Antizionism is not the same as antisemitism

Last Thursday night, Nov. 7, a lot of Amsterdam residents got quite a scare. There was talk of wild chases by boys on scooters of supporters of the Israeli soccer club Maccabi Tel Aviv. The next day at one o’clock in the afternoon, there was a press conference at the Amsterdam City Hall, where Mayor Halsema spoke, among other things, of ‘hateful anti-Semitic rioters’ and of a ‘Jew hunt that brings back the memory of pogroms.’ Subsequently, these qualifications were adopted unquestioningly by the Dutch and international press, and outrage was widespread.

In the meantime, however, things appear to be somewhat more nuanced. Some of the Maccabi fans had been guilty of intimidation and violence even before the match, on Wednesday night and Thursday during the day. A Palestinian flag was torn from the facade of a squat on the Rokin and an Amsterdam cab driver was beaten up. After the match, groups of Maccabi supporters marched through the city with belts in their hands, and among other things, the door of a resident on the Nieuwezijds Voorburgwal, who had a pro-Palestine poster hanging in front of her window, was almost kicked in.
So it is far too easy to dismiss all of this as ‘anti-Semitic violence,’ and raise hell about ‘the already twenty years of growing hatred of Jews in NL due to the ongoing mass immigration and Islamization of our country,’ as Geert Wilders did on X. The attacks on Israeli soccer supporters cannot be justified, but were the result of a series of deliberate provocations by (part of) the Maccabi fans. The Amsterdam ‘triangle’ (Mayor Halsema, police chief Peter Holla and chief public prosecutor René de Beukelaer) made many mistakes by deploying the police in the wrong place (at the Arena) and with the wrong means (especially a lot of riot police), but above all they failed to intervene in time when the Maccabi fans expressed and behaved in a particularly aggressive and provocative manner (including on Dam Square). Had that been done, much misery could probably have been prevented. And it was utterly ridiculous to invoke ‘public safety’ to declare a ban on demonstrations for the entire city and to institute emergency regulations for both Amsterdam and Amstelveen.

We further believe that it is high time to put a few things in perspective.

Israel is a colonial state, established violently in 1948 by Zionist settlers in Palestine. During this process over five hundred Palestinian villages were destroyed, mass slaughter took place and over 750,000 Palestinians were expelled from territories conquered by the Zionist militias. So stop equating anti-Zionism with anti-Semitism. Just as not all Israeli citizens are war criminals who knowingly commit genocide, not all people who disapprove of the policies and even the existence of the state of Israel are necessarily anti-Semitic. There are even many Jews who are anti-Zionist, such as the Dutch organization Erev Rav, which in a statement on Nov. 8 expressed its disapproval of the way the events of Nov. 6 and 7 had been portrayed in the media. In fact, it is dangerous to (deliberately) confuse anti-Zionism and anti-Semitism, as this trivializes real anti-Semitism and risks stirring up real anti-Semitic sentiments.

In addition, the actions of the Amsterdam Mayor should be condemned with the utmost vigor. Halsema should be a Mayor of all Amsterdam residents, not just the Jewish residents of Amsterdam. While it is very understandable that (some) Jewish Amsterdammers were frightened by the attacks on Maccabi supporters, the city’s residents with an Arab background should also be protected. It was perplexing to see that none of the media reports on Friday even bothered to ask representatives of the Arab community about their opinions and feelings. This gave the bad impression that surely we are dealing with second-class citizens here.

Finally, it must be stated that it is completely incomprehensible that Maccabi Tel Aviv was allowed to come and play a soccer match in Amsterdam at all. Coming from a country that has been guilty of genocide in Gaza for over a year, the team should have been banned from the Europa League. Russian teams have also been banned from European sports competitions for several years already because of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. So there are obvious double standards here.

Saddest of all, this whole history is grist to the mill of demagogue Wilders. It is a travesty that he was personally present at Schiphol Airport to welcome Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Saar, while Wilders is not even part of the cabinet. However, he is always on the ball when he can make political gains from something, which is downright disgusting. Unfortunately, Halsema and other left-wing leaders such as Frans Timmermans effortlessly allow themselves to be taken for that ride.