ECAJ writes to Dutch ambassador as local leaders decry violence
“Just two days before Kristallnacht, Jews are once again being hunted on the streets of Europe," Jeremy Leibler said last Friday.
UPDATED – The Dutch ambassador in Australia has assured the Executive Council of Australian Jewry (ECAJ) that “antisemitism has no place in the Netherlands” following horrific scenes in Amsterdam last Thursday night (Friday AEST).
Israeli fans of soccer club Maccabi Tel Aviv came under an apparently organised, widespread attack by anti-Israel rioters following a match between their team and local club Ajax. Dutch security forces appeared helpless to protect the tourists as they were ambushed by gangs of masked assailants who shouted pro-Palestinian slogans as they hunted, beat and harassed the Israelis.
Israeli officials said 10 citizens were injured. Hundreds more people huddled in their hotels for hours, fearing they could be attacked again when trying to reach their flights home.
The ECAJ on Sunday wrote to Dutch ambassador Ardi Stoios-Braken to express its “revulsion and outrage” over the attack.
“The events in Amsterdam can only be described as a pogrom. By all accounts the violence was pre-planned via social media and other online channels,” the letter co-signed by ECAJ president Daniel Aghion and co-CEOs Peter Wertheim and Alex Ryvchin said.
“Israeli intelligence services forewarned their Dutch counterparts of what was being planned, but the Dutch authorities apparently failed to act on this information, or give it sufficient credence. The Dutch police were conspicuously absent or ineffectual during the violence.
“Your King, His Majesty Willem-Alexander, was entirely correct when he told Israel’s President Isaac Herzog that the Netherlands had failed the Jewish people during the Holocaust and it has failed them again now.
“We call upon the Dutch government and law enforcement authorities to turn a new page in their attitudes towards the Jewish people and Israel.”
In her Monday reply, Ambassador Stoios-Braken noted that Dutch authorities had launched a “major investigation” and would “hold those responsible to account”.
“The Netherlands condemns these criminal acts in the strongest terms,” she wrote. “Antisemitism has no place in the Netherlands. Jewish people must be safe everywhere including Amsterdam.”
King Willem-Alexander, Prime Minister Dick Schoof and Minister for Foreign Affairs Caspar Veldkamp “have stated that they are horrified by the antisemitic attacks on Israeli citizens and that this is completely unacceptable,” she added.
Commenting on the violence last Friday, Zionist Federation of Australia president Jeremy Leibler said, “Just two days before Kristallnacht, Jews are once again being hunted on the streets of Europe.
“The scenes unfolding in Amsterdam of Jews being violently bashed, run over by cars, chased, and their hotels stormed is not about politics or conflict, it’s pure antisemitism.
“What we are witnessing in Amsterdam is an organised pogrom directed specifically at Jewish people; this is the ‘anti-Zionism’ people claim has nothing to do with antisemitism.”
Footage from the scene screened on Israeli television included a video clip in which an assailant asked an Israeli where he was from and attacked him while shouting “Free Palestine.”
Some video footage on social media showed Israelis chanting against Arabs and Palestinians in the city, apparently prior to the riots, pointing to high tensions and unrest even before the nighttime attacks. Pro-Palestinian, anti-Israel activists claimed the Israeli fans were the first to engage in harassment and violence, although those claims were not verifiable.
Ryvchin posted on X last Friday, “The banner of Free Palestine represents the worst in western societies. Warmongering posing as pacifism. Burning a state and its people passed off as national liberation. Love of terror laundered into pursuit of justice. It has made our societies less tolerant, more racist and more violent.”
WITH TIMES OF ISRAEL
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