Western media shield ‘Israel’ in Amsterdam, cry ‘antisemitism’

It is a “pogrom”, a “massacre”,  a “new Holocaust”, a “hunt for Jews,” and of course, it is “antisemitism”—basically every horrific term you can imagine. That is how events in Amsterdam have been framed by Western and Israeli media.

History repeats itself: the blame falls onto somebody else’s shoulders whenever Israelis are at fault. Meanwhile, the systematic killing of women and children broadcast live from Gaza is explained away as an “airstrike” and the brutal beating and abduction of Palestinians as “clashes”, and yet never a mention of “Israel”, the perpetrator of all of these atrocities, directly.

Western leaders wasted no time in mobilizing the ‘right’ words

US President Joe Biden described the “antisemitic” scenes in Amsterdam as “despicable” and a return to “some of the darkest moments in history.” EU Commissioner Ursula von der Leyen said, “Antisemitism has no place in Europe,” while Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau described the scenes as “deeply disturbing” and a reminder “of some of the darkest chapters from our past.” German Chancellor Olaf Scholz added, “The reports of violence against Israeli fans are unbearable. Jews must feel safe in Europe.”

The same leadership that rushes to express outrage over these incidents is either silent or measured when referring to “Israel’s” atrocities. When limbs are torn off, children’s heads severed, and refugee tents with people inside are burned under the cover of night in Gaza, there doesn’t appear to be the same moral outrage. To condemn “Israel” itself seems to be almost impossible for them without watered-down references to “violence in the Middle East.”

Shifting narratives in Western media

These political statements are magnified by enabling media ever anxious to shape public opinion. Western media at first pointed to pro-Palestine protesters being responsible for violence in Amsterdam. Following the revelations of more evidence, the same media outlets hedged, edited, and rewrote the story, ultimately reinforcing the narrative of “antisemitic” attacks.

With evident footage and eye-witness accounts, major US and European outlets looked at the provocations by fans of Maccabi Tel Aviv softly, smoothly relegating their anti-Arab chants and violent behavior to secondary mentions while labeling the counter-attacks and reactions as “antisemitic pogroms”.

Take this Reuters report, for example: “Videos posted on social media showed riot police in action, with some of the attackers shouting anti-Israeli slurs. Footage also showed supporters from Maccabi Tel Aviv chanting anti-Arab slogans.”

The Maccabi fans’ calls for the extermination of Arabs are sanitized as mere “chants”, while pro-Palestinian slogans are viewed as “slurs”. Also notice that the “anti-Israeli slurs” came in first in the news piece, followed by the “anti-Arab chanting” although the former was the reaction to the latter.

Sky News recently removed a video about Israeli provocations and re-uploaded it with an edited narrative of “antisemitism”.

In another incident, a complaint was made by a Dutch journalist whose footage had been misused by outlets such as CNN and The Guardian. She declared hers was a video about Israeli fans assaulting locals near Central Station and not pro-Palestine demonstrators chasing Israelis as originally reported.

The Holocaust card: Overplaying the narrative

The Telegraph then quoted the Dutch king as drawing parallels between Amsterdam events and Nazi-era atrocities: “We failed Jews during football attacks as we did under Nazis.”

The US-based Anti-Defamation League drew parallels between the timing of the clash and the anniversary of Kristallnacht, i.e. the Night of Broken Glass, also called the November pogrom(s) which was carried out against Jews by the Nazi Party’s Sturmabteilung (SA) and Schutzstaffel (SS) paramilitary forces along with some participation from the Hitler Youth and German civilians throughout Nazi Germany on 9–10 November 1938. 

Although the incident only resulted in injuries, the same media outlets that never referred to “Israel’s” killing of more than 43,000 Palestinians as genocide instantly jumped to Holocaust-era vocabulary. What might have been called football hooliganism – sparked by anti-Arab incitement – was rapidly rebranded as an “antisemitic pogrom”.

A 14-year-old outsmarts the media

Amid all this media madness, one Dutch teenager, 14 years old, took to the streets with a camera and reported some raw footage. The kid showed Maccabi fans threatening him not to film “for his own safety.” He did not yield to any of these threats and went on to report, showing scenes contradictory to what has been shown by mainstream media.

The job of the boy on social media was highly commendable, with some saying he managed to achieve what seasoned journalists failed to do: capture and bring forward the truth in its undiluted form. Journalist Max Blumenthal shared the kid’s footage of Maccabi fans acting like an organized unit and allegedly being escorted by Mossad agents.

The pattern of hate

Israeli football fans have a notorious history for anti-Arab and Islamophobic chants. In July 2023,  Maccabi Haifa fans launched flares at Malta’s Hamrun Spartans during a match, disrupting the game. Their reason? The local crowd chanted “Palestine, Palestine.” 

Selective outrage

While the Western media hasten to immediately condemn incidents involving Israelis, they turn a blind eye to “Israel’s” terror in Gaza, the West Bank, and Lebanon continually. Reports from the UN Human Rights Office showed that nearly 70% of the casualties in Gaza were women and children, indicating systematic violations of international law.

These are either completely ignored or cautiously reported, of course, minus the outrage reserved for incidents like the Amsterdam one, knowing that these same propaganda media outlets peddled fake news on October 7 of beheaded Israeli babies and mass rapes.

So with such records at hand, one cannot but wonder why would anyone believe these reports with true journalism put at stake deliberately.