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Police Neglect is a Pogrom’s Essential Ingredient
Israeli football supporters and Dutch youth clash near Amsterdam Central station, in Amsterdam, Netherlands, November 8, 2024, in this still image obtained from a social media video. Photo: X/iAnnet/via REUTERS
JNS.org – In Amsterdam, in the heart of Europe, on Nov. 7, Israeli football fans were hunted, beaten and terrorized by gangs. Was this a pogrom? According to conventional wisdom, it takes two to make a riot and three to make a pogrom. A pogrom requires three parties: instigators, victims and the public instrument of law and order that either neglects or condones the violence.
The instigators, in this case, were the Arab-Dutch gangs who went on a “Jew hunt.” The victims were clearly the Jewish supporters of Maccabi Tel Aviv. And the third ingredient?
The Dutch police made 62 arrests before and after the riot but none during the assaults.
The Anti-Defamation League has said, “Given the extent of the rampage and violence, the number of detentions to date is alarming[ly] low.”
A month before this incident, there were alarming media reports that local police officers were refusing to safeguard Jewish and Israeli sites across the country.
We have been here before.
There is a long colonial tradition of the authorities ignoring mob attacks on Jews in Arab countries. The British army stood outside the gates of Baghdad but failed to quell the Farhud massacre of Iraqi Jews on June 1-2, 1941. It was only when the rioters began threatening Muslim quarters that the troops were ordered to intervene. By then, 179 Jews had already been murdered; women had been raped, babies mutilated, and extensive looting and destruction of property had taken place.
In the Libyan riots of 1945, during which more than 130 Jews died, the Jews held the British authorities partially responsible for the riots: they did not intervene directly in the pogrom until the third day of violence. In 1948, troops, including soldiers of the Jewish Brigade, were ordered to their barracks by the British administration in Libya while a second pogrom raged, and 14 Jews were killed. More deaths were prevented only because some Jews had been trained in self-defense.
The French colonialists, too, had an ignominious habit of failing to protect the Jews. When a riot broke out in Constantine, Algeria, in 1934, killing 25 Jews, unarmed police could not prevent the initial incident from spreading. The civil and military authorities in the city hall underestimated the dangers. The mayor, his deputy and the prefect were all on vacation, and none were recalled to deal with the situation. The secretary-general of the Algerian government even forbade the troops under the leadership of the military commander for Constantine to use bullets. The army took three hours to arrive.
In the Amsterdam case, victim-blaming has already begun. The Maccabi fans had “provoked” the riots when they burnt a Palestinian flag and “destroyed” a taxi. Nevertheless, there is strong evidence that the Amsterdam riot was preplanned and premeditated. This, too, is an essential ingredient of the classic pogrom. In 1941, Jewish homes were daubed with a red hamsa on the eve of the Farhud riot. In the run-up to the 1948 pogrom in the Moroccan city of Oujda, inscriptions with skulls and crossbones appeared, declaring “Death to the Jews!” and that the community leader “Obadia will be hanged, and the rest will follow!”
In Mandatory Palestine, on April 4, 1920, at the peak of the Nebi Musa festival, anonymous Arabic-language notices began circulating in Jerusalem that said, “The government is with us, [the British Gen. Edmund] Allenby is with us, kill the Jews; there is no punishment for killing Jews.” Over four days, thousands of Arabs ran through the Jerusalem streets, throwing stones at Jews, destroying Torah scrolls, setting a yeshiva and several houses on fire, breaking into buildings and looting, with little intervention from the British authorities until the very end.
In Aden, the British-trained forces of law and order took an active part in the killing during the 1947 riots in which nearly 90 Jews were murdered. In 1929, knowing that a pogrom was about to happen, the Arab-dominated police force in Hebron made sure that Jews were not able to defend themselves, and 67 Jews were killed.
In the case of the violent riots targeting the Maccabi Tel Aviv fans in Amsterdam, were the police incompetent or did they fail to act by design?
The attitude of those police officers who refused to do their duty because defending Jewish sites and people would present them and their consciences with a moral dilemma is as close as it gets to condoning the violence.
On the night of Nov. 7, the Dutch police neglected to control events. More frightening, the risk of contagion across Europe is high. Jews have not felt more threatened since World War II, and less confident, in the event of trouble, that the forces of law and order will be ready to protect them.
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Iranian Media Claims Obtaining ‘Sensitive’ Israeli Intelligence Materials
FILE PHOTO: The atomic symbol and the Iranian flag are seen in this illustration, July 21, 2022. REUTERS/Dado Ruvic/Illustration/File Photo
i24 News – Iranian and Iran-affiliated media claimed on Saturday that the Islamic Republic had obtained a trove of “strategic and sensitive” Israeli intelligence materials related to Israel’s nuclear facilities and defense plans.
“Iran’s intelligence apparatus has obtained a vast quantity of strategic and sensitive information and documents belonging to the Zionist regime,” Iran’s state broadcaster said, referring to Israel in the manner accepted in those Muslim or Arab states that don’t recognize its legitimacy. The statement was also relayed by the Lebanese site Al-Mayadeen, affiliated with the Iran-backed jihadists of Hezbollah.
The reports did not include any details on the documents or how Iran had obtained them.
The intelligence reportedly included “thousands of documents related to that regime’s nuclear plans and facilities,” it added.
According to the reports, “the data haul was extracted during a covert operation and included a vast volume of materials including documents, images, and videos.”
The report comes amid high tensions over Iran’s nuclear program, over which it is in talks with the US administration of President Donald Trump.
Iranian-Israeli tensions reached an all-time high since the October 7 massacre and the subsequent Gaza war, including Iranian rocket fire on Israel and Israeli aerial raids in Iran that devastated much of the regime’s air defenses.
Israel, which regards the prospect of the antisemitic mullah regime obtaining a nuclear weapon as an existential threat, has indicated it could resort to a military strike against Iran’s installations should talks fail to curb uranium enrichment.
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Israel Retrieves Body of Thai Hostage from Gaza
Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz looks on, amid the ongoing conflict in Gaza between Israel and Hamas, in Jerusalem, Nov. 7, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Ronen Zvulun
The Israeli military has retrieved the body of a Thai hostage who had been held in Gaza since Hamas’ October 7, 2023 attack, Defense Minister Israel Katz said on Saturday.
Nattapong Pinta’s body was held by a Palestinian terrorist group called the Mujahedeen Brigades, and was recovered from the area of Rafah in southern Gaza, Katz said. His family in Thailand has been notified.
Pinta, an agricultural worker, was abducted from Kibbutz Nir Oz, a small Israeli community near the Gaza border where a quarter of the population was killed or taken hostage during the Hamas attack that triggered the devastating war in Gaza.
Israel’s military said Pinta had been abducted alive and killed by his captors, who had also killed and taken to Gaza the bodies of two more Israeli-American hostages that were retrieved earlier this week.
There was no immediate comment from the Mujahedeen Brigades, who have previously denied killing their captives, or from Hamas. The Israeli military said the Brigades were still holding the body of another foreign national. Only 20 of the 55 remaining hostages are believed to still be alive.
The Mujahedeen Brigades also held and killed Israeli hostage Shiri Bibas and her two young sons, according to Israeli authorities. Their bodies were returned during a two-month ceasefire, which collapsed in March after the two sides could not agree on terms for extending it to a second phase.
Israel has since expanded its offensive across the Gaza Strip as US, Qatari and Egyptian-led efforts to secure another ceasefire have faltered.
US-BACKED AID GROUP HALTS DISTRIBUTIONS
The United Nations has warned that most of Gaza’s 2.3 million population is at risk of famine after an 11-week Israeli blockade of the enclave, with the rate of young children suffering from acute malnutrition nearly tripling.
Aid distribution was halted on Friday after the US-and Israeli-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation said overcrowding had made it unsafe to continue operations. It was unclear whether aid had resumed on Saturday.
The GHF began distributing food packages in Gaza at the end of May, overseeing a new model of aid distribution which the United Nations says is neither impartial nor neutral. It says it has provided around 9 million meals so far.
The Israeli military said on Saturday that 350 trucks of humanitarian aid belonging to U.N. and other international relief groups were transferred this week via the Kerem Shalom crossing into Gaza.
The war erupted after Hamas-led terrorists took 251 hostages and killed 1,200 people, most of them civilians, in the October 7, 2023 attack, Israel’s single deadliest day.
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US Mulls Giving Millions to Controversial Gaza Aid Foundation, Sources Say
Palestinians carry aid supplies which they received from the US-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, in the central Gaza Strip, May 29, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Ramadan Abed/File Photo
The State Department is weighing giving $500 million to the new foundation providing aid to war-shattered Gaza, according to two knowledgeable sources and two former US officials, a move that would involve the US more deeply in a controversial aid effort that has been beset by violence and chaos.
The sources and former US officials, all of whom requested anonymity because of the sensitivity of the matter, said that money for Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) would come from the US Agency for International Development (USAID), which is being folded into the US State Department.
The plan has met resistance from some US officials concerned with the deadly shootings of Palestinians near aid distribution sites and the competence of the GHF, the two sources said.
The GHF, which has been fiercely criticized by humanitarian organizations, including the United Nations, for an alleged lack of neutrality, began distributing aid last week amid warnings that most of Gaza’s 2.3 million population is at risk of famine after an 11-week Israeli aid blockade, which was lifted on May 19 when limited deliveries were allowed to resume.
The foundation has seen senior personnel quit and had to pause handouts twice this week after crowds overwhelmed its distribution hubs.
The State Department and GHF did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Reuters has been unable to establish who is currently funding the GHF operations, which began in Gaza last week. The GHF uses private US security and logistics companies to transport aid into Gaza for distribution at so-called secure distribution sites.
On Thursday, Reuters reported that a Chicago-based private equity firm, McNally Capital, has an “economic interest” in the for-profit US contractor overseeing the logistics and security of GHF’s aid distribution hubs in the enclave.
While US President Donald Trump’s administration and Israel say they don’t finance the GHF operation, both have been pressing the United Nations and international aid groups to work with it.
The US and Israel argue that aid distributed by a long-established U.N. aid network was diverted to Hamas. Hamas has denied that.
USAID has been all but dismantled. Some 80 percent of its programs have been canceled and its staff face termination as part of President Donald Trump’s drive to align US foreign policy with his “America First” agenda.
One source with knowledge of the matter and one former senior official said the proposal to give the $500 million to GHF has been championed by acting deputy USAID Administrator Ken Jackson, who has helped oversee the agency’s dismemberment.
The source said that Israel requested the funds to underwrite GHF’s operations for 180 days.
The Israeli government did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The two sources said that some US officials have concerns with the plan because of the overcrowding that has affected the aid distribution hubs run by GHF’s contractor, and violence nearby.
Those officials also want well-established non-governmental organizations experienced in running aid operations in Gaza and elsewhere to be involved in the operation if the State Department approves the funds for GHF, a position that Israel likely will oppose, the sources said.
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