Amsterdam, the Jews, and Kristallnacht

Antisemitism, and history repeating itself:

Exactly 86 years ago in Nazi Germany, Kristallnacht took place. On November 9-10, 1938 the Nazis along with Hitler Youth and German civilians went on a rampage, targeting Jews, synagogues and Jewish shops. It was a horrible foretaste of what was to come. The Holocaust Encyclopedia says this about it:

The rioters destroyed hundreds of synagogues, many of them burned in full view of firefighters and the German public and looted more than 7,000 Jewish-owned businesses and other commercial establishments. Jewish cemeteries were a particular object of desecration in many regions. These events became known as Kristallnacht or the “Night of Broken Glass,” named for the shattered glass from store windows that littered the streets after the violence. Almost 100 Jewish residents in Germany lost their lives in the violence. In the weeks that followed, the German government promulgated dozens of laws and decrees designed to deprive Jews of their property and of their means of livelihood even as the intensification of government persecution sought to force Jews from public life and force their emigration from the country. https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/timeline-event/holocaust/1933-1938/kristallnacht

Today, Jews are being chased and attacked on the streets of numerous Western cities. Now we have Jews who are afraid to walk freely in public or attend universities, because of those screaming “Free Palestine” and shouting “From the river to the sea.” This is happening here in Australia as well.

And the shocking scenes coming out of Amsterdam a few days ago are the latest case of this. There Jews were hunted down and attacked by mobs – mainly Moroccan Muslims – following a soccer match. Recall that Holland has long been known as a country of tolerance, and it has had a record of harbouring and protecting various peoples, including the Jews.

But all that seems to be changing. With almost wide-open borders, unchecked immigration, and reckless multiculturalism policies, a flood of Islamic migrants has radically changed the demographics of most European and Western nations.

I lived in Amsterdam in the early 80s, and even back then there were sections of the city that seemed to be mainly comprised of Muslims from various countries. While some of course sought to assimilate and fit into Dutch society, embracing its culture and values, many did not. They brought their anti-democratic and anti-Semitic Islam with them. And things have simply been getting worse there.

David de Bruijn, who grew up in the Netherlands, describes what occurred late last week in Amsterdam, and offers some commentary on it:

As the Amsterdam Jewish community joined with local officials to commemorate the 86th anniversary of Kristallnacht at the city’s Portuguese-Jewish synagogue—established by Jews who escaped the Inquisition—a pogrom was taking place outside. Following a soccer match between the Dutch club Ajax and the visiting Maccabi Tel Aviv, Jewish and Israeli fans of the visiting club were ambushed and beaten in the city’s streets and alleys. 

 

Footage shows an Israeli soccer fan being struck by a car, cartwheeling across the windshield. More footage shows the scene in downtown Amsterdam, where Israelis are pleading with their assailants, “not Jewish, not Jewish.” And they are beaten mercilessly.

 

In video of other attacks last night, a victim is struck and lays injured on the ground, seemingly unconscious. A father can be seen fleeing with his son. A man jumps into one of Amsterdam’s canals to escape his assailants. In the recording, where he is forced to say “Free Palestine,” his assailants laugh and jeer that he is a “cancer Jew”—a classic slur in Dutch, where both diseases and the Jewish ethnicity are deployed as put-downs.

 

Much about the origins of the attack are still unclear, but early reports suggest that it was carried out by youth gangs from the Dutch Moroccan and Dutch Turkish community, and was orchestrated in advance. Visiting Israelis report being ambushed by groups of 10 to 15 masked assailants in various alleys. Fleeing Israelis told Channel 12’s Elad Simchayoff that “Amsterdam police instructed [Israelis] not to go by taxis. Police officers told fans that taxi drivers in the city are helping organize the riots and assisting the gangs.”

 

Before the local authorities meaningfully intervened by dispersing the rioters and arresting assailants, Israel announced it would send two planes and a rescue team to Amsterdam to extract trapped Israelis. (Israel ultimately recalled the mission.) “We failed the Jewish community of the Netherlands during World War II, and last night we failed again,” the Dutch king Willem-Alexander reportedly said to Israel’s President Isaac Herzog in a phone call on Friday morning.

He finishes his piece with these words:

What the reporters and media fail to understand is that this was an attack on Israeli football fans, but not one carried out by football hooligans. The Ajax team is itself Jewish friendly—fans of Amsterdam’s Ajax are affectionately (and sometimes not-so affectionately) referred to as “super Jews,” and Ajax is understood as the “Jewish team,” so it would make little sense that Ajax supporters would attack Jews or Israelis for their ethnicity—even if they are fans of an opposing team. 

 

No, this was straightforward: According to the accounts of witnesses and victims, it was an attack by immigrant, Muslim communities against Israelis and Jews.

 

Between 1977 and 2002, more than 700,000 immigrants and refugees from Islamic countries settled in the Netherlands, now making up about 5 percent of the Dutch population. For decades, issues surrounding the integration of these minorities have riled passions and dominated Dutch politics—first in the form of the assassinated populist leader Pim Fortuyn; then filmmaker Theo van Gogh, who was murdered in broad daylight 20 years ago this month; and most recently Geert Wilders, who lives under permanent police protection.

 

In other words, modern antisemitism in the Netherlands has, for the past several decades, been an affliction of the immigrant and secular communities, which few care to do anything about. In secular Dutch society, teachers find it increasingly difficult to teach the country’s recent history—its complicity in the Holocaust—in schools with large immigrant communities. (As the Algemeen Dagblad related as early as 2015, if a teacher says “Holocaust,” students reply, “That’s all bullshit” and “You are on the side of the Jews.”)

 

The most alarming thing of all is the transformation of the people who are meant to protect us: the police. Just last month, Dutch police officers indicated they would not be comfortable guarding Jewish institutions over their “moral objections” to Israel’s war against Hamas in Gaza. 

 

Surely the dark irony of the Dutch refusing to protect their country’s Jews—citizens or visitors—would not be lost on anyone. But lost, it seems to be. Will a pogrom in 2024 be sufficiently horrific to wake Europe up? https://www.thefp.com/p/pogrom-amsterdam-antisemitism

Jewish commentator Melanie Phillips said this about the ugly events of last week:

Two days before tonight’s 86th anniversary of Kristallnacht, the pogrom in Germany in 1938 that acted as the prelude to the Holocaust, a pogrom took place in Amsterdam. On Thursday evening, following a football match between the Dutch club Ajax and the visiting team of Maccabi Tel Aviv, there were horrifying scenes in what appears to have been an organised onslaught on Jews.

 

Hundreds of Israelis were hunted down and beaten by rampaging mobs of Arabs and other Muslims. The victims reported what appeared to be a planned and co-ordinated onslaught, with attackers waiting at various points to ambush fans as they returned from the match. The police did nothing to stop this, reportedly driving nonchalantly by as Jews were attacked on the streets. Fans reported that the police told them not to take taxis because Muslim taxi-drivers were themselves hunting for Jews to attack.

 

The Jews were beaten, stabbed and run over by cars. One Maccabi fan told Israeli TV: “They were waiting for us, terrorists on every street corner and simply tore apart every Israeli that came their way. We were beaten, humiliated, stabbed, run over. They literally drove on sidewalks in order to run over Jews. Until the Fanatics organisation came out to protect the beaten, no one helped us, the police ignored everything that was happening.”

 

Another said he was attacked by around 15 young Arab men, some of whom were armed with knives and clubs, as he left the game with his son: “They started hitting us, they broke my face, knocked out a tooth, cut my lip,” he said. ‘My son got punched twice in the face.” He added that he is now locked in his hotel room with tables blocking the door.”

 

Many barricaded themselves inside their hotels. Others pleaded with their assailants: “Not Jewish, not Jewish” before they were beaten. Jews were pushed into canals….

She continues:

Violent attacks on Jews have become more and more frequent. Yet last month, Dutch police officers said they would refuse to guard Jewish institutions because of “moral objections” to Israel. The Netherlands is hardly alone in hosting a seething frenzy of Jew-hatred. Antisemitic attacks have been rising in Europe and America for years and are now running at epidemic levels. 

 

In Britain, antisemitism has become normalised. The media led by the BBC continues to pump out inflammatory demonisation of Israel based on lies and distortions straight from the psychotic Palestinian playbook. Politicians parrot it. The universities label this murderous propaganda “scholarship” and “education,” and turn a blind eye to the intimidation of Jewish students on campus.

 

This is by no means a threat only to Jews. For decades, a blind eye has been turned to Islamist incitement in the west and against the west. In Britain, undercover recordings have revealed that imams are radicalising Muslims by spreading hatred and calls to jihad against Christians and others as well as calling for the genocide of the Jews. 

 

Yet nothing is ever said about this. Any criticism of the Muslim world is denounced as “Islamophobia” (and please let’s not forget that this is “Islamophobia month”). Immigration policies are admitting into the country large numbers of people from countries where the majority hate Jews, Christians and others “infidels” and want to kill them. Anyone who questions this as simply insane — as I did as long ago as 2006 — is denounced as “Islamophobic”. The political and administrative class — including the intelligence service — refuses to acknowledge that violence in the name of Islam has anything to do with the religion of Islam.

 

Yes, many Muslims have nothing to do with extremism and pose no threat to anyone. But has anyone yet heard any institutional denunciation of the Amsterdam pogrom as a stain upon Islam that must be addressed uttered from within the Islamic world? 

 

Eli Beer is president of United Hatzalah, Israel’s volunteer medical responder agency. After what happened in Amsterdam, Beer observed: “This is happening in the heart of Europe, and it’s only the beginning.” Is anyone in authority yet listening? https://melaniephillips.substack.com/p/pogrom-in-amsterdam

One does indeed have to wonder. History seems to be repeating itself, and most of our leaders do not seem to care.

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