in shock, the Netherlands is indignant and questions

What happened on the night of November 7 to 8 in Amsterdam? After the Football match between Ajax Amsterdam and Maccabi Tel Aviv in the Europa League, Israeli fans were chased and violently attacked in several parts of the city. Twenty to thirty of them were injured, including five taken to hospital.

The next morning, while emotions were running high on site, abroad, and especially in Israel, the Dutch press first set about reporting the facts, with caution regarding the images that were circulating on social networks and rumors of disappearances and hostage-taking – which turned out to be unfounded.

Twenty-four hours later, reactions and interpretations differ significantly depending on the newspapers.

For many chroniclers, shocked and moved, the profoundly anti-Semitic nature of the events is beyond doubt. “Amsterdam has become a pogrom city”, seriously writes Sylvain Ephimenco in the Christian newspaper Fidelity. This city, long known as the one “tolerance”, saw “Thursday a hunt for Jews organized like no other in Europe”.

In Het Parool, Amsterdam newspaper, another columnist can’t believe his ears:

“Is it true that Jewish supporters had to hide? That Jews were prosecuted in my town? That this happened during the Kristallnacht commemorations? Is this the start of more violence in the city?”

The word “pogrom” – which designates riots against an ethnic minority, and originally, more specifically against Jews in the Russian Empire – was also used by the mayor of Amsterdam Femke Halsema, but with more distance . In her press conference on Friday noon, she seriously declared: “Young men on scooters traveled around the city looking for Israeli supporters. It was a hit and run [frapper et s’enfuir]. And I understand very well that this brings back memories of the pogroms.”

“Atrocious”

“Anti-Semitic terrorism has swept through the streets of Amsterdam,” asserts for his part The Telegraph, which devotes almost six pages to this subject. On the front page, the conservative tabloid simply headlines with the word “Atrocious”, under an image taken from a video, where we see a man being kicked on the ground.

The author and columnist Nausicaa Marbe, who signed one of the opinion papers, bluntly believes that this violence is the result of “Muslims hungry for violence” Who “led a hunt for Jews in the middle of Amsterdam” et “wanted to carry out their own pogrom”.

But the responsibility would also fall on the pro-Palestinian left, these “pretentious right-thinkers who, eager for Marxist heroism, revolt and exoticism, add their voices to those who call for an intifada. What did they believe this intifada covers? This is massive violence against Jews.”

In their press conference, the Amsterdam authorities were cautious about a newly opened investigation and the profile of the attackers, simply pointing out that the 62 people arrested (most of whom were quickly released) were men. . If certain newspapers, like Fidelity, attribute acts of violence to people of Arab and/or Muslim origin, this is in support of certain videos circulating online where we hear voices speaking in Arabic.

Wilders au premier plan

The reading of events was in any case very clear in the eyes of Geert Wilders, boss of the far-right PVV party, the big winner of last year’s legislative elections. Very early this Friday morning, and throughout the day, he commented vehemently on the events onreferring not to pro-Palestinian activists attacking Israeli supporters, but “Muslims with Palestinian flags attacking Jews”, of the “multicultural scum” that it was appropriate to“Stop” and“expel”. And it is this political recovery that attracts the attention of the newspapers Fidelity, Algemeen Dagblad and above all NRC.

On the first page, they analyze the way in which Wilders – who, although boss of the first political force, only has a role as a deputy – took advantage of the events to put himself in the forefront, criticize his own government coalition and the mayor of Amsterdam, and “break the promise” who had convinced three other parties to form an alliance with him: that of putting his “opinions on Islam” temporarily “in the fridge”.

The evil genius

“When political leaders prefer to throw gasoline rather than water on a fire, the country has to worry about its near future,” reacts De Volkskrant, worried, regarding Wilders’ attitude, like that of an opposition MP who attributes responsibility for events to “the genocidal scum of Maccabi”.

This center-left newspaper preferred not to devote its front page, and few comments, to events that it describes as “violence in Amsterdam” and which he analyzes above all as an import from the war at work in the Middle East. On the other hand, he devotes a double page to a careful reconstruction of the facts, starting last Saturday.

De Volkskrant reports demonstrations by pro-Palestinian movements, “who believe that Israeli clubs should be excluded from the competition, in the same way as Russian clubs after the invasion of Ukraine”. But also provocations from Maccabi supporters, who, on Wednesday evening, “took a Palestinian flag from a building, burned it and broke the windows of the building.”

The next day, they “waving Israeli flags in the center of Amsterdam, cheering the action of the Israeli army and chanting ‘Fuck the Arabs’.” Finally, of course, the newspaper lists the images of violence which circulated on the networks, accompanied by insulting comments against Jews, and the panic described by the chased supporters.

Frightened, Algemeen Dagblad notes that “the importation of the conflict in the Middle East” has reached a new level. “The evil genie has come out of the lamp”, writes author and columnist Özcan Akyol. “Politicians and other personalities may shout loudly”, we will not stop the escalation “only on condition of quickly finding a diplomatic solution to the conflict.”