In the aftermath of a sudden eruption of violence or unrest, there’s usually a quick, important window when the narrative about what really occurred is up for grabs. Final Friday, the day that road violence between Israeli Maccabi Tel Aviv soccer followers and native individuals in Amsterdam made headlines world wide – with experiences of antisemitic “hit-and-run” assaults within the Dutch metropolis – the choice of the Israeli state to ship army planes to airlift followers dwelling, and of the Israeli president, Isaac Herzog, to explain the occasions as an “antisemitic pogrom”, have been essential in cementing a specific story. So too have been the phrases of the Dutch king, who mentioned that his nation had “failed” the Jewish group because it had in the course of the second world conflict – when three-quarters of the Dutch Jewish inhabitants have been murdered by the Nazis.
However then, as extra proof emerged, a extra complicated image got here into view. It was revealed that from the evening earlier than the match onwards, hardline supporters of Maccabi Tel Aviv – a membership with a fame for racism and hooliganism amongst a few of its followers – had torn down a Palestinian flag from the facade of a constructing and burned it, attacked one taxi with their belts, and vandalised others. Among the many deplorable chants they noticed match to shout on the streets of Amsterdam, dwelling to a big Muslim group, have been: “Let the IDF [Israeli army] win, we will fuck the Arabs”, “Fuck you Palestine” and “Why is there no school in Gaza? There are no children left there.”
Their phrases deliver into focus the elephant within the room. Israel’s brutal conflict in Gaza, which has now killed upwards of 45,000 Palestinians, principally girls and youngsters, displaced many of the inhabitants and decimated the besieged territory with such ferocity as to render it uninhabitable. After a 12 months by which many western politicians and commentators have appeared extra involved with, say, campus protests in opposition to the conflict than with the apocalyptic carnage in Gaza, traditionally illiterate pronunciations of a “pogrom” within the Dutch capital appeared to observe the identical script: overlooking or downplaying Israeli violence.
The worst manifestation of this was an Orwellian doublespeak in plain sight, when footage of Maccabi Tel Aviv supporters attacking native individuals close to Amsterdam Central Station was captioned because the polar reverse: as a violent assault on Israeli Jews. (The Guardian made a correction to a package deal of video footage on Saturday 9 November.) The Dutch photographer who filmed these occasions remains to be imploring information websites to appropriate the error. Analyzing the difficulty in a phase devoted to uncovering situations of pretend information, France24 this Wednesday reported that the BBC, Wall Road Journal and CBS Information have been nonetheless operating incorrectly captioned footage.
What occurred in Amsterdam – and, crucially, the media protection and the political reactions – felt acquainted, following the contours of our dangerous and divisive conversations about antisemitism. Obligatory rebuttals to prevailing one-sided portrayals sought to deliver the overt anti-Arab and anti-Palestinian racism into view. However in doing so, the antisemitism that was one of many components within the fray was usually elided or glossed over. The preliminary, distorted protection itself spawned an overcorrective, corralling us into polarised sides: both it was about thuggish anti-Palestinian hatred, or it was rampant antisemitism, however not each. But an appraisal extra befitting a joined-up and coherent anti-racism would recognise that comprehensible hostility to the state of Israel in the course of the ongoing conflict does typically get articulated by means of antisemitism, and expressed as violence.
In Amsterdam, we noticed this within the horrifying invocation of a “Jew hunt” in a chat coordinating an assault, and the use of a Dutch racial slur translating as “cancer Jew”; within the situations the place individuals deemed to look Jewish have been stopped and requested about their nationality, or allegedly pressured to say “Free Palestine” with a purpose to escape assault. This isn’t taking place as a result of criticism of Israel and anti-Jewish hatred are one and the identical. Reasonably, it’s as a result of antisemitism, as students reminiscent of Prof David Feldman of Birkbeck, College of London have argued, might be likened to a reservoir that runs deep throughout European societies: a available language of prejudice that’s drawn on in moments of provocation, disaster, or stress. The higher we perceive this as a social pressure, the extra successfully we’re capable of counter it.
However there’s one other layer to this sorry story. Casting the Amsterdam violence as purely antisemitism has helped buttress the far proper. The Dutch authorities is dominated by the Celebration for Freedom (PVV), helmed by the anti-Islam, anti-migrant Geert Wilders. And this celebration is pursuing a well-worn script deployed by the far proper throughout Europe: championing Israel, pretending to care about antisemitism, and utilizing each to push rampant Islamophobia. Far-right events – usually with unsavoury observe data on antisemitism – are chasing a political revival by situating themselves as self-declared defenders of Jewish communities in a clash-of-civilisations combat with Islam.
Having successfully acquired a worldwide seal of approval for his hate- and bigotry-fuelled misreading of occasions, Wilders is now threatening to deport and strip the citizenship of these he deems to have instigated the violence: Dutch Moroccans. And so the far proper’s supposed concern about antisemitism is rerouted into utilizing the ability of the state to deprive one other racialised different of citizenship. As for the Jewish and Muslim communities of Amsterdam, they’ve been left fearful, in shock and reeling from the repercussions of political forces intent on fomenting tensions in pursuit of a migrant- and Muslim-bashing agenda.
