{"id":280608,"date":"2024-11-18T12:00:53","date_gmt":"2024-11-18T12:00:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/?p=280608"},"modified":"2024-11-18T07:33:16","modified_gmt":"2024-11-18T07:33:16","slug":"the-west-buries-a-genocide-turns-israels-football-thugs-into-victims","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/2024\/11\/the-west-buries-a-genocide-turns-israels-football-thugs-into-victims\/","title":{"rendered":"The West Buries a Genocide–Turns Israel\u2019s Football Thugs into \u2018Victims\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Jonathan Cook<\/p><\/div>\n

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If the West was really worried about Europe\u2019s Nazi past, it would be better advised to stop stoking an all-too-real new antisemitism: incitement against Arab and Muslim minorities<\/em><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

11 Nov 2024 <\/em>– There has never been a harder time to do political and media analysis than right now. Each day, the western establishment unmoors itself further from reality. Its priorities are so inverted, so obscene, that the most appropriate response is ridicule.<\/p>\n

The latest example was the reaction late last week to violent clashes in Amsterdam<\/a> before and after a match between Maccabi Tel Aviv and the local team Ajax.<\/p>\n

The ridiculous framing from western politicians, assisted by mainstream media outlets, was that the visiting Israelis were \u201chunted down\u201d in what supposedly amounted to a \u201cpogrom\u201d by Dutch street gangs, comprising mainly youths of Arab and Muslim heritage.<\/p>\n

According to this official narrative, the violence on Amsterdam\u2019s streets was further proof of a rising tide of antisemitism sweeping Europe and imported from the Middle East. More, the attacks were presented as having disturbing echoes of Europe\u2019s Nazi past.<\/p>\n

Outgoing US President Joe Biden claimed the Israeli fans faced \u201cdespicable\u201d attacks<\/a> that \u201cecho dark moments in history when Jews were persecuted\u201d.<\/p>\n

Israel, of course, helpfully stoked this idea by promising \u201cemergency flights\u201d<\/a> to \u201crescue\u201d its football fans \u2013 seeking to evoke memories of its airlifts in the 1980s of Ethiopian Jews to escape famine and reports of persecution, or possibly of the 1975 airlift of US embassy staff from Saigon.<\/p>\n

Nazi comparisons<\/h3>\n

Dutch politicians with their own ugly, racist agendas, as well as the country\u2019s king, rushed to join Israel in fuelling the hysteria. Geert Wilders, the racist, far-right leader of the largest party in the Dutch parliament, said \u201cmulticultural scum\u201d had carried out a \u201cJew hunt<\/a>\u201d.<\/p>\n

Germany\u2019s foreign minister, Annalena Baerbock, gave her country\u2019s official stamp of approval to portray events in Amsterdam as a potential \u201csecond Holocaust\u201d, calling the scenes \u201chorrific and deeply shameful<\/a>\u201d.<\/p>\n

She added: \u201cThe outbreak of such violence against Jews crosses all boundaries. There is no justification whatsoever for such violence. Jews must be safe in Europe.\u201d<\/p>\n

This is the same Germany where videos daily show Arab and Muslim demonstrators \u2013 in fact, anyone waving a Palestinian flag \u2013 being brutally assaulted<\/a> by German police officers for protesting against Israel\u2019s genocide in Gaza<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Baerbock seems just fine with crossing those kinds of boundaries \u2013 whether it be eradicating the right to protest or fostering a political climate that authorises Islamophobic<\/a>\u00a0violence, not from random football hooligans but from functionaries of the German state.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu exploited the opening offered by Baerbock to compare the violence in Amsterdam to the Nazi pogroms against Jews in 1938 known as Kristallnacht<\/a>.<\/p>\n

And, of course, British Foreign Secretary David Lammy took his cue from Washington, declaring he was \u201chorrified\u201d. He wrote on X<\/a>: \u201cI utterly condemn these abhorrent acts of violence and stand with Israeli and Jewish people across the world.\u201d<\/p>\n

Celebrating genocide<\/h3>\n

It is not support for violence, let alone for antisemitism, to point out that this portrayal of events was utterly divorced from reality.<\/p>\n

Videos on social media showed the visiting Israeli fans wilfully provoking confrontation<\/a> as soon as they arrived in Amsterdam.<\/p>\n

In the days leading up to the match, they had torn down and burned Palestinian flags in the city centre. They had hunted down Dutch taxi drivers and passers-by suspected of being Arab or Muslim. They had chanted genocidal death threats against Arabs.<\/p>\n

At the game itself, they raucously disturbed a minute\u2019s silence in the stadium for the victims of Spain\u2019s floods by singing, \u201cThere are no more schools in Gaza because we killed all the kids\u201d.<\/p>\n

Spain is apparently reviled by Israeli fans because, in line with international law but against Israel\u2019s wishes, it has recognised Palestine as a state.<\/p>\n

Video of the Israeli fans arriving home at Tel Aviv airport showed them unbowed<\/a>. They chanted the same genocidal songs: \u201cLet the IDF win and fuck the Arabs. Ole ole, ole ole ole. Why is school out in Gaza? There are no children left there!\u201d<\/p>\n

Like Wilders, the Israeli fans had used their time in Amsterdam to vent their bigotry at \u201cmulticultural scum\u201d.<\/p>\n

Even after the match, when they felt the backlash from incensed local residents, it was clear that Israeli fans were initiating the violent clashes as much as getting caught up in them.<\/p>\n

A video shot<\/a> by a young Dutch Ajax fan following the Maccabi Tel Aviv hooligans as they rampaged through Amsterdam after the match went viral on social media. It shows a large gang of Israelis prowling through Amsterdam armed with batons, throwing stones and aggressively confronting local police.<\/p>\n