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Recent scenes from Amsterdam were horrifying. Violence continued this week throughout the typically placid city after pro-Palestinian rioters violently attacked Jewish fans of the soccer team Maccabi Tel Aviv. Palestinian supporters allege Israeli soccer fans instigated the riots, but news reports suggest it was orchestrated in advance via social media.
Rioters burned trams and participated in what one Dutch official called a “Jew hunt.” In the latest news, the Israeli airline El Al sent eight flights to the Netherlands to airlift 2,000 people out of the country. Authorities in Paris have set up security measures in anticipation of soccer games there.
The British Daily Mail quoted an eyewitness to one of the encounters: “As we walked towards the bar area, chaos broke out – mopeds appeared from alleyways and a crowd surrounded an Israeli man.” They “viciously kicked” him and then confronted the onlookers and asked, “Are you Yehudi? Are you Jewish?” It’s the largest such attack in Europe, but is not an isolated incident following the war in Gaza.
The attacks have left residents of the notoriously tolerant nation shell shocked. “We failed the Jewish community of the Netherlands during the Second World War and last night we failed again,” Netherlands King Willem-Alexander told the Israeli president. Three quarters of Dutch Jews were rounded up and sent to German death camps.
However heartfelt, such sentiments need to be backed by stern action. The Israeli government has loudly complained to Dutch authorities about the low number of arrests. Whatever one’s views of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, it’s never acceptable to engage in violence – and certainly not based on people’s religion or nationality.
Yet even as the violence continues, some observers have downplayed the events. Columbia University professor Joseph Massad argued recently that “Holland’s support for genocidal Israeli fans and condemnation of its own citizens as ‘anti-Semitic’ is the latest manifestation of its fanatical support for Israel and racist history.”
That’s a morally confused take. Until everyone can agree on the seemingly basic point that racist street violence is always inexcusable, expect more of these shameful spectacles.
Recent scenes from Amsterdam were horrifying. Violence continued this week throughout the typically placid city after pro-Palestinian rioters violently attacked Jewish fans of the soccer team Maccabi Tel Aviv. Palestinian supporters allege Israeli soccer fans instigated the riots, but news reports suggest it was orchestrated in advance via social media.
Rioters burned trams and participated in what one Dutch official called a “Jew hunt.” In the latest news, the Israeli airline El Al sent eight flights to the Netherlands to airlift 2,000 people out of the country. Authorities in Paris have set up security measures in anticipation of soccer games there.
The British Daily Mail quoted an eyewitness to one of the encounters: “As we walked towards the bar area, chaos broke out – mopeds appeared from alleyways and a crowd surrounded an Israeli man.” They “viciously kicked” him and then confronted the onlookers and asked, “Are you Yehudi? Are you Jewish?” It’s the largest such attack in Europe, but is not an isolated incident following the war in Gaza.
The attacks have left residents of the notoriously tolerant nation shell shocked. “We failed the Jewish community of the Netherlands during the Second World War and last night we failed again,” Netherlands King Willem-Alexander told the Israeli president. Three quarters of Dutch Jews were rounded up and sent to German death camps.
However heartfelt, such sentiments need to be backed by stern action. The Israeli government has loudly complained to Dutch authorities about the low number of arrests. Whatever one’s views of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, it’s never acceptable to engage in violence – and certainly not based on people’s religion or nationality.
Yet even as the violence continues, some observers have downplayed the events. Columbia University professor Joseph Massad argued recently that “Holland’s support for genocidal Israeli fans and condemnation of its own citizens as ‘anti-Semitic’ is the latest manifestation of its fanatical support for Israel and racist history.”
That’s a morally confused take. Until everyone can agree on the seemingly basic point that racist street violence is always inexcusable, expect more of these shameful spectacles.
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It is a long established fact that a reader will be distracted by the readable content of a page when looking at its layout. The point of using Lorem Ipsum is that it has a more-or-less normal distribution of letters, as opposed to using ‘Content here, content here’, making it look like readable English. Many desktop publishing packages and web page editors now use Lorem Ipsum as their default model text, and a search for ‘lorem ipsum’ will uncover many web sites still in their infancy.
The point of using Lorem Ipsum is that it has a more-or-less normal distribution of letters, as opposed to using ‘Content here, content here’, making
The point of using Lorem Ipsum is that it has a more-or-less normal distribution of letters, as opposed to using ‘Content here, content here’, making it look like readable English. Many desktop publishing packages and web page editors now use Lorem Ipsum as their default model text, and a search for ‘lorem ipsum’ will uncover many web sites still in their infancy.
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