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Hooligans and Jew Hunters in Amsterdam

November 9, 2024December 15, 2024 by Cyber Dandy

Per usual, everyone seems to be jumping to conclusions without a lot of information. At this point I have more questions than answers…

What was the timeline of events?
What was the security response to each event?
Were the provocative chants and acts of the Tel Aviv hooligans actually a provocation, or is something provocative getting conflated with something that provoked a response?
Who exactly was involved with each type of activity?
What are Amsterdam’s laws regarding free speech, public assembly, and other relevant things?

As someone who has participated in and has always justified confrontation with fascists, I have no problem with Amsterdam residents confronting ultra-nationalist football hooligans and ejecting them from town. When the National Socialist Movement (NSM) came to Phoenix, AZ my comrades helped to organize a bloc of Diné, O’odham, and anarchist/anti-authoritarian militants that would attempt to disrupt their march and prevent it from reaching its destination. Like the situation in Amsterdam, we knew that these fascists would be in town and where they would be. We had a lot of time to think about how we wanted to respond.

There are of course some big differences between the NSM coming to Phoenix, AZ and a football team bringing its fans to Amsterdam. The first and obvious difference is that Tel Aviv Maccabi fans in general are not fascists. Like many football teams, there are some ultra-nationalist fans that are commonly called “hooligans”. Second, from what I can tell so far, the conflicts that occurred were first between Maccabi hooligans and activists from a pro-Palestine march and then later, mobs of Palestine supporters who organized at specific locations to target Israelis and/or Jews. It’s unclear when the latter began organizing, how much of it was spontaneous and in response to the hooligan’s antics, and to what extent they were distinguishing between Maccabi fans, Israeli nationals, and Jews. But at this point it looks like the attacks were going to take place regardless of what Tel Aviv Maccabi fans did.

I think it is also worth noting that there is nothing to suggest that this was a conflict between competing fanbases of ultra-nationalist hooligans from opposing nationalities. The team that Tel Aviv was playing was AFC AJAX, whose fans have been nicknamed “superjews”. While that doesn’t mean that their fans are themselves Jewish, it does indicate at least some affinity with Jews. So anyway, it is a severe misunderstanding to think that this was a typical fight between football hooligans that spilled out into the streets like a typical sports riot.

A lot of people have also been making the claim that the mobs were not composed of resident Amsterdam citizens. Rather, they were composed of some variety of Muslim, Middle-Eastern, and/or Arab visitors. I don’t know how much I believe this, but if that is true then this situation looks a lot more like an orchestrated attack on Israelis and/or Jews who would be visible, at predictable locations, and unprepared for conflict. If it turns out that the mobs were resident citizens, then it’s more plausible that they were responding to the Tel Aviv hooligan provocations.

The other big factor for me is the response of venue security and police to the incidents. I’m not clear on what the laws are in Amsterdam when it comes to speech and assembly, but whatever the laws are the specifics of them are pretty significant. I have seen claims that the pro-Palestine activists were denied permission to demonstrate and I do not know how much substance there is to those claims. But besides that, the lack of action on the part of venue security and police to handle the situation is a big failure. When the NSM came to Phoenix, they had a police escort for their permitted march. There wasn’t a moment when we were left alone with them. Given that the relevant events in Amsterdam transpired over at least a couple of days, things should never have escalated to the extremes that they did. There are a whole series of questions related to that which need to be addressed to get a clear picture.

Finally, it’s undeniable that whatever actually happened in Amsterdam, responses to the situation by the public at large have revealed a lot… far too much to go into detail about. It’s bad and not just for Jews. It looks like we can expect more situations like this in the future. A large number of people seem convinced that Jews can and should be collectively punished for what Israel has done, despite officials paying lip service to fighting antisemitism. Indeed, there are other incidents that have been making headlines and even another one related to soccer in Berlin at the same time that the Amsterdam events were taking place:

https://www.nysun.com/article/makkabi-youth-soccer-club-assaulted-at-berlin-as-a-pogrom-erupts-against-maccabi-tel-aviv-while-playing-a-dutch-club-at-amsterdam

I hope that it is clear from the above that I don’t support nationalist football hooligans, period. I don’t support their racist chants. I don’t support their attacks on taxi drivers or other innocent civilians. I’ve hated scum like this my entire life. But I also want to make clear that these bastards and what they do does not justify the organization of mobs to attack those they suspect of being hooligans, of the same nationality as the hooligans, etc. It is disgusting that anyone is making excuses for what was done by these mobs: making people show their papers to prove their nationality, beating them unconscious, intimidating them into saying “Free Palestine” (or anything), and who knows what else.

Anyway, more thoughts to come eventually… maybe.

More thoughts

A comrade posted this about using the term “pogrom” to describe the events. I am not naming the comrade for now as I didn’t ask yet if they want attribution. It’s a good little snippet though so I am just reproducing it:

Some thoughts on the football hooliganism in Amsterdam: The term “pogrom” stirs profound memories deeply inscribed within the Jewish experience, evoking a history of brutalization at the hands of dominant ethnic communities. Yet to apply this term to recent events is a grave error, one that distorts the true meaning of pogroms as they emerged historically within the machinery of class rule and the transition from feudal to bourgeois civilization.

Pogroms were not isolated incidents of violence, but rather calculated assaults to keep Jews locked firmly in subjugation; i.e. “in their place.” Pogroms were a tool, wielded by the majority, against a racialized minority that was deliberately denied full political and civil rights. Pogroms served as instruments of terror, reinforcing the foundations of the existing social order at times of social change. However, paradoxically, as Professor Hans Rogger argues, pogroms arose during moments when the apparatus of the existing order —legal and institutional systems that perpetuate discrimination—began to weaken or fall into disrepair. Herein, the minority was exposed to the full brunt of the majority’s vengeance because they were seen as “getting above their station”.

This pattern of calculated violence bears striking resemblance to other historical moments where legal structures of subjugation were in decline, such as the brutal violence inflicted upon Armenians by Kurdish tribes within the Ottoman Empire—a process unfolding precisely as the legal basis for dhimmitude was being dismantled. Likewise, in the United States, the Tulsa massacre stands as a pogrom of racialized violence aimed at economically successful Black Americans, a blow to reinforce racial divisions at a time when many whites feared the erosion of its racial hierarchies.

These examples illustrate a fundamental principle: pogroms cannot occur outside the framework of a society that systematically denies rights to a minority, ensuring that it remains vulnerable to the violence of the majority. The recent attacks on Maccabi fans in Amsterdam, however, bear no resemblance to this structure. These were not attacks predicated on religious or racial oppression, but rather incidents fueled by national/political discord. To describe them as pogroms serves only to blur the lines between antisemitism and anti-Zionism, obscuring the specific nature of each and distorting the material realities of modern Europe.

The notion that Jews in Europe today face the same conditions as they did a century ago is an erroneous assumption. Such rhetoric (no doubt stoked by Israeli nationalists), akin to a Jewish form of Afro-pessimism, seeks to portray Jewish communities as eternal victims, immune to the transformative progress of social and political conditions. But history has moved forward: the legal exclusion of Jewish communities has been abolished in the West, antisemitism is publicly condemned within civil society, and the Jewish state itself commands substantial power on the world stage. I would add, this in no way condones mob violence against Israeli football hooligans, even if they did act provocatively. Thuggishness is thuggishness.

Also, there is a wikipedia page now for the events. It is still being updated as news comes out. The summary at the top sucks and the whole thing should be read because important details are scattered throughout:

https://wikipedia.org/wiki/November_2024_Amsterdam_attacks

If you reallly want extra credit, I recommend following the “Talk” tab for the wikipedia page. It’s usually a good resource for discovering the major points of controversy and how they are getting sorted:

https://wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:November_2024_Amsterdam_attacks