Most Dutch politicians are pro-Jewish, but getting honest publicity is hard (2)

This is the continuation of my blog from yesterday, before Shabbat.

In the above clip, Ajax and Maccabi fans sing jointly a happy ‘Joden!’ (Jews).

Further Reactions

I did not watch any of the horror footage. I don’t need such violence on my retina. I also skip war pictures. Reading about it is bad enough.

Many Dutch feel so deeply ashamed that they don’t have words for it—while they did nothing wrong. Germans have dealt with this shame—the Dutch always avoided it. It’s high time. Shame shows feeling responsible, which is good. Shame looks at the past; responsibility at the future.

Europe, Israel, the UK, and US can’t stop talking about this debacle. That’s good. But it’s very bad publicity for the Netherlands and Amsterdam. My Jerusalem synagogue has almost only Arabs (Arab Jews) who aren’t naïve about the ‘love’ Gentiles feel for us. They’re very shocked by Amsterdam.

The King said we abandoned the Jews again. His heart is in the right place, but shame magnifies guilt to unreal proportions. In 1940–45, the Dutch looked away and often were powerless. In 2024, it was mainly a failure of the Dutch security service and the wholly confused left-wing Mayor. Also now, she said: ‘I wish I could protect every Jew, but I can’t because people are angry about Gaza.’ She agrees with the attackers! (She’s still not fired.) Compare 1938: ‘What could we do; people were angry about Jesus.’ She’s head of the police. Further investigation should clarify if this lack of police protection of Jews was top-down, malpractice, and/or institutionalized.

Amsterdam, by emergency measure, forbid demonstrations for three days. Yet, Saturday, Shabbat, a couple of ‘Pro-Palestinian’ protesters gathered in front of the municipality against this ‘repression’ and were not arrested! But Nazi-Chamas sympathizers don’t need to demonstrate. They just were found spreading this in Amsterdam’s decimated Jewish Quarter.

Many Jews in the Netherlands are furious. Sorry, no translation, but the tone is clear enough. That is good. It never was safe to express this!

Reports and denials of groups of Uber drivers taking part in the assault on Jews are being investigated. It echoes in me the complicity of a taxi driver in the first racist murder in Amsterdam of Kerwin Duinmeijer in 1983.

The Dutch umbrella group of Muslim communities in the Netherlands has strongly condemned the attacks. In the Friday sermons, all preachers were instructed to address this aggression and to clarify that ‘Jew-hatred is against Islam. Anyone caught in such violence or speech will be banned from prayer and community meetings and services.’ Not, ‘of course.’

***

Special (non-)attention should go to those who on paper are specialists but only confuse because they just don’t have the knowledge to understand anything. Happens. He confuses you? Trust your brain. You’re not stupid—he talks nonsense. A detailed critique here follows.

Whether the Mayor of Amsterdam can stay on has nothing to do with the ‘vehemently non-political’ Dutch king speaking out against the violence in the streets of ‘his’ capital. (The capital is not his. He’s the King of the Netherlands, which is mostly a ceremonial function, just like that of the Israeli President, but they also speak to unite and strengthen the People.)

This Deputy-editor of the Dutch Jewish Weekly uses ‘deportation of the perpetrators,’ while that noun in the Netherlands is reserved for the Nazi deportation of the Jews. He could have used Banning, Transportation, Exile, Expulsion, or Extradition. It’s like accusing Israeli Jews of Occupation, echoing the Nazi occupation, or Genocide, echoing the Nazi genocide.

The JPost has no editorial board anymore. If your piece gets accepted—it says whatever you wrote. In English, Muslim gets a capital. ‘Most of the youths that attacked Israeli soccer fans in the Dutch capital were of Moroccan descent.’ This is his style, to posit argumentation as facts.

Wilders did not ‘attack his coalition’s justice minister to deport “this scum.” He just opined that this should happen. That’s not an attack.

Super clear to me too is that the Mayor of Amsterdam is weakened by her left-wing ideology in dealing with hatred. Yet, attacks on her failures vis-à-vis the Amsterdam Jews have not only come from the right. Solidarity with the Jews in the Dutch Lower House has been almost unanimous.

This slander is absolutely ridiculous: ‘[The Mayor] is an outspoken opponent of antisemitism, at least according to her political allies and most notably herself. However, this seems mostly to be in relation to historic Jew hatred.’ There is no proof for this and no reason to suggest it.

He then mentions ‘extreme leftwing activists’ who earlier destroyed property in excess of 4 million euros at the Amsterdam University campus. Why? Really, they were ‘Pro-Palestinian’ activists demanding the university would sever all ties with Israeli universities, not just left-wing.

We must reject his incessant attempt to bind the Mayor’s failure to her left-wing signature, polarizing something bipartisan in Dutch politics.

It is good to read how he brought a couple of isolated Israelis to safety, but ignore his unprecise and wrong remarks about Dutch politics. I know it’s an ego boost, but I was still shocked when I read he didn’t do this on his own.

***

There are conflicting reports if the Israeli security service warned the Dutch authorities (in vain) but not the Tel Aviv soccer supporters or not.

An Ajax fan site posted clips of the optimistic and happy (and peaceful) atmosphere before the game. Two annoyed passersby raise their middle finger. Nothing is so infuriating to an Antisemite as happy Jews:

Before the game and attack, there was an interview with Israeli spectators. Aren’t you scared? Answer: ‘No, we’ll stay together and will be safe.’ Not.

Absolutely chilling are fans recounting the attacks and how no one helped. This is extra stark because Israelis still think the Dutch were always great with the Jews, so they had no bone to pick with the soccer host.

An Amsterdam friend of mine, an elderly ex-activist, wrote: ‘We Gays are next.’ He and his husband tiptoe to and from their flat because their downstairs neighbor has a Palestinian flag hanging from his window. As a visible Jew, I also couldn’t visit their Amsterdam-N apartment last year.

***

Remarkably, this young Dutch autochthone vlogger posted ‘ISRAELI HOOLIGANS TURN AMSTERDAM UPSIDE DOWN.’ A Tel Aviv survivor of the pogrom told a friend of mine in Israel that luckily, enough Israelis knew how to fight back against this clearly planned assault!

But in this vlog, the Israelis are portrayed as the trouble makers. This is what Anti-Zionists always do. They omit the attacks against the Jews and then, when Jews fight back, they portray themselves as victims. Shameful!!

At 11:21 He finally comes out of the closet as a Free Palestine supporter. He calls the anti-Tel Aviv groups ‘the opponents of the Tel Aviv group.’

At 12:57: ‘These are quite nasty guys because many of these Israelis have all served in the army, so they are strong, and they know all the tactics more or less, and they also can talk [to each other] in the Israeli [language] and the police won’t know what they say.’ A picture is worth 1M words:

Just like Pakistani Israel-hating broadcasters who blamed the victims too:

Before the pogrom, an autochthone Amsterdam broadcaster headlined ‘Tensions in town because of Maccabi fans,’ really:

The same broadcaster gives the mike to the Amsterdam police. Always fun to see how the police can investigate themselves objectively. Not:

All the wounded were Jews, but some outlets only show the cloth victims: a couple of ‘Palestinian’ (terrorist) flags. Three Jews destroying the flag of terrorists who mass murdered us equates hunting hundreds of Jews?

The best way to play indignance enough that no one will notice that your anger is very selective, claiming objectivity and opposition to all violence:

The leader of the Muslim Party in the Dutch Parliament, for the first time, finally felt safe to blame the Jews: ‘Fed up with fake politicians who looked the other way when Maccabi thugs terrorized Amsterdam.’ He condemned ‘all violence’ but ‘forgot’ to mention ‘Pro-Palestinian’ viciousness.

A Druze-Israeli Maccabi fan saved Jews by misleading the Arab-speaking attackers. That’s what I expect from Arab-speakers.

Now declaring Amsterdam safe for Israelis to roam about is so crazy that no Israel Jew will believe it or act upon it.

***

As always, I report all sides and not just what suits me. Many of it was unpleasant for me to watch or include.

About the Author

MM is a prolific and creative writer and thinker, previously a daily blog contributor to the TOI. He often makes his readers laugh, mad, or assume he's nuts—close to perfect blogging. He's proud that his analytical short comments are removed both from left-wing and right-wing news sites. None of his content is generated by the new bore on the block, AI. * As a frontier thinker, he sees things many don't yet. He's half a prophet. Half. Let's not exaggerate. Or not at all because he doesn't claim G^d talks to him. He gives him good ideas—that's all. MM doesn't believe that people observe and think in a vacuum. He, therefore, wanted a broad bio that readers interested can track a bit what (lack of) backgrounds, experiences, and educations contribute to his visions. * This year, he will prioritize getting his unpublished books published rather than just blog posts. Next year, he hopes to focus on activism against human extinction. To find less-recent posts on a subject XXX among his over 2000 archived ones, go to the right-top corner of a Times of Israel page, click on the search icon and search "zuiden, XXX". One can find a second, wilder blog, to which one may subscribe too, here: https://mmvanzuiden.wordpress.com/ or by clicking on the globe icon next to his picture on top. * Like most of his readers, he believes in being friendly, respectful, and loyal. However, if you think those are his absolute top priorities, you might end up disappointed. His first loyalty is to the truth. He will try to stay within the limits of democratic and Jewish law, but he won't lie to support opinions or people when don't deserve that. (Yet, we all make honest mistakes, which is just fine and does not justify losing support.) He admits that he sometimes exaggerates to make a point, which could have him come across as nasty, while in actuality, he's quite a lovely person to interact with. 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