Thursday night, Israeli soccer fans clashed with Amsterdam residents before and after a Europa League soccer match between their team Maccabi Tel Aviv and Ajax in Amsterdam.
Clashes occurred outside the Johan Cruyff Arena and across the city on Thursday night. Police on Friday said five people had been taken to hospital, and 62 arrests had been made.
The violence reportedly started when the far-right Israeli soccer hooligans began chanting racist and violent anti-Arab slogans, attacked Arab and Muslim residents, and vandalized houses and businesses with Palestinian flags.
Al Jazeerareported:
In one video, Israeli supporters were heard singing: “Let the IDF win, and f*** the Arabs!” referring to the Israeli army’s offensive on Gaza. Another video captured a fan screaming: “F*** you terrorists, Sinwar die, everybody die,” in reference to the Hamas leader who was killed last month.
The Israeli fans instigated the violence after arriving in the city and attacking Palestinian supporters before the match, an Amsterdam city council member said.
“They began attacking houses of people in Amsterdam with Palestinian flags, so that’s actually where the violence started,” Councilman Jazie Veldhuyzen told Al Jazeera on Friday.
“As a reaction, Amsterdammers mobilised themselves and countered the attacks that started on Wednesday by the Maccabi hooligans.”
Yet the corporate media - both in the US and abroad - portrayed the events as one-sided "anti-semitic" attacks on helpless soccer fans:
US President Joe Biden, his Secretary of State Tony Blinken, and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer were quick to echo Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's claim that the events in Amsterdam were unprovoked anti-semitic attacks reminiscent of pogroms or the Kristallnacht.
However many social media posts reported the context of the violence that was missing from corporate media reporting:
@martydoesnotplayOn request: a recap of what has been happening in Amsterdam the past few days in which Zionist hooliguns from Tel Aviv attacked people on our streets and sang songs about burning Gaza down. But where only the response from clashes with them were caught up by the media. Placed within a narrative by the devil himself that this was anti-semitism 🍉
