Footage of violent attacks on Israeli soccer fans in Amsterdam last week has now circulated widely.
Clips show Maccabi Tel Aviv supporters chased down the city’s canal-lined streets by mobs armed with fireworks. Many of us have seen the horrifying video of a young fan pleading with his attackers that he is “not Jewish” as they rain kicks and punches on him, and also the brutal scenes of Israelis beaten unconscious by thugs shouting slogans like “Free Palestine” and “This is for the children.”
Dutch authorities have confirmed—and messages shared on encrypted apps like Telegram reveal—that the attack on Israeli fans was meticulously planned. Contrary to some claims, this wasn’t a reaction to hooligan behavior by a handful of Maccabi supporters.
Yet more disturbing than the sickening antisemitic violence that happened on the 86th anniversary of Kristallnacht is the media’s indifference—and, in some cases, tacit justification for these attacks.
Take the New York Times’ coverage, which initially described the incident as “violence tied to a soccer game,” implying it was run-of-the-mill football hooliganism. Even as the headline referenced the antisemitic nature of the attack, the NYT slyly pinned this view on “Israeli authorities,” despite identical conclusions from Dutch police.
Israeli Jews attacked on the streets of Amsterdam. But @nytimes does its best at both sidism, failing to note who the attackers are.
This was not “violence tied to a soccer game” from two sets of fans. This was a pre-planned pogrom against Israelis. pic.twitter.com/JQ6sfhGBU4
— HonestReporting (@HonestReporting) November 8, 2024
Incredibly, a video of a mob hurling projectiles at a Maccabi supporter was still reported as part of “clashes” between rival teams, sanitizing the brutal one-sided attack into a benign scuffle, while Tel Aviv fans singing “Am Yisrael Chai” was termed an “anti-Arab provocation” by the outlet:
Saying “Am Yisrael Chai,” an oft-used Jewish expression of solidarity and affirmation of peoplehood, is now apparently an anti-Arab provocation according to @nytimes.
What is it about Jewish peoplehood that The New York Times finds so offensive?https://t.co/WykXTSBCez pic.twitter.com/4jrP4zXTAh
— HonestReporting (@HonestReporting) November 10, 2024
Then, four days later, the NYT took its “both sides” narrative even further, publishing an “explainer” suggesting that, even if Israelis were attacked, they somehow invited it. It opens with an assertion that the mob surrounding a casino—where Israelis were seeking shelter—was there because someone “stole and burned a Palestinian flag.” Later, the piece even suggests that it only “appears” the attacks were motivated by antisemitism.
Equally worrying is the NYT’s platforming of Sheher Khan, a Muslim Dutch politician who argues that Israelis should be banned from Amsterdam to avoid “inevitable” demonstrations and confrontations. Rather than challenging Khan’s grotesque proposal with a call to protect Israelis and Jews from antisemitic mobs, the NYT practically endorses it, citing the “political backdrop” as reason enough.
🧵 Here’s @nytimes with an “explainer” on how Israeli soccer fans were attacked in Amsterdam. But, naturally, it’s less about explaining and more about subtly implying, right from paragraph one, that these fans somehow “had it coming.” https://t.co/EsRbQLwrZT pic.twitter.com/bY1udfbC8q
— HonestReporting (@HonestReporting) November 11, 2024
Unfortunately, the NYT’s coverage reflects a broader trend. Reuters, the Associated Press, and The Guardian also rushed to frame the violence as soccer “clashes,” ignoring the condemnation of what Amsterdam’s mayor Femke Halsema likened to “antisemitic hit-and-run squads.”
“Apparent.”
It was all too apparent to the Israeli Jews attacked in Amsterdam, @Reuters.https://t.co/vIVDgBrdYT pic.twitter.com/Nu041auBvm
— HonestReporting (@HonestReporting) November 8, 2024
Israelis are attacked, not at the soccer match, but on the streets of Amsterdam in a premeditated and targeted lynch.
But @AP turns the Israelis into the provocateurs.https://t.co/X6zfoVXGLB pic.twitter.com/dbXyVYQKpy
— HonestReporting (@HonestReporting) November 8, 2024
“Reportedly attacked.”@guardian is so used to falsely portraying Israelis as the sole aggressors, it can’t even categorically state when Israeli Jews are targeted by a lynch mob in Amsterdam.
What next? Israelis “reportedly attacked” on Oct. 7?https://t.co/em4nNK6cBI pic.twitter.com/GanKIbf5XY
— HonestReporting (@HonestReporting) November 8, 2024
The worst reactions, however, came from certain media personalities indulging in grotesque victim-blaming.
For example, former MSNBC host and self-styled moral arbiter Mehdi Hasan took to X to all but justify the pogrom as a natural consequence of the war in Gaza.
There is a coordinated attempt on this hellsite tonight to accuse me of antisemitism because I pointed out (the fact) that Israeli football hooligans started the violence in Amsterdam. That’s not a justification of the violence that followed of course and these attacks on me are…
— Mehdi Hasan (@mehdirhasan) November 10, 2024
Guardian columnist Owen Jones felt compelled to add “context” to the attacks, claiming that Israeli fans chanted “genocidal bile,” effectively suggesting they deserved to be targeted. This angle was eagerly echoed by Novara Media’s Rivkah Brown, who confidently branded Maccabi fans as among the real “culprits.”
You are being lied to about Amsterdam.
Israeli football hooligans attacked local residents and property, and loudly chanted and sang genocidal bile.
The Western media and politicians stripped all this context away – and engaged in rampant, shameless, unhinged deceit. pic.twitter.com/G6g3eNF94j
— Owen Jones (@owenjonesjourno) November 9, 2024
Let’s not be too surprised by Jones, though. This is, after all, the same man who, after watching 47 minutes of footage from the October 7 Hamas massacre, concluded that Israel still hadn’t provided enough proof of horrors like the gang-rape of women and the deliberate killing of children.
What took place in Amsterdam was a brutal wave of antisemitic violence. That’s the reality. And it should be just as simple for the media and their pundits to call it what it was—a modern-day pogrom. Enough with the equivocating.
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