunting Arabs
Listen, I also deem it Neanderthal behavior to drive through Amsterdam on scooters, looking to punch Israeli supporters. It's intolerable that street thugs act like the Gestapo, forcing people to show their passports. But to pretend this all happened out of the blue, as if there were no Israeli hooligans roaming the Amsterdam streets, stirring trouble, poking at the open wound that is Gaza, hunting Arabs and migrants, that's filthy, dirtier than dirty, and totally irresponsible.
To get so carried away by the incitement of Dutch MP Geert Wilders, who was the first to scream about a pogrom. Without knowing the facts, or perhaps they deliberately deny them. Without even trying to find out what exactly happened, what the circumstances were, how it started. Just joining in with the hysterical yelling, throwing even more oil on the fire.
Antisemitism: “atypical” for Amsterdam
And all the media scream in unison again. "Scooters on Jew hunt" and "It's the Moroccans!", "Take measures against the Moroccan community!" Mayor Halsema tried to act classy and said she didn't want to comment on the ethnicity of the "Jew hunters," but she also said, "This outbreak of antisemitism is atypical for Amsterdam."
Oh, really? Is antisemitism atypical for Amsterdam? Ask Anne Frank—oh no, you can't anymore. Ask the 20,000 Jews who were deported from Amsterdam, with the help of the Amsterdam police and the “good” citizens of Amsterdam. Ask your buddy Annabel Nanninga, until recently a respected Amsterdam council member, who tells jokes about “Adolf Hitler's beautiful ovens” and “the long toes of the powerful and wealthy Jewish community”.
Fans and Tourists
Antisemitism my ass. Even checking passports is not antisemitic, but anti-Israeli. Nobody was looking for Jews, but for Israeli hooligans. Totally reprehensible, but definitely not a pogrom or Jew hunt. The Holocaust is being very nastily misused to cast Muslims, Moroccans, and Gaza activists in a bad light. By the same types who always wave their preacher's finger that you shouldn't equate Israel with Jews, but who at the same time don't miss a chance to do just that as soon as someone criticizes the rogue state of Israel.
The media talk about Israeli "fans" and "tourists," but what I saw on various videos were racist hooligans. No British football supporter would get away with this, but these "fans" do, because they are Israelis. Israelis who, by the way, have done this before in Athens, there they also went after pro-Palestinian activists, also dictating which flags could be shown in someone else's country. Israelis apparently think they automatically rule everywhere they go, and our government agrees with them.
Mayor Halsema and even our king promptly responded to directives from Tel Aviv. The implicit message from our so-called leaders is clear: The Dutch can go fuck themselves. Just let yourself be beaten up by an Israeli, chant along that there are no children left in Gaza, and that all Arabs must die.
Holocaust Abuse
According to Mayor Halsema, there was no reason to refuse Maccabi supporters in Amsterdam because of the low risk of violence. Ten seconds of googling and you know that those Maccabi supporters are violent racists. After a year of violent suppression of any protest against what happens in Gaza, a year of rubbing it into Muslims and Moroccans that their lives are worth nothing, that they represent darkness and Israel the light, that they are antisemites and Hamas supporters because they are upset by the unspeakable crimes that Israel commits in Gaza, you let Israelis triumphantly scream genocidal and anti-Arab slogans in our fucking streets? And to then hear them complain afterwards that their experiences in Amsterdam were as horrific as those they faced as soldiers in Gaza?
I am baffled by the open contempt our politicians show for their own citizens. They hypocritically smirk, claiming they don't "want" to discuss ethnicity, yet they simultaneously suggest that antisemitism is atypical for Amsterdam, implicitly directing blame towards Moroccan immigrants and conveniently overlooking historical events like what happened to Anne Frank.
So dirty, so cynical, to misuse the Holocaust to break the resistance against an Israeli genocide, to stigmatize Muslims and especially Moroccans. Not to de-escalate but to escalate. Especially when you know what recently happened in the UK, and yet still you do it, you sit there stirring up tensions, helping to open the gates to race riots.
Daily Antidote
It's good to see on Twitter that many people don't go along with this malicious nonsense, this dangerous hysteria. While in the media I only read about pitiful Israeli supporters who did nothing wrong and were just attacked because they are Jewish, Twitter shares proof that they were racist and very violent troublemakers, that they were looking to steer up trouble.
That's why you, as a progressive anti-racist, should not leave Twitter. All the media are there, journalists are there, and people who follow the media are there. You simply can't leave Twitter to the right-wing racists with their fake news and hate propaganda. You are needed as a daily antidote.