Maccabi Tel Aviv fans greet Jews at the airport, returning from Amsterdam. Picture: Hen Mazzig/X
by Adam Charnas
Throughout history, and with tragic intensity since October 7 last year, acts of hatred and violence have been inflicted upon Jewish communities, often justified through false equivalences that attempt to sanitise blatant bigotry and aggression.
The fallacies serve to delegitimise Jewish grievances by casting victims as perpetrators, implying they are somehow deserving of the violence against them. Such distortions obscure the reality of anti-Semitism and shift blame away from those responsible.
While there have been many examples of false equivalences used against the Jews, the clearest yet has occurred in the aftermath of the violence in Amsterdam last week.
The attacks by organised street gangs against Jewish soccer fans were explicit, anti-Semitic and premeditated. Yet, certain voices in the media sought to justify the aggression by pointing to isolated actions – some Maccabi fans sang provocative songs and removed a Palestinian flag. There is no context that justifies gangs chasing Jews and assaulting them.
The false equivalence is perpetrated not only by the lay person but maliciously through the media. Al Jazeera published the story as, “Israeli football fans, pro-Palestinians attacked in Amsterdam: What we know. Tensions in the capital of the Netherlands had been brewing after Maccabi football fans took down a Palestine flag.”
First-post reported the story as “Did Israeli football fans instigate the violence that broke out after a match in Amsterdam?” Social media was also awash with attempts to conceal the basis of the violence with explanations of hooliganism by Maccabi fans somehow enticing the reaction.
Why then, in a sport synonymous with fan violence, racism and entrenched political affiliations, did a citywide attack target the fans of only one club?
The answer is obvious: Maccabi fans were targeted because of their links to Israel and because they were Jews. The fans were hunted because of who they were.
Media reports further entrench the fact, indicating that the social media groups on which the violence was organised called for a “Jew hunt”. It has also come to light that Israeli security services were aware of the likelihood of violence against Maccabi fans in Amsterdam, leading to heightened precautions. This wasn’t spontaneous hooliganism; it was organised anti-Semitic violence.
We, Jews, know that the attack, like so many other instances of Jews being targeted throughout the world, is evidence of a concerted attempt to “globalise the intifada”.
The thugs who perpetrated the attacks were organised, in communication with one another and targeted the exits of the stadium as well as the hotels in which Maccabi fans were staying. They carried knives, bats and used their vehicles in an attack that lasted more than 6 hours.
This was not a reaction to fan behaviour – it was a premeditated attempt to intimidate, harm and terrorise Jews. The globalising intifada is not an ideological struggle; it is a call to violence, a threat that Jews will be unsafe anywhere.
The ideology that violence against Jews is permissible or even justified has spread far and wide, from campuses to mosques to social media platforms. As long as unsavoury songs and torn flags are conflated with citywide mob violence, the ideology will continue to gain traction.
It is a disingenuous fallacy to draw a comparison between isolated incidents of football hooliganism and a citywide “Jew hunt”. Any narrative that does not condemn the brutality of the events is anti-Semitic. It is possible to support Palestine and stand against this type of behaviour.
Zionism, the belief that the Jewish people have a right to be politically self-determining in their ancestral homeland exists and thrives because we, Jews, know that when Jews are hunted in Amsterdam, they require Israel to seek refuge in.
* Charnas is an analyst with the SA Jewish Board of Deputies.
** The views expressed here are not necessarily those of Independent Media.
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