After Thursday night’s events in Amsterdam, many commentators were remarkably uninterested in the truth of what had happened. The clashes between Israeli football hooligans, Dutch fans, and local, often ethnic-minority men had turned into an international incident — and it was obvious enough what side most of our leaders would pick. The language of “anti-racism” was marshaled to tell us who was guilty and who was good.
Joe Biden described a wave of “antisemitic attacks . . . echo[ing] dark moments in history.” The Dutch king spoke of how his country had failed Jews “like during World War II,” no less. The word “pogrom” spread across Western media, with most outlets suppressing basic facts about the events.
Violence is bad and has no place in or around a football stadium. Luckily, no one actually got “abducted,” as was initially reported. Responding to provocation is often a terrible idea, and any instances of anyone being harassed because of their nationality or religion ought to be examined. Still, it is hard to remember a similar time when hooligans showed up looking for a fight and were treated as heroes. This is indeed what at least several hundred Maccabi Tel Aviv supporters did in Amsterdam.
Many spent the last day picking fights with people they saw as Muslim, calling for the collective murder of Arabs, ripping down at least one Palestinian flag from a personal residence on the street, and even protesting a minute of silence for victims of last week’s flooding in Valencia, Spain. This latter incident, in the stadium, was broadcast on live TV; the whole story was amply documented on social media well before many of the most screaming headlines and po-faced political statements.
Many journalists thus ignored basic information about what the Israeli fans did in Amsterdam. Perhaps this was because the chanting hooligans actually told a lot of truth…
Auteur: David Broder
