From the Battle of Lewisham to the Battle of Amsterdam

The Dutch authorities were very permissive over the racism and violence of the Maccabi hooligans. The hooligans were allowed to terrorise the city and Dutch residents before Moroccan taxi drivers finished their shift and took it upon themselves to find these thugs and give them a dose of justice – only then the Dutch police took the situation seriously as the Israeli government cried foul with condemnations of “pogrom”. Ironically, Israel has made the pogrom accusations during the same time it is conducting a pogrom in the north Gaza as the IDF keeps massacring women and children with impunity in a clear act of ethnic cleansing.

A very quick and extended propaganda campaign was launched by the Israeli government-funded blue-check marks on X.com (Twitter) to condemn the violence against the Maccabi hooligans a “pogrom”. Supposedly, new evidence has been released by Israel that these attacks were pre-planned, but even if they were, they were planned against a group of racist hooligans who have a consistent, and well-recorded history of violence, racism and abuse where they go. The Maccabi hooligans have travelled to Europe several times to support their team, and every time they did, they committed acts of violence and terror on European locals. They are also particularly known for targeting Arabs in public, and this pattern of racial violence has been well-documented.The government of the Netherlands, however, held a different perspective, shaped by propaganda on X.com. Until yesterday, I didn’t realise that Dutch politicians seem to believe that the truth is determined by the loudest voices on X.com. Apparently, the Dutch government didn’t even listen to its own Police Commissioner Janny Knol and ignored his statement altogether which revealed that most of the violence began after the Maccabi fans hunted down and violently beat a Moroccan taxi-driver. Instead, the Dutch government repeated the lines of the Israeli government and cried “pogrom”. Even the major media outlets are simply copying and pasting the Israeli government’s narrative.

What is most striking here is the shocking and complete disregard shown by the Dutch government for its own citizens, as it apologises for a group of Israeli fascist thugs who terrorised the streets of Amsterdam. Even the EU Commissioner has shown a similar disregard as she voiced her support to these thugs at the expense of European citizens. Racism and violence against Arabs has all of a sudden become acceptable in Europe.

A reasonable response by the Israeli government would have been to distance itself from the Maccabi hooligans. Instead, the Israeli government has anointed these hooligans as representatives and ambassadors of Israel. It’s kind of bizarre at best, to use the Maccabi hooligans for the projection of your citizen representatives to the whole world. Yet, who am I to oppose this if this is what Israelis actually want? In some way, it may be true. The war on Gaza by Israel was not driven by justice and the goal to free the hostages, but rather by rampant genocidal intent that left tens of thousands of women and children killed with the hostages still in captivity.