The lie of the so-called ‘Pogrom’ which took place in Amsterdam on November 7th 2024 has been exposed as a lie by a young Dutch YouTuber and The Grayzone. Western imperialist media resolutely proclaimed that the violence around the Ajax v Maccabi Tel Aviv Europa League match, which Ajax won 5-0, was prima facie evidence of the smouldering and persisting antisemitism which pervades mainland Europe.
Brendan O’Neill, who has trodden the well-worn path from Trotskyism to Neo-conservatism, wrote in The Daily Telegraph attacking ‘the left’ for its silence on this apparent unprovoked and barbaric attack on innocent Israelis – a progrom (which is a violent riot incited with the aim of killing or expelling an ethnic or religious group, particularly Jews), which serves as further proof of the antisemitism which blights the continent. The comments section of this article (and others on the topic on The Daily Telegraph website) has been closed, presumably because those who have seen Bender’s video and/or heard The Grayzone‘s reporting on the riots would be onto this column like a flash to put the true version of events out there, a truth which turned out to be very different from the confected accounts in the legacy media.
Maccabi Tel Aviv fans were escorted to and from Amsterdam by Mossad (the national intelligence service of Israel) agents for their ‘safety’, yet a YouTube video posted by a 16-year old, who uses the monicker ‘Bender’, showed Maccabi ‘ultras’ (the most vociferous and violent section of supporters), some as young as twelve years old, in the area of Amsterdam Centraal railway station donning masks, gathering metal pipes, scaffold poles and wooden planks from a local construction site and engaging in skirmishes with police and members of the public.
Ultras were recorded earlier in the day chanting in the streets of Amsterdam their support for the genocide in Gaza, including “let the IDF win and fuck the Arabs” as well as “why is school out? There are no children left there,” and attacked private residences, including a local squat which was hanging Palestinian flags, throwing stones at the windows and tearing Palestinian flags down and burning them. They also verbally assaulted, threw bottles and spat at local Dutch fans and Amsterdam residents. Reportedly ten Maccabi fans were arrested and subsequently released by police, which seems surprisingly small considering the number of Ultras involved in the violence.
The legacy media reported the disturbances as antisemitic attacks on innocent Israeli football fans – Sky Sports reported that a “Antisemitic rioters target Israeli football fans as disorder unfolds in Amsterdam”, while on Sunday 10th November, Yahoo News ran a article headlined “What we know about antisemitic attacks on Israelis in Amsterdam”. Finally, the most rabidly reactionary outlets in British media, The Daily Telegraph, was in no doubt as to what has happened on the night of the 7th November when it wrote “Revealed: How Pro-Palestinian mob organised via WhatsApp to ‘Hunt Jews’ across Amsterdam”.
Sky News also reported on the violence, where they said that verified reports showed Palestinian flags being torn down while making racist chants and that the Maccabi Ultras had a reputation for their far-right activity and propensity for violence. The Grayzone revealed that this report was, within hours, edited, as it ‘did not meet Sky News’ standards for balance and impartiality’: essentially it portrayed the Maccabi Ultras as violent thugs, while the Sky News‘ hierarchy clearly wanted the report to portray them in a more favourable light. This included removing the account of the Ultras disrupting, with chants and whistles, a minute’s silence observed in the ground before the match for the victims of the floods which have caused so much loss of life in Valencia, Spain. The same report was also edited to claim that ‘masked and hooded men’ rampaged through the city centre, the report deliberately not identifying the nationality of these masked marauders.
The most esteemed of our elected and unelected oppressors took to various media to condemn the violence. Justin Trudeau, Canadian Prime Minister, who dusted off his country’s own Emergency Act to crush the protests of truck drivers in 2022, said on Facebook that:
“The news out of Amsterdam last night is horrifying. This is a dark moment for our world — and one we have seen before. My heart goes out to the victims, and the entire Jewish community today. Canada condemns this disgusting antisemitism.”
The King of the Netherlands himself, Willem-Alexander, said that the country could not ignore “antisemitic behaviour” and that “our history has taught us how intimidation goes from bad to worse,” in immediate response to the disturbances in Amsterdam City Centre. To the imperialist West, the riots in Amsterdam confirmed their belief that Jews are victims of antisemitism wherever they may travel in the world and that Israel must endure as a homeland for this oppressed and victimised group of people.
This ties in neatly with the Imperialist West’s full and unequivocal endorsement and military support of the genocide which has been taking place in Gaza for over a year. This is why they not only reacted to the riots in the way that they did, but also explains why the reporting in the west did not reflect the reality of the events of November 7th and why, when reports emerged that were accurate reflections of the reality, they were swiftly edited to conceal the truth. In fact, the most brave journalist in reporting the truth in this story has been a 16-year old YouTuber, who refused to stop filming when he was ordered to do so my a Maccabi Ultra and refused to get back when he was instructed to do so by an Amsterdam police officer.
It should be clear to everyone that Israel is and remains to this day a settler colonial project founded by the British and now in the guardianship of the United States. Their support of the brutality perpetuated in Gaza manifests itself in things like Sir Keir Starmer denying that a genocide is actually taking place there and its organs of disinformation reporting on an antisemitic progrom in Amsterdam.
By all means read bourgeois media – what it says can sometimes be instructive and should help develop your understanding of the world around you. But for crying out loud, don’t believe a word that they say!
For further reading on the violence in Amsterdam, please read comrade Naila’s Substack here.
The Middle Aged Revolutionary 
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