In the Orwellian Western order we’re currently living through, genociders are the victims and people who resist are the terrorists. But after Maccabi Tel Aviv hooligans came face to face with karma in Amsterdam, the gaslighting and hypocrisy of Western elites went into overdrive. Corporate media routinely manufactures consent for fascism on the down-low, but you could clearly see the cogs in propaganda machine at work over the weekend.
As this happened, the far-right government in the Netherlands tried to ban protests. But hundreds of peaceful protesters came out into the streets of Amsterdam to oppose genocide regardless. Hostile police detained dozens of them for defying the ban.
One speaker spoke out against the people “who attacked our city, who attacked our people, who chanted ‘death to Arabs’ in our city”, insisting “we do not tolerate this”.
Protesters shouting “Amsterdam is saying no to Genocide” I guess 200 to 300 people. #emergencyprotest ©️iAnnet pic.twitter.com/MVdN1sJ8Ic
— iAnnet 🦋 (@iAnnetnl) November 10, 2024
"How can this be intimidating for Jewish people if Jewish people participate in this demonstration?"
Protesters in Amsterdam have gathered to rally against Israel's genocide in Gaza, despite a demonstration ban put in place after Israeli football fans triggered violence… pic.twitter.com/1IFtE2c7Z1
— Middle East Eye (@MiddleEastEye) November 11, 2024
🚨 Today, despite a ban on protests this week, Palestine solidarity groups gathered in Amsterdam, rallying for Palestine, Lebanon, and against the framing of the November 7th events as "antisemitic."
"We refuse to let the charge of antisemitism be weaponized to suppress… pic.twitter.com/4kAhZC45kM
— Dr. Zain Abbadi (@ZainAbbadi11) November 10, 2024
Very unsafe situation in shopping street Nieuwendijk. Police beating a woman. Another woman running away falls on her head. Bleeding. A nurse offers help. Not allowed. She gets help now. Two people arrested in front of McDonalds.
Protesters, citizens, tourists are locked in the… pic.twitter.com/nm5ejLVb0k
— iAnnet 🦋 (@iAnnetnl) November 10, 2024
https://twitter.com/HarrygPettit/status/1855728081098637591
Maccabi Tel Aviv: listen to the locals in Amsterdam
Local anti-Zionist Jewish collective Erev Rav was one group that had worried about their safety during Maccabi Tel Aviv hooligans’ stay in Amsterdam. The group has previously condemned attempts to use the Holocaust to normalise genocide against Palestinians. Erev Rav’s Yuval Gal, who is originally from Tel Aviv, said the police should’ve known exactly who Maccabi Tel Aviv hooligans were. He added that:
The football was a side thing for them. But many of them came to… make a pro-Israel or pro-genocide demonstration in Amsterdam for 3 or 4 days.
His comments came in an excellent report from independent news outlet Left Laser, among many other comments from local people who felt under attack from the Maccabi TA hooligans:
Full reconstruction: How Zionist hooligans provoked chaos in Amsterdam pic.twitter.com/cn1QsTQTZU
— Left Laser (@LeftLaser) November 10, 2024
Erasmus University Rotterdam researcher and journalist Mariya Nadeem Khan, meanwhile, lamented the West’s manufacturing of a story that was far from reality:
scariest part about the mass psychosis that the west has managed to manufacture in less than two days is trying to convince people that the “violence” was antisemitic in a city with a sizeable Jewish population that has stood beside its massive pro-Palestine movement (for years)
— Mariya (@mariyankhan) November 9, 2024
And here’s what the Western media chose not to prioritise…
As the Western media and political elites were manufacturing outrage over brawls in Amsterdam that led to no deaths or serious injuries, a UN report came out. The UN Human Rights Office confirmed that, up until September 2024, 44% of the people Israel had killed in Gaza were children. In fact, as Truthout reported:
The three age categories most represented were children aged between 5 and 9 years old; children between 10 and 14; and babies and toddlers aged 0 to 4.
The slaughter of thousands of children was not the main story at the weekend, though. Nor was the murder of 15 children in northern Gaza on Sunday alone. Nor was the anti-Palestinian pogrom in the occupied West Bank the previous week, where armed Israeli settlers torched people’s vehicles, homes, and olive trees older than the state of Israel. It was some Israeli hooligans facing resistance to their hateful romp through Amsterdam who received the limelight and sympathy.
Another story the media was deprioritising was the call from over 500 “scholars and practitioners of international law, international relations, conflict studies, politics and genocide studies” for the UN to unseat Israel from its general assembly as it did with apartheid South Africa in the 1970s. They actually believe the case for suspension is stronger for Israel, considering its longstanding resistance to international accountability.
And as has become a regular occurrence, Israeli newspaper Haaretz has shown more professional integrity than Western corporate media. Because on Sunday, it accused Benjamin Netanyahu and his occupation forces of “conducting an ethnic cleansing operation” in the north of Gaza. The devastation there was akin to that of a “natural disaster”, but was a “premeditated act of human destruction”.
As author Assal Rad insisted, these stories and others would not receive the outrage from Western elites that Maccabi Tel Aviv’s comeuppance in Amsterdam did:
Israel killed dozens of people in Gaza, Lebanon and Syria. This is just today.
Bombing three nations in one day, killing women and children, will get less coverage and none of the outrage Amsterdam did. This dehumanization of Arabs and Muslims is not normal. Their lives matter. pic.twitter.com/MMePTUJDQn
— Assal Rad (@AssalRad) November 10, 2024
Remembrance must mean stopping fascism forever, or it means nothing
The Western corporate media ignored (or at best underplayed) the many provocations leading up to the local resistance to Maccabi Tel Aviv hooligans. It minimised their anti-Arab racism, failed to highlight their “culture of genocide” and the deplorable genocidal nature of their chants. And there was no emphasis on FIFA and UEFA consistently ignoring requests to follow through on their own regulations by banning Israeli teams like Maccabi Tel Aviv (in line with their banning of Russian teams).
The far-right governing coalition in the Netherlands, meanwhile, played along with the ‘poor little Israeli hooligan’ narrative because it fit nicely into their pro-genocide and anti-immigrant agenda.
In Britain, 11 November marks Remembrance Day. And the only type of remembrance that has any value is one that pushes us to act. Not just to wear a poppy, but to work for a world of peace. To highlight the horrific pointlessness of war – the wanton death and destruction that’s a stain on humanity. To oppose the hateful ideologies that drive us into conflict.
Political and media elites in the West are marching our countries into a fascist order that glorifies genocide and represses its opponents. If we truly mourn the losses of the past (and present), we must act to stop them from plaguing our future too.
Featured image via screengrab
